WEBVTT

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Every family has an origin story, and it's not always the one that we tell at

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the holidays, but maybe one that's written in these tiny, quiet moments.

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Now, sure, you want to know how did grandma and grandpa meet?

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Was grandma always so quiet?

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And was grandpa always this inappropriate?

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And why is it that I see everybody laugh at dad's jokes when we're at a party,

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but at home, all I see is mom roll her eyes?

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And why can cousin Kevin say something and completely get away with it,

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but cousin Keith can say the exact same thing and all of a sudden everybody takes great offense?

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Because over time, you learn about the family rules and more importantly, the family roles.

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Who eventually found themselves in the role of the helper, or the hero,

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or the problem solver, or the mascot, or the peacekeeper, the fixer, or the scapegoat?

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And by the time that we even learn what role we

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play in the family system it's pretty much already set in stone and those roles

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follow us well into adulthood even into our own relationships and our own families

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sometimes we're not even aware that we're playing those roles and then let me

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add a little twist today we're going to talk about the butterfly effect.

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The idea that a tiny action can create massive ripples.

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I'm going to make the argument that it doesn't just shape weather patterns or

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world events, but it also shapes families.

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One unhealthy coping mechanism, one unhealed wound, one survival strategy, or one act of courage.

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Any of those things can send shockwaves through generations.

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Take a scientist who was studying lizard venom and how he changed the future

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of medicine, or a wrong turn that helped ignite a world war or a rounding error

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that reshaped chaos theory.

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And don't even get me started with your Uncle Ray. Oh, we will be talking about

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Uncle Ray today. But all of these have something in common.

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There are these small moments that may seem inconsequential at the time,

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but they can have massive consequences, especially in a family system.

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Family systems can work the same way.

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One person's fear or avoidance or emotional immaturity can ripple through an

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entire lineage, but so can one person's awareness, one person's healing,

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one person's willingness to show up differently.

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Today, we're going to dive into a story of a family where one emotionally overwhelmed

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parent, bless their heart, set patterns that then echoed for decades and how

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those patterns show up long after the original players are gone.

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And I think as you listen today, you might start to see your own family in a

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new light because you're not just part of a story that started before you were born.

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You're also the one who gets to decide how it continues.

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All that and so much more coming up on today's episode of The Virtual Couch.

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Welcome to The Virtual Couch.

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Please take a seat for a pillar.

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Hey, everybody. Thank you for joining me today on The Virtual Couch.

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And most likely, this one is going to go up on Waking Up to Narcissism as well,

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because there is so much to share.

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And I am finding more and more. I forget, I guess it's the guy who records both

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Waking Up to Narcissism and The Virtual Couch.

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The assumption is, oh, well, people are listening to both, but they have very different audiences.

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This is a crossover episode because we're going to talk a lot about emotional

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immaturity, family systems, and things that I think will apply to anyone who

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is part of a family, who can basically spell the word family.

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My name is Tony Overbay. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist.

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And I would love for you to follow me on all the social media things on Instagram

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at virtual.couch, on TikTok at virtualcouch, on Substack. Go learn about Substack.

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There is a lot of content and it's short, bite-sized content.

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It's at substack.com slash thevirtualcouch. I would love to have you there.

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And there is a paid subscription version there as well, where you are getting

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a lot more content, some behind the scenes things, and a little bit of a deep

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dive more into the world of emotional maturity, narcissistic traits,

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behaviors, and a lot more there on Substack.

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And reach out to me if you have questions or if you identify with the work that

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I do and are looking for some coaching, some therapy.

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If you are interested in working with me, tell me a little bit more about your story.

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I sometimes have availability, some openings, and I'm finding that I'm a little

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more picky, a little more choosy with the people I work with.

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But in doing so, I really have felt a connection with the people that I have

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the opportunity to work with. But let's get to today's story.

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In the early 1960s, an MIT meteorologist named Edward Lorenz was running computer

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simulations of weather patterns. He was essentially trying to predict the weather.

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One day, he wanted to rerun a simulation partway through, so instead of starting

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over, he manually entered numbers from a previous printout.

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The computer calculated using six decimal places, for example, 0.506127.

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The printout only showed three, 0.506.

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Lorenz figured the difference was insignificant, because we're just talking a few ten-thousandths.

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Entered the rounded number, started the simulation, and he took a little break.

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When he came back, the weather patterns had diverged wildly.

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What started as nearly identical conditions now produced completely different

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weather. And at first, Lawrence thought the computer must have been broken.

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He actually stumbled onto something fundamental. In certain kinds of systems,

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very small inputs can amplify in unpredictable ways.

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He called it sensitive dependence on initial conditions.

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Kind of a little bit of a nerdy version of what in 1972 he would later present

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with a much better title, does the flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?

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Also known as the butterfly effect.

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And what's important is that the butterfly effect doesn't mean every small action

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causes enormous consequences, but it means that in complex dynamic systems with

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a lot of interconnected parts, a lot of variables, small inputs can amplify unpredictability.

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That's why weather forecasts are still unreliable beyond a week or two,

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or maybe even a day or two, or an hour or two. It's not about the computing power.

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It's that the atmosphere is inherently chaotic.

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Now, let's talk about one of the most fascinating things I've heard in a long

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time, Gila monster saliva. Stay with me here.

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In the early 1990s, Dr. John Ng, an endocrinologist at a VA hospital in the

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Bronx, became obsessed with something that most people would overlook.

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And the therapist in me would really like to find out what his initial motivation

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was, why this was so enthralling to him.

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He became fascinated with the Gila monster, this slow-moving venomous lizard

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from the American Southwest, and how it only eats about five to ten times, dramatic pause, a year.

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It can go months between meals, and somehow it keeps perfectly stable blood sugar the whole time.

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Dr. Ng wanted to know how, so he did what I think any of us would do.

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He ordered some dried venom from a serpentarium in Utah, and yes, that is a real thing.

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And he found a peptide that he named Exenden-4. It was almost identical to a

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human hormone called GLP-1, which regulates blood sugar.

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But in humans, GLP-1 breaks down in just a couple of minutes.

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The Gila Monsters version stays active for hours.

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Dr. Ng sees the potential immediately.

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One problem, nobody else cared. So for three years, he pitched pharmaceutical

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companies and they all passed.

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Lizard venom for diabetes. Sounded a little too weird and even his own hospital

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wouldn't help him patent it.

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But he did not give up. In 1996, he stood next to a poster at a diabetes conference

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pitching anybody who would listen.

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And finally, a small biotech company bit.

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Pun intended. That moment, one scientist refusing to give up,

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waiting for somebody to believe in lizard spit, set off a cascade that nobody predicted.

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That compound eventually became Ozempic or Wegovi, and today over 25 million

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prescriptions and counting, and it's not just for diabetes anymore.

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Research is showing benefits for heart disease, kidney disease,

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potentially Alzheimer's, and even reduced addiction, alcohol,

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cigarettes, tobacco, and even in early trials with some drug addiction.

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So from a scientist studying lizard spit in a VA hospital to a compound that

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may transform how we treat addiction, dementia, heart disease,

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and obesity, one small discovery, one person who refused to give up.

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Ripples still expanding. That's the butterfly effect working in our favor.

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Now, let's talk about when it doesn't necessarily work in our favor.

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June 28, 1914, Sarajevo. Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian

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throne, was traveling through the city in an open car with his wife, Sophie.

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That morning, Serbian nationalists had positioned themselves along the route

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with pistols and bombs and cyanide pills.

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The first assassination attempt

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failed. A bomb bounced off Ferdinand's car and exploded behind them.

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Shaken, he continued on to City Hall, and afterward, he made a fateful decision.

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He wanted to visit the wounded. The motorcade was supposed to take a different

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route for security's sake, but the driver didn't get the message.

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So he turned on to Franz Josef Street, the original route, by mistake.

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And when somebody shouted the error, the driver stopped to back up.

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And the car came to rest directly in front of a 19-year-old named Gavrillo Princip.

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Princip had been part of the plot, but he hadn't acted that morning.

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And now, by pure chance, his target sat motionless feet away.

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He stepped forward and he fired twice, and both Ferdinand and Sophie were dead.

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Within weeks, alliances pulled the continent into war.

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Russia mobilized, Germany declared war, France and Britain followed,

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and World War I went on to kill some estimates, say, up to 17 million people.

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Four empires collapsed, the Russian Revolution happened, and the Treaty of Versailles

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planted seeds for World War II that would take the lives of another 60 million.

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One wrong turn, one driver who wasn't told about the route change,

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one 19-year-old on a specific street corner at a.

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The ripples from that wrong turn are still shaping our world today.

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So we have three stories. Scientist persistence leading to a compound that may help millions.

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A driver's wrong turn contributing to 17 million deaths.

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And a rounding error revealing that some systems are fundamentally unpredictable.

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So here's what I've been thinking about lately, and this is where your Uncle Ray comes in.

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Family systems are complex too.

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A family system is the emotional ecosystem that develops between the people

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who live together, who grow together and psychologically wire themselves to

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one another in a sense, often,

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long before they're even aware it's happening, if they ever are aware of the

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way that they co-regulate and that it's happening in the system.

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It's the web of roles and rules and expectations, alliances,

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unspoken agreements, and emotional patterns that form in response to how each

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member relates to the others.

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And a family system isn't just the sum of the individuals, it's also this invisible

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operating system that shapes how everybody inside it learns to communicate and

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solve problems and express emotions and react to each other and essentially

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try to make sense of relationships.

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Sometimes the butterfly in a family system isn't an event.

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I think it can be a person and that person can tilt the whole system in either

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direction. Sometimes the butterfly in a.

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Just as often, and this is the part that I don't think we talk about enough,

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the butterfly is the one who quietly decides this pattern ends with me.

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One person's courage can be just as contagious as somebody else's dysfunction.

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So the system shifts because somebody was willing to step out of the role that

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they were handed and do something new, something different, something healthier,

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and it can be uncomfortable and feel like you're going against the grain.

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I've seen families where the first person who decides to go to therapy becomes

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a different kind of catalyst, Not the kind that creates drama,

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but the kind that creates space.

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Space for honesty, space for healing, space for somebody to finally say,

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hey, I don't really want to feel this way anymore.

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And sometimes they get mocked by siblings or dismissed by parents who have never

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confronted their own guilt or shame or who say, I don't even think therapy works

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as the person who's never been to therapy.

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This person goes anyway, and before long, somebody else in the family starts

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wondering, maybe I could do that too.

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That one person's willingness to step into the unfamiliar begins to shift what

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the whole system thought was possible.

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And I've also worked with people who were discouraged from doing anything that

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fell outside of the unwritten rules of their family system.

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One client enlisted in the military, even though nobody in their entire family

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had ever done it. And in some cases, it openly ridiculed and mocked the idea.

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And then, almost quietly, two cousins followed. The moment one person breaks

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this invisible barrier, the barrier loses a lot of its power.

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That is the butterfly effect in real time. One act of courage creating a path

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where no path existed before.

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Or I worked with somebody who decided to join a church choir after years of

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being teased and mocked for wanting to sing.

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And they showed up anyway, shaky voice and all. And then something kind of remarkable happened.

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Then their mom, who spent decades silencing her own voice to avoid her husband's

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mocking, starts joining them every Sunday, finally choosing courage over conditioning.

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So you got one person's willingness to reclaim a small part of themselves opens

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a doorway for somebody who thought that doorway had been closed years ago.

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And I think I see this most profoundly in people navigating faith transitions,

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which is still one of the things I enjoy working with the most.

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When someone steps out of a high demand religion that has shaped the family

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for generations, they often feel

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like they're violating some sacred script because in essence they are.

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But when they make that move, and not necessarily out of rebellion,

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but out of their own personal integrity,

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they often free themselves from layers of inherited shame that they didn't even

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know that they were carrying, that they thought was just part of what everybody

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goes through and what you deserve.

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And what's extraordinary is what happens next. Often, other family members who

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never felt permission to explore their own questions suddenly find themselves

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wondering if they are allowed to think and feel for themselves as well.

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One person's courage to step out of this is just what we do kind of mentality

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can loosen the grip of generational expectations that everybody else assumed were immovable.

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I've lost count of how many clients I've seen become what I like to call transformational

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figures in their families.

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They're the ones who finally stand up to these unspoken rules,

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who decide that their life is worth living in alignment with their own personal

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values rather than the family's fears or the family's absolute expectations.

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They become the quiet example that says, hey, you're allowed to grow.

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You're allowed to change.

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You're allowed to choose differently. And then that example ripples forward.

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Giving oftentimes their siblings or their cousins or even their parents,

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eventually their own children, permission to believe that they can do something

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difficult and meaningful too, even if it goes against the expectations of the

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family system that they were born into.

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And then we're going to talk a lot today about Uncle Ray, a person whose emotional

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immaturity, whose need for drama, whose patterns of behavior create ripples

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that spread through an entire family system for generations in the opposite direction.

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And to be perfectly clear, the Uncle Ray's and the family systems aren't changing

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things through necessarily grand betrayals or even sometimes obvious abuse,

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although those things happen too.

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Usually it's through something a little more subtle. Constant, low-grade chaos.

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Manufactured conflict. The kind of drama that slowly erodes family traditions,

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fractures relationships, and teaches children patterns that they will unconsciously

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repeat with their own family someday.

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I like to think of this as the family butterfly effect. So the family that I'm

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about to describe is based on a real family, but of course, I've changed a lot

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of things to protect the innocent.

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Several years ago, a friend shared a story that is the basis for today's episode.

00:15:33.934 --> 00:15:36.934
I changed the identifying details, but the dynamics are real.

00:15:37.074 --> 00:15:38.794
So let's meet the players. My friend.

00:15:39.054 --> 00:15:43.134
Let's call her Sarah. Sarah comes from a family with the usual cast of people,

00:15:43.314 --> 00:15:46.334
parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, holiday gatherings, where at grandma's,

00:15:46.394 --> 00:15:50.254
the traditions that families build over decades were played out in her family

00:15:50.254 --> 00:15:52.554
system. But there's one person who stands out.

00:15:52.974 --> 00:15:56.094
Sarah's mother's brother. And we will call him Uncle Ray.

00:15:56.394 --> 00:15:58.874
Uncle Ray is not a bad person. That's important to say up front.

00:15:59.074 --> 00:16:04.154
I don't think that he wakes up planning to create chaos, twirling his snidely whiplash mustache.

00:16:04.734 --> 00:16:08.474
But here's what Sarah told me almost verbatim. He needs a problem with something.

00:16:08.634 --> 00:16:11.734
It is always, always a thing. That's the key.

00:16:12.114 --> 00:16:16.654
He needs a problem. He needs drama. Without conflict, without some grievance

00:16:16.654 --> 00:16:19.594
to nurse, Uncle Ray doesn't quite know who he is.

00:16:20.054 --> 00:16:23.334
For some people, chaos feels like home. It's what they grew up with.

00:16:23.394 --> 00:16:26.234
It's the only emotional temperature they know how to regulate.

00:16:26.434 --> 00:16:30.694
And here's something fundamental. We don't really know that we exist until we're

00:16:30.694 --> 00:16:32.634
interacting with another human at our most basic level.

00:16:32.814 --> 00:16:35.234
Our sense of self is relational to others.

00:16:35.494 --> 00:16:39.974
We need people to interact with, to reflect back that we're real, that we matter.

00:16:40.434 --> 00:16:43.954
And for most of us, hopefully that interaction can be cooperative,

00:16:44.294 --> 00:16:46.554
connecting two people, genuinely curious about each other.

00:16:46.734 --> 00:16:49.834
But the further down the emotionally immature scale somebody is,

00:16:49.994 --> 00:16:53.774
the more they need to find a one-up position when they're talking to somebody.

00:16:54.094 --> 00:16:55.894
They don't just need interaction.

00:16:56.274 --> 00:16:58.034
They need to win the interaction.

00:16:58.870 --> 00:17:02.990
This one-up position is fascinating. It's this psychological stance that emotionally

00:17:02.990 --> 00:17:06.150
immature people, and this is where I'm maintaining that we're all emotionally

00:17:06.150 --> 00:17:10.930
immature until we're not, but that the emotional immaturity in us, let's just say,

00:17:11.110 --> 00:17:15.230
we instinctively reach for when we feel unsure of ourselves.

00:17:15.390 --> 00:17:19.030
It's this illusion of superiority, being above the other person,

00:17:19.150 --> 00:17:23.650
because staying one-up protects them from the discomfort of vulnerability or accountability.

00:17:24.050 --> 00:17:28.510
In a one-up position, they don't have to consider your perspective or acknowledge

00:17:28.510 --> 00:17:30.810
their own impact or tolerate any uncertainty.

00:17:31.050 --> 00:17:34.410
They simply position themselves as the judge, the knower, the correct one.

00:17:34.550 --> 00:17:38.010
And this is significant because the moment somebody shifts into the one up position,

00:17:38.390 --> 00:17:40.410
real connection becomes almost impossible.

00:17:40.730 --> 00:17:45.490
You can't be curious and defensive at the same time. You can't collaborate with

00:17:45.490 --> 00:17:49.590
somebody from a pedestal and you can't build intimacy when the relationship

00:17:49.590 --> 00:17:51.470
has turned into a scoreboard.

00:17:51.650 --> 00:17:54.790
The one up position isn't always loud or it's not always aggressive.

00:17:55.010 --> 00:17:58.590
Sometimes it shows up in a much subtler form. The victim stance,

00:17:58.710 --> 00:18:02.890
It sounds counterintuitive because being a victim looks like being one down,

00:18:03.130 --> 00:18:06.930
but emotionally immature people often use it to elevate themselves above others

00:18:06.930 --> 00:18:08.770
without taking responsibility for anything.

00:18:08.970 --> 00:18:12.050
When somebody can go into the poor me, what they're really saying is,

00:18:12.230 --> 00:18:14.030
I have the moral high ground here.

00:18:14.070 --> 00:18:17.510
I have been wronged more than anybody else. I am the most injured party.

00:18:17.770 --> 00:18:20.950
And from that position, they don't have to self-reflect. They don't have to

00:18:20.950 --> 00:18:23.430
be accountable. They don't have to consider the other person's perspective.

00:18:24.090 --> 00:18:27.970
Victimhood becomes its own version of superiority, and it's untouchable,

00:18:28.130 --> 00:18:32.130
it's unquestionable, and it's pretty much insulated from growth when it gets to that point.

00:18:32.701 --> 00:18:36.281
So it's still a one-up move because it shifts all the emotional labor onto everybody

00:18:36.281 --> 00:18:39.101
else while allowing them to remain blameless.

00:18:39.541 --> 00:18:42.641
You'll see this when somebody says things like, well, I guess nothing I ever

00:18:42.641 --> 00:18:45.521
do is good enough for you, right after being asked to take responsibility for

00:18:45.521 --> 00:18:46.341
something really small.

00:18:46.621 --> 00:18:50.061
Or suddenly the conversation isn't about the issue anymore, it's about comforting them.

00:18:50.441 --> 00:18:54.081
Or when a person responds to a boundary with, wow, okay, I didn't know you hated

00:18:54.081 --> 00:18:59.681
me, forcing the other person to now backpedal and now soothe and reassure rather than stand firm.

00:19:00.161 --> 00:19:03.021
When somebody says, no, you're right, I'm just a horrible person,

00:19:03.181 --> 00:19:06.141
what they're essentially saying is, hey, I'm going to say these words and then

00:19:06.141 --> 00:19:07.481
I need you to make me feel better.

00:19:07.621 --> 00:19:12.221
So in all these cases, the victim stance becomes a shield and a weapon at the same time.

00:19:12.481 --> 00:19:15.581
It keeps that person protected from accountability and it places them in this

00:19:15.581 --> 00:19:19.341
superior emotional position, the one who is wronged, the one who deserves repair,

00:19:19.661 --> 00:19:23.601
the one others must know, you now must work to appease me.

00:19:23.781 --> 00:19:26.461
It's still this one-up position, but it's disguised in a softer,

00:19:26.641 --> 00:19:27.521
more manipulative form.

00:19:28.141 --> 00:19:29.961
And then once somebody's operating from that one-up position,

00:19:30.141 --> 00:19:33.581
whether through a superiority or victimhood, they're not looking for connection anymore.

00:19:33.801 --> 00:19:36.681
They're looking for material. They need something to push up against,

00:19:36.961 --> 00:19:40.341
something to react to, something that lets them reinforce their elevated stance.

00:19:40.601 --> 00:19:43.561
And that's where the dynamic gets even trickier because the moment you open

00:19:43.561 --> 00:19:46.061
your mouth, you've given them something to work with.

00:19:46.221 --> 00:19:49.861
They might ask you a question, but I don't often think it's genuine curiosity.

00:19:49.861 --> 00:19:52.821
It's like they need you to start moving your mouth and saying words,

00:19:53.121 --> 00:19:56.721
saying something, anything, so they can then attack what you say and take that

00:19:56.721 --> 00:19:59.681
one-up position. This is what I like to call the attack surface.

00:20:00.021 --> 00:20:02.941
So let me give some examples because I see this very regularly.

00:20:03.221 --> 00:20:06.361
One spouse says, hey, just tell me what you need me to do. Honestly, I'll do it.

00:20:06.561 --> 00:20:10.961
That sounds very helpful, right? The right mouth noises and the right intonations. Right.

00:20:11.492 --> 00:20:15.392
And the other spouse says, okay, I could really use help bathing the kids for a spouse.

00:20:15.892 --> 00:20:18.252
Yeah, that kind of hurts my knees, right? But anything else,

00:20:18.392 --> 00:20:20.372
anything else you tell me, I will do it.

00:20:20.872 --> 00:20:23.292
You can kind of see what happened there, right? Tell me what you need wasn't

00:20:23.292 --> 00:20:25.912
actually an offer. It was a setup. The moment their partner gave an answer,

00:20:26.012 --> 00:20:27.832
it became a bit of an attack surface.

00:20:28.072 --> 00:20:31.292
Now they can reject it and look reasonable and say, hey, I said I'd help,

00:20:31.392 --> 00:20:34.772
but you picked something that I can't believe you picked, like you know about my knees.

00:20:34.932 --> 00:20:39.052
And all of a sudden now they asked you if they could help you.

00:20:39.192 --> 00:20:43.632
And now you're apologizing to them. Yeah, sorry, I forgot about your knees because

00:20:43.632 --> 00:20:47.652
it sure seems like your knees were fine when you were playing soccer over Thanksgiving, but I digress.

00:20:47.952 --> 00:20:50.372
Or here's an old favorite. Hey, where do you want to go to dinner?

00:20:50.612 --> 00:20:51.952
I don't care. You choose.

00:20:52.132 --> 00:20:55.572
So you pick a restaurant. Oh, wow, really? I thought we had that last week.

00:20:55.712 --> 00:20:59.592
Or, oh, I didn't think you'd actually pick that or I would have told you anything but that.

00:21:00.012 --> 00:21:03.492
The question wasn't genuine. It felt a little bit more like bait.

00:21:03.772 --> 00:21:06.772
The moment you provide an answer, you've given them something to attack.

00:21:07.112 --> 00:21:09.412
Now they're in the one-up position without having to be vulnerable.

00:21:09.412 --> 00:21:13.052
And don't get me wrong, when somebody is aware of this, if I really don't know,

00:21:13.212 --> 00:21:16.032
I don't have any ideas that are in my head.

00:21:16.740 --> 00:21:20.740
It's okay to be aware of that and to say, you know what? Throw something out

00:21:20.740 --> 00:21:22.720
there at me. I got to be honest. I'm not thinking about anything.

00:21:22.880 --> 00:21:24.640
I'm probably going to react to the things that you're going to say.

00:21:24.840 --> 00:21:28.400
If you're going to say Thai food, oh, well, there we go. Now I've just formed an opinion.

00:21:28.700 --> 00:21:32.380
So we can even get to that point just by being aware.

00:21:32.680 --> 00:21:37.560
But this is why conversations with emotionally immature people can feel so exhausting

00:21:37.560 --> 00:21:39.460
because you feel like you can't win.

00:21:39.680 --> 00:21:43.840
Not that it should even be a game of win or lose, but it's because you can't.

00:21:44.080 --> 00:21:46.560
The game's rigged. It's kind of like one of those carnival games where you're

00:21:46.560 --> 00:21:49.100
supposed to toss a ring onto a bottle, except the bottles are slightly tilted

00:21:49.100 --> 00:21:50.720
and the rings are just a little bit too small.

00:21:50.940 --> 00:21:54.360
But you keep trying and you keep adjusting and you keep thinking, maybe this time.

00:21:54.860 --> 00:21:58.060
But the setup itself is designed so you never quite make it.

00:21:58.280 --> 00:22:00.500
And it's not your skill that's lacking.

00:22:01.160 --> 00:22:04.180
This game was engineered to keep you chasing a wind that isn't coming.

00:22:04.700 --> 00:22:07.560
Or like a classic whack-a-mole booth.

00:22:07.640 --> 00:22:10.940
You think I've finally responded in the perfect way, said the right thing,

00:22:11.080 --> 00:22:13.760
stayed calm enough and clearly clarified myself.

00:22:14.300 --> 00:22:16.880
And then another mole pops up on the other side of the board with a brand new

00:22:16.880 --> 00:22:20.860
complaint or criticism You can't win because the goalposts aren't just moving

00:22:20.860 --> 00:22:24.100
The person that you're dealing with is the one that's moving them and kind of

00:22:24.100 --> 00:22:25.320
laughing and saying chase me.

00:22:26.373 --> 00:22:29.213
This actually gives me a great idea, emotional immaturity whack-a-mole,

00:22:29.253 --> 00:22:30.473
because that's exactly what it feels like.

00:22:30.573 --> 00:22:33.673
You answer one thing and boom, another contradiction pops up before you can

00:22:33.673 --> 00:22:34.553
even put the mallet down.

00:22:35.053 --> 00:22:37.273
Okay. Immature person says, hey, where do you want to go to dinner?

00:22:37.733 --> 00:22:41.593
You, maybe Thai food. Immature person, Thai? Seriously? Whoa. Okay.

00:22:41.933 --> 00:22:44.373
Hey, anyway, what are we doing this weekend? Whack. All right.

00:22:44.493 --> 00:22:47.913
New mole. Me. Maybe we could take the kids to the park. Immature person,

00:22:48.053 --> 00:22:49.253
the park with my allergies.

00:22:49.593 --> 00:22:52.593
Do you even think before you talk? Immature person. Hey, also,

00:22:52.833 --> 00:22:54.053
I missed my dentist appointment today.

00:22:54.773 --> 00:22:57.433
Why didn't you remind me about my dentist appointment. Whack,

00:22:57.633 --> 00:23:01.073
there's a new mole. Me, I assumed it was still in your calendar.

00:23:01.513 --> 00:23:04.753
Immature person, oh, so now it's my fault. Nice.

00:23:05.233 --> 00:23:08.173
Immature person, hey, so what are we going to do for your mom's birthday, by the way?

00:23:08.473 --> 00:23:13.213
Whack, new mole. You can answer every question perfectly and it still won't

00:23:13.213 --> 00:23:17.073
matter because the goal wasn't information. It was friction.

00:23:17.493 --> 00:23:21.613
They're not collecting answers. They're looking for these attack surfaces.

00:23:21.873 --> 00:23:25.113
So back to Uncle Ray, a phrase that you're going to hear several times today.

00:23:25.333 --> 00:23:29.093
Uncle Ray is married to Janet and Janet is what I often call pathologically kind.

00:23:29.393 --> 00:23:34.293
Now that word pathological can sound harsh or clinical. So I want to clarify

00:23:34.293 --> 00:23:36.433
what it means in this context.

00:23:36.593 --> 00:23:40.393
When something's pathological, it simply means that it's moved maybe beyond

00:23:40.393 --> 00:23:44.353
its healthy purpose or identity. And it's crossed a little bit into territory

00:23:44.353 --> 00:23:49.953
where it can cause harm, usually quietly or gradually, and often with the very best of intentions.

00:23:50.233 --> 00:23:55.813
It's when a trait that is very beautiful in moderation becomes so overused or

00:23:55.813 --> 00:24:00.113
automatic or so tied to survival that it starts working against the person instead of for them.

00:24:01.176 --> 00:24:04.736
You can see this in a lot of areas in life. Confidence is wonderful until it

00:24:04.736 --> 00:24:08.116
becomes almost a form of pathological overconfidence where somebody can't hear

00:24:08.116 --> 00:24:09.396
feedback or acknowledge mistakes.

00:24:09.676 --> 00:24:13.976
Or order and neatness can be really grounding, but it can also become pathological

00:24:13.976 --> 00:24:17.536
when it starts looking like perfectionism, where nothing ever quite feels good

00:24:17.536 --> 00:24:20.976
enough and a person's self-worth rises and falls on these impossible standards.

00:24:21.476 --> 00:24:26.156
And even love can become pathological when it turns into pathological caretaking,

00:24:26.216 --> 00:24:29.676
where somebody believes their entire worth depends entirely on keeping everybody

00:24:29.676 --> 00:24:33.836
else happy and keeping themselves in a kind of a one-down position.

00:24:34.336 --> 00:24:37.516
So when I say that Janet is pathologically kind, I'm not saying she's broken.

00:24:37.636 --> 00:24:41.156
I'm not saying she's flawed. I'm saying her kindness grew out of its healthy

00:24:41.156 --> 00:24:44.836
container and became so tied to her identity, so necessary for her emotional

00:24:44.836 --> 00:24:47.996
safety that she no longer has access to the other side of the equation.

00:24:48.496 --> 00:24:50.896
Confidence, assertiveness, boundaries, her own needs.

00:24:51.660 --> 00:24:56.220
Healthy kindness is more balanced. It breathes. It allows generosity and self-respect to coexist.

00:24:56.960 --> 00:25:00.200
Healthy kindness lets you say, hey, I'm happy to help, but also I may not be

00:25:00.200 --> 00:25:02.680
able to today, or I've got a hard out at five o'clock.

00:25:03.080 --> 00:25:07.600
It recognizes that giving is part of a relationship, but it's not the entire job description.

00:25:08.080 --> 00:25:11.460
Pathological kindness is different because it's reflexive. It's fear-driven.

00:25:11.660 --> 00:25:15.100
It's the kind of kindness that says, if I take care of everybody else well enough,

00:25:15.260 --> 00:25:17.260
maybe, maybe I'll finally feel safe.

00:25:17.260 --> 00:25:22.360
It's prioritizing everyone else's needs above your own essential needs and over

00:25:22.360 --> 00:25:26.680
and over again because the alternative feels dangerous or selfish or disloyal.

00:25:26.860 --> 00:25:29.580
It's about feeling guilty for even thinking about setting a boundary.

00:25:29.840 --> 00:25:33.380
It's staying in painful situations because leaving might upset someone else.

00:25:33.540 --> 00:25:37.040
And it's absorbing mistreatment and apologizing for not handling it better.

00:25:37.520 --> 00:25:40.120
That's the place that Janet lives in. She doesn't push back.

00:25:40.280 --> 00:25:42.600
She doesn't set limits. She explains away Ray's behavior.

00:25:42.840 --> 00:25:47.120
She smooths conflict before it forms. She sacrifices her own needs to keep Ray calm.

00:25:47.260 --> 00:25:50.320
And somewhere along the line, she came to believe that if she could just give

00:25:50.320 --> 00:25:53.660
enough, accommodate enough, love enough, then Ray would finally get it.

00:25:53.780 --> 00:25:55.700
He would have his aha moment. He would finally soften.

00:25:55.880 --> 00:25:58.820
And again, none of this is a moral failure. It's a childhood imprint.

00:25:58.960 --> 00:26:02.300
It's the emotional equivalent of learning to walk with one leg slightly shorter

00:26:02.300 --> 00:26:06.000
and not realizing decades later that your whole posture has been shaped around it.

00:26:06.595 --> 00:26:10.475
Janet learned early that she was safest when she managed other people's emotions.

00:26:10.755 --> 00:26:13.555
That was how she stayed connected. That was how she stayed valuable.

00:26:13.795 --> 00:26:15.295
That was how she stayed needed.

00:26:15.535 --> 00:26:19.735
And this is why my friend Ross Rosenberg, author of The Human Magnet Syndrome,

00:26:19.935 --> 00:26:22.215
describes relationships like theirs as breakup resistant.

00:26:22.575 --> 00:26:24.995
Because they're built on dynamics, not compatibility.

00:26:25.615 --> 00:26:28.555
Ray is somebody who needs friction to feel alive. He needs somebody to push

00:26:28.555 --> 00:26:32.595
against, somebody who absorbs his storms so he never has to confront the fear

00:26:32.595 --> 00:26:33.615
underneath the bluster.

00:26:34.295 --> 00:26:38.535
Drama is Ray's emotional currency. It really is the air he breathes.

00:26:38.715 --> 00:26:41.755
And then Janet steps into the picture, somebody whose entire emotional identity

00:26:41.755 --> 00:26:48.055
is built on absorbing storms, smoothing chaos, and believing that love means to erase yourself.

00:26:48.395 --> 00:26:51.775
She knows how to caretake chaos. She's done it her whole life.

00:26:51.935 --> 00:26:56.115
It feels familiar, even if it's painful. For her, it just is.

00:26:56.475 --> 00:26:59.675
So for Ray, she's a perfect partner who won't challenge the narrative,

00:26:59.995 --> 00:27:04.015
won't require accountability, and won't pull away when he creates emotional turbulence.

00:27:04.575 --> 00:27:06.275
For Janet, well, Ray's familiar.

00:27:06.955 --> 00:27:09.495
He keeps her in the role that she learned in childhood, managing,

00:27:09.835 --> 00:27:11.355
soothing, compensating, fixing.

00:27:11.815 --> 00:27:15.115
Ross calls this the human magnet syndrome, two people whose wounds fit together

00:27:15.115 --> 00:27:18.795
so snugly that it feels like destiny, even though it's actually unconscious

00:27:18.795 --> 00:27:20.715
patterning, pulling them toward each other.

00:27:21.095 --> 00:27:23.935
And right in the middle of that dynamic is their son, Tyler,

00:27:24.215 --> 00:27:27.495
quietly absorbing all of it, learning not from lectures or rules,

00:27:27.635 --> 00:27:30.655
but from the emotional choreography that he's watched his entire life.

00:27:31.015 --> 00:27:34.535
And when you see the world through that lens, it's hard to blame him for repeating

00:27:34.535 --> 00:27:38.715
what was modeled. Let's get to the wedding, which ended up being a masterclass

00:27:38.715 --> 00:27:39.615
in emotional immaturity.

00:27:39.895 --> 00:27:43.475
Before I go into those details, let me say something very important.

00:27:43.815 --> 00:27:48.795
I believe we are all emotionally immature in certain ways. It's not a negative,

00:27:49.015 --> 00:27:51.335
it's human. It's a place to operate from.

00:27:51.855 --> 00:27:55.915
If you have not heard any of the Waking Up to Narcissism podcast because you've

00:27:55.915 --> 00:27:58.715
been afraid of the word narcissism, which I have received a lot of that feedback...

00:27:59.222 --> 00:28:05.562
Since early on, 150 plus episodes ago, I wanted to be very clear that narcissistic

00:28:05.562 --> 00:28:08.902
personality disorder is a very, very small percentage of the population.

00:28:09.162 --> 00:28:13.082
Some estimates between 3% and 5%. But we throw it around like it's at 50%,

00:28:13.082 --> 00:28:19.362
60%, 70%. Everybody's ex, everybody's boss, everybody's bad friend is a narcissist.

00:28:19.702 --> 00:28:23.202
But in reality, we're all just emotionally immature until we're not.

00:28:23.342 --> 00:28:27.322
Until we do the work to find the tools. And even then, we still have to embrace

00:28:27.322 --> 00:28:29.942
a lot of discomfort, admit the things that we don't know that we don't know.

00:28:30.162 --> 00:28:33.962
But at least if you can identify the areas in which you are emotionally immature,

00:28:34.262 --> 00:28:37.082
you're on a path of healing.

00:28:37.242 --> 00:28:41.622
Emotional immaturity is when the survival skills we developed as kids keep running

00:28:41.622 --> 00:28:43.662
into adulthood, even when they no longer serve us.

00:28:43.942 --> 00:28:46.782
We don't arrive in adulthood with fully developed emotional skills.

00:28:46.922 --> 00:28:49.842
We arrive with whatever we learned in childhood, strategies that helped us navigate

00:28:49.842 --> 00:28:54.582
our families, our schools, our early relationships. And the problem is that

00:28:54.582 --> 00:29:00.962
those childhood strategies don't automatically upgrade when we turn 12 or 16 or 18 or 25 or 40 or 50.

00:29:01.182 --> 00:29:04.382
They keep running in the background. It's like old software on a new computer.

00:29:05.083 --> 00:29:09.003
There's a line from an Alex Michelaitis novel. He's the author of The Silent

00:29:09.003 --> 00:29:10.163
Patient, an amazing book.

00:29:10.423 --> 00:29:14.103
In a follow-up book called The Fury, he has a line that captures this so well.

00:29:14.203 --> 00:29:16.463
He says, when we are young and afraid, something happens.

00:29:16.783 --> 00:29:20.203
Time stops. A version of us is trapped at that age forever.

00:29:20.483 --> 00:29:23.723
A frightened child's hiding in your mind. And you were meant to liberate that

00:29:23.723 --> 00:29:26.043
child, but instead you ended up becoming their jailer.

00:29:26.223 --> 00:29:29.883
The child who learned to please others becomes the adult who can't set boundaries.

00:29:30.103 --> 00:29:33.603
The child who shut down emotions becomes the partner who can't be vulnerable.

00:29:33.603 --> 00:29:38.343
The child who learned that disagreement meant abandonment then sees every conflict as a threat.

00:29:38.523 --> 00:29:46.083
I think part of why that quote is so good is because I believe when we're kids, we feel everything.

00:29:46.303 --> 00:29:48.963
Our bodies are wired to send up little flares, fear, excitement,

00:29:49.103 --> 00:29:50.343
confusion, shame, sadness.

00:29:50.643 --> 00:29:53.643
And our nervous system is doing its best to say, hey, something happened,

00:29:53.863 --> 00:29:58.543
pay attention. But the problem is almost none of us were ever taught what to do with those feelings.

00:29:58.883 --> 00:30:01.303
Even the kindest, most well-meaning parent would say things like,

00:30:01.603 --> 00:30:02.423
hey, don't worry about it, bud.

00:30:02.563 --> 00:30:06.623
Or it's not a big deal. because they wanted to soothe us, but we were still

00:30:06.623 --> 00:30:08.063
worried. And to us, it was a big deal.

00:30:08.323 --> 00:30:11.883
So right there, we learned that our internal world was somehow incorrect.

00:30:12.403 --> 00:30:14.603
And then on the other end of the spectrum, you had parents who said,

00:30:14.803 --> 00:30:18.423
stop crying or you're fine or the classic, I'll give you something to cry about.

00:30:18.683 --> 00:30:23.483
And on both sides of that coin, there's the gentle minimizer or the harsh dismisser.

00:30:23.703 --> 00:30:27.183
The message lands the same way. Your emotions are too much. And if something

00:30:27.183 --> 00:30:29.663
feels overwhelming to you, you're wrong for feeling it.

00:30:29.883 --> 00:30:33.183
So what does that child do with that? Their body still registers the experience.

00:30:33.183 --> 00:30:36.643
Their nervous system still reacts, but without anybody helping them name it

00:30:36.643 --> 00:30:41.583
or regulate it or make sense of it, those big feelings get filed away like the quote describes.

00:30:42.083 --> 00:30:46.143
Like these little pockets of unfinished business that the child assumes that

00:30:46.143 --> 00:30:47.983
their future self will come back and sort out.

00:30:48.582 --> 00:30:51.402
It's almost as if the kid inside of us, the inner child, is saying,

00:30:51.502 --> 00:30:53.182
okay, tuck this away into the vault.

00:30:53.222 --> 00:30:56.662
And when you grow up and become the big kid, I'm sure you'll help us. You'll heal us.

00:30:57.022 --> 00:30:59.562
But then somewhere along the line, we totally missed the memo.

00:30:59.802 --> 00:31:03.662
Nobody circles back, teaches us that adulthood isn't the finish line where emotional

00:31:03.662 --> 00:31:05.042
maturity magically downloads.

00:31:05.502 --> 00:31:08.562
It's not like just you can update the software. You have to do the work.

00:31:08.642 --> 00:31:09.782
You have to be your own programmer.

00:31:10.322 --> 00:31:14.262
And then those old survival strategies, the pleasing, the shutting down, the fear of conflict.

00:31:14.702 --> 00:31:18.122
Now they show up in our adult relationships with the emotional logic of a child.

00:31:18.122 --> 00:31:22.602
Not because we're broken, but because that younger version of us is still holding

00:31:22.602 --> 00:31:26.082
those old feelings, waiting for us to finally come back and help them make sense of it.

00:31:26.222 --> 00:31:28.522
But then they just come out. They're reactive.

00:31:28.942 --> 00:31:32.222
So back to the story. Sarah has a brother, Michael.

00:31:32.482 --> 00:31:35.942
Michael got engaged and wanted to get married in roughly about eight months

00:31:35.942 --> 00:31:37.822
and have a summer wedding.

00:31:38.562 --> 00:31:42.642
Uncle Ray's son, Tyler, had also gotten engaged, but booked the venue a year

00:31:42.642 --> 00:31:43.562
and a half, two years out.

00:31:43.802 --> 00:31:46.982
Long engagement, big production. Now, there is no rule anywhere,

00:31:47.242 --> 00:31:50.482
at least that I'm aware of, in any etiquette book or any tradition that says

00:31:50.482 --> 00:31:54.282
you cannot get married before your cousin who chose a longer engagement.

00:31:54.482 --> 00:31:58.162
It's not as if they called dibs on weddings and until they run its course,

00:31:58.342 --> 00:31:59.542
no one else is allowed to marry.

00:31:59.842 --> 00:32:03.762
But Uncle Ray sees it a little differently. So let's talk about the patterns

00:32:03.762 --> 00:32:04.762
of emotional immaturity.

00:32:04.962 --> 00:32:09.362
When you look at Ray's reaction to Michael's wedding, you can see several patterns

00:32:09.362 --> 00:32:12.542
that show up again and again in emotionally immature family systems.

00:32:12.922 --> 00:32:17.322
And these are random behaviors. their childhood adaptations that are being replayed

00:32:17.322 --> 00:32:21.602
in adult form here are these survival strategies they worked once.

00:32:22.305 --> 00:32:27.085
Now in adulthood, they create confusion and conflict and in a sense that nothing

00:32:27.085 --> 00:32:28.765
you say or do is ever quite right.

00:32:29.105 --> 00:32:31.445
We're going to go over a few of these. Pattern one, black and white,

00:32:31.645 --> 00:32:32.385
all or nothing thinking.

00:32:33.005 --> 00:32:37.205
Children make sense of overwhelming situations by seeing the world in absolutes.

00:32:37.405 --> 00:32:38.565
Everything is good or bad.

00:32:39.105 --> 00:32:43.865
It's a lot of extra work to sit with the gray because our brain craves certainty.

00:32:44.025 --> 00:32:46.305
We want to know and we don't like to be uncomfortable.

00:32:46.785 --> 00:32:51.425
We see things as kids and as adults as all good or all bad, with me or against

00:32:51.425 --> 00:32:56.225
me. It's developmentally normal, but when that thinking doesn't mature,

00:32:56.545 --> 00:33:00.265
it turns into ultimatums, extremes, and emotional rigidity.

00:33:00.565 --> 00:33:04.125
So for Ray, Michael's wedding couldn't simply be a joyful moment for someone

00:33:04.125 --> 00:33:06.665
else. In his framework, if Michael was getting married first,

00:33:06.845 --> 00:33:08.305
it took something from Tyler.

00:33:08.525 --> 00:33:12.905
It's a zero-sum game. There's a winner and a loser. Someone had to win, someone had to lose.

00:33:13.045 --> 00:33:17.545
There was no room for the mature adult truth that two things can actually be

00:33:17.545 --> 00:33:21.325
true at once. that Michael could be excited about his own timeline and Tyler's

00:33:21.325 --> 00:33:23.005
wedding could still be wonderful as well.

00:33:23.245 --> 00:33:28.185
This is the same mechanism that is behind ending a relationship after one argument.

00:33:28.285 --> 00:33:31.205
You never supported me or seeing coworkers as either perfect allies or then

00:33:31.205 --> 00:33:33.205
total backstabbers and flip-flopping back and forth.

00:33:33.445 --> 00:33:37.465
It's the emotional logic of a child navigating a complicated world with really

00:33:37.465 --> 00:33:39.145
simple categories and simple rules.

00:33:39.445 --> 00:33:43.045
Let's go to emotional immaturity pattern number two, mind reading and assumed intent.

00:33:43.485 --> 00:33:47.165
Children assume others feel and think exactly the way that they do.

00:33:47.705 --> 00:33:51.365
Exactly the way they do. We still do this. Adults carry this forward and we

00:33:51.365 --> 00:33:54.785
start to create entire narratives about other people's intentions without actually

00:33:54.785 --> 00:33:55.805
checking any of the facts.

00:33:56.105 --> 00:33:59.685
So Ray never asked why Michael wanted a sooner wedding. He didn't approach it

00:33:59.685 --> 00:34:04.365
with curiosity. He decided that he knew the motives and it was selfishness, attention seeking.

00:34:04.545 --> 00:34:08.665
And he treated that imagined narrative as absolute truth because if he thought

00:34:08.665 --> 00:34:10.205
that, then everybody must think that.

00:34:10.645 --> 00:34:13.805
And this is the same pattern that leads adults to think my partner didn't text

00:34:13.805 --> 00:34:17.545
me back, they are mad. Or my friend didn't say hi, they are obviously upset

00:34:17.545 --> 00:34:18.585
with me without ever checking.

00:34:19.559 --> 00:34:23.739
It is not malicious. It's, again, an outdated emotional operating system that

00:34:23.739 --> 00:34:27.259
never learned to pause and verify and be genuinely curious.

00:34:27.859 --> 00:34:30.599
Emotionally immature pattern number three, difficulty with accountability.

00:34:31.259 --> 00:34:33.319
Children absolutely fear being

00:34:33.319 --> 00:34:36.399
wrong because being wrong often meant punishment or withdrawal of love.

00:34:36.799 --> 00:34:40.919
If you never were able to feel safe making mistakes, then accountability becomes

00:34:40.919 --> 00:34:42.159
threatening even in adulthood.

00:34:42.559 --> 00:34:46.779
So the nervous system scrambles to avoid it at all costs. I didn't do that. You didn't tell me to.

00:34:46.959 --> 00:34:51.159
It's where gaslighting comes in. Later, Ray insisted he didn't say that Michael's

00:34:51.159 --> 00:34:54.819
fiance was selfish, even though that is what people heard.

00:34:55.019 --> 00:35:00.399
He said, oh, no, no, she was being selfish, as though that's a meaningful distinction.

00:35:00.919 --> 00:35:04.379
It's a subtle rewriting of reality to try to avoid responsibility.

00:35:04.719 --> 00:35:07.579
And this isn't unique to Ray. Adults do this all the time.

00:35:07.939 --> 00:35:11.339
Oh, I didn't yell. You just took it that way. Or I didn't forget. You never told me.

00:35:11.779 --> 00:35:15.579
When that habit gets called out, many people immediately shift to defensiveness

00:35:15.579 --> 00:35:20.259
or shame because the stakes of simply being wrong just feel as high as they did in childhood.

00:35:20.639 --> 00:35:26.999
In family systems work, this is described as a childhood defense mechanism masquerading as adult logic.

00:35:27.299 --> 00:35:30.399
This is why gaslighting is a childhood defense mechanism.

00:35:30.539 --> 00:35:34.339
I couldn't have done that or else that means that I did something that has disappointed

00:35:34.339 --> 00:35:37.539
you and then you will leave me. So I didn't do it. You never told me.

00:35:37.699 --> 00:35:40.299
The dog ate my homework. Pattern four, emotional reasoning.

00:35:40.539 --> 00:35:43.799
Children treat emotions as facts because feelings were their primary way of

00:35:43.799 --> 00:35:47.939
navigating the world. But if this continues into adulthood, I feel it becomes it must be true.

00:35:48.159 --> 00:35:50.599
So when Ray tells people that his sister attacked him on the phone,

00:35:50.859 --> 00:35:53.859
a sister who, by all accounts, avoids confrontation at all costs,

00:35:54.019 --> 00:35:55.699
he wasn't necessarily lying.

00:35:56.550 --> 00:35:59.810
To him, disagreement feels like an attack, and when people are attacking you,

00:35:59.870 --> 00:36:01.830
they yell at you, and that feeling became the fact.

00:36:02.030 --> 00:36:05.570
This is why conversations with emotionally immature people can feel so disorienting.

00:36:05.670 --> 00:36:09.350
You can be the most calm, measured, and kind person ever, and they will still

00:36:09.350 --> 00:36:11.290
insist that you are harsh or critical or aggressive.

00:36:11.470 --> 00:36:15.450
It's when your kids say, stop yelling at me, and you know you're not yelling

00:36:15.450 --> 00:36:18.450
because you find yourself wanting to say, I'll show you yelling.

00:36:18.670 --> 00:36:22.090
Their emotional experience becomes the objective reality, and they expect everybody

00:36:22.090 --> 00:36:23.670
else around them to dance accordingly.

00:36:24.050 --> 00:36:27.270
I feel it, so it must be true. I think you're mad at me. So now I need you to

00:36:27.270 --> 00:36:30.550
prove that you're not mad at me, even though you're probably not.

00:36:30.730 --> 00:36:33.430
And I don't even actually know what it would take for me to feel that way.

00:36:33.610 --> 00:36:34.930
But you need to start dancing.

00:36:35.290 --> 00:36:39.650
Pattern five, external validation dependence. Because children rely on caregivers

00:36:39.650 --> 00:36:41.370
for reassurance and their own sense of self.

00:36:41.490 --> 00:36:43.990
A kid gets their sense of self from external validation. That's why they're

00:36:43.990 --> 00:36:47.270
continually trying to look and see, what do you think? What do you think about

00:36:47.270 --> 00:36:48.750
me? What do you think about this thing I'm doing?

00:36:49.090 --> 00:36:53.210
And adults who never internalize that sense of identity look to other people

00:36:53.210 --> 00:36:54.270
to stabilize their emotions.

00:36:54.890 --> 00:37:00.270
I interact with people in my life on occasion who say, no, I need you to tell me what to do.

00:37:00.750 --> 00:37:04.550
And what I hear in that is that so that then if it works, great.

00:37:04.710 --> 00:37:05.990
If it doesn't, I can blame you.

00:37:06.470 --> 00:37:10.870
Ray needed the entire family to co-sign on his perspective. He told Tyler,

00:37:11.050 --> 00:37:13.490
he told other relatives, he built a case.

00:37:13.790 --> 00:37:16.530
Because without external validation, without this affirmation,

00:37:16.770 --> 00:37:19.890
the grievance didn't feel real enough, solid enough, justified enough.

00:37:20.010 --> 00:37:25.210
It didn't feel right for him. But here's the spoiler alert. it won't because

00:37:25.210 --> 00:37:27.290
he doesn't know how he feels.

00:37:27.390 --> 00:37:29.790
He has this lack of self on the inside.

00:37:30.310 --> 00:37:33.030
So, it won't ever feel like the right thing.

00:37:33.756 --> 00:37:37.356
But if others don't validate his view, then he can definitely hold it against

00:37:37.356 --> 00:37:39.736
them. And this pattern shows up everywhere.

00:37:40.036 --> 00:37:42.916
Obsessively checking social media engagement, needing others to agree before

00:37:42.916 --> 00:37:47.756
making a decision, feeling deflated when an idea is immediately praised. And it's not vanity.

00:37:47.916 --> 00:37:51.556
It's a nervous system still searching for the parents who were supposed to say,

00:37:51.696 --> 00:37:53.136
hey, champ, what do you think?

00:37:53.476 --> 00:37:57.236
And help it feel more secure. And then a couple more. Pattern six,

00:37:57.376 --> 00:37:58.576
magical thinking. One of my favorites.

00:37:58.836 --> 00:38:02.496
Children believe their thoughts can control reality. If I close my eyes, you can't see me.

00:38:03.036 --> 00:38:06.296
Or if I don't leave my stuffed animals on the bed in a certain way,

00:38:06.516 --> 00:38:07.876
then when I get home, they'll be mad at me.

00:38:08.216 --> 00:38:11.856
Or I love, I heard a podcast recently where the person said,

00:38:11.916 --> 00:38:15.856
hey, I'm in my 30s and I still think I got to wear my lucky socks in order to

00:38:15.856 --> 00:38:18.456
be successful in certain situations at work.

00:38:18.556 --> 00:38:20.976
Or people with their superstitions and sports.

00:38:21.296 --> 00:38:24.916
Adults outgrow this for the most part. But in emotional situations,

00:38:25.096 --> 00:38:26.276
magical thinking resurfaces.

00:38:26.456 --> 00:38:29.316
And Ray fell into this too. He believed that if he felt wrong,

00:38:29.476 --> 00:38:31.876
then surely everybody else must see it in the same way. that if he declared

00:38:31.876 --> 00:38:34.836
Michael's timeline selfish, then others would intuitively understand and they

00:38:34.836 --> 00:38:37.276
would rally behind him. And when they didn't, it felt like betrayal.

00:38:37.996 --> 00:38:41.396
Adult magical thinking also sounds like some of my greatest hits.

00:38:41.556 --> 00:38:43.796
If I avoid checking the bank account, the problem isn't real.

00:38:44.056 --> 00:38:46.976
Or people who say, if my partner loves me, they should just know what I need.

00:38:47.616 --> 00:38:51.316
But even a bigger one, if we don't talk about it, it'll just get better.

00:38:51.476 --> 00:38:55.576
If I don't deal with my problems in my marriage, they will just magically work out.

00:38:55.776 --> 00:38:59.656
Now, the beliefs aren't silly. They're emotional shortcuts formed long before

00:38:59.656 --> 00:39:02.076
logic entered the picture. but it is magical.

00:39:02.596 --> 00:39:06.956
Magical thinking. And one more, managing other people's emotions. This is big.

00:39:07.216 --> 00:39:10.776
Children learn early which emotions are allowed and which ones get them in trouble

00:39:10.776 --> 00:39:15.276
or get ignored. So they become scanners and fixers and they manage others to stay safe.

00:39:15.416 --> 00:39:18.176
So for Ray, managing emotions look like controlling the narrative.

00:39:18.316 --> 00:39:20.996
If he could get everybody on his side, he wouldn't have to feel the discomfort

00:39:20.996 --> 00:39:22.196
of uncertainty or disagreement.

00:39:22.972 --> 00:39:26.472
For Sarah's mother, managing emotions looked like smoothing conflict or taking

00:39:26.472 --> 00:39:29.852
responsibility for everybody else's feelings and trying to keep the peace.

00:39:30.032 --> 00:39:33.652
A lot of managing people's emotions is, I don't want that person to be mad.

00:39:33.752 --> 00:39:36.172
I don't want that person to think that I don't care.

00:39:36.712 --> 00:39:39.912
I'm managing their emotional experience rather than allowing them to have their

00:39:39.912 --> 00:39:41.152
own emotional experience.

00:39:41.372 --> 00:39:45.252
And there is a version of this where somebody becomes aware of it and they say, no, I am doing that.

00:39:45.372 --> 00:39:49.632
I'll at least acknowledge that because there's a chance that person won't respond

00:39:49.632 --> 00:39:54.852
the way that you are worried about them responding. Both Ray and Sarah's mom

00:39:54.852 --> 00:39:56.792
learned these things for good reasons.

00:39:56.992 --> 00:40:00.432
Both adapted to survive in their childhood home. But then these same adaptations,

00:40:00.752 --> 00:40:05.232
when carried into adulthood, unchecked, create dysfunctional dynamics that leave everybody exhausted.

00:40:05.472 --> 00:40:07.832
So when you put all these patterns together, black and white thinking,

00:40:08.052 --> 00:40:10.592
mind reading, difficulty with accountability, emotional reasoning,

00:40:10.772 --> 00:40:11.892
external validation dependence.

00:40:12.172 --> 00:40:15.872
You got your magical thinking and the pressure to manage everybody else's emotions.

00:40:16.132 --> 00:40:20.092
You can see why a simple wedding announcement sent shockwaves through the whole

00:40:20.092 --> 00:40:22.752
family system. It wasn't just about a date on a calendar.

00:40:22.952 --> 00:40:26.692
It was about decades of emotional templates that start playing themselves out in real time.

00:40:27.452 --> 00:40:31.732
Ray wasn't trying to destroy the family or cause conflict. He was reacting from

00:40:31.732 --> 00:40:33.692
the only emotional playbook he'd ever been given.

00:40:33.872 --> 00:40:36.592
And that's the heart of emotional immaturity. It's not a lack of intelligence.

00:40:36.592 --> 00:40:39.912
It's not even a lack of love, but a lack of updated tools.

00:40:40.152 --> 00:40:42.552
And this is where the butterfly effect kicks in.

00:40:42.972 --> 00:40:45.912
So Ray tells Tyler, his son, his version of events.

00:40:46.092 --> 00:40:51.092
Tyler responds in kind. And Michael, who has been close with Tyler growing up

00:40:51.092 --> 00:40:55.212
as cousins, reaches out to smooth things over. Tyler takes a few days to respond.

00:40:55.432 --> 00:40:58.212
Then he responds and says, Hey, I think we're just not going to be able to make

00:40:58.212 --> 00:41:02.872
it to your wedding. But if that's not a priority for you to come to ours, I guess I understand.

00:41:03.092 --> 00:41:07.212
So again, he's being very passive aggressive saying, if that's not a priority for you, I understand.

00:41:07.472 --> 00:41:11.332
It's not conflict resolution. That's a passive aggressive missile launched.

00:41:11.452 --> 00:41:12.892
We're not coming. And it's your fault.

00:41:13.591 --> 00:41:17.111
Tyler learned it somewhere. Before we get there, I want to talk about curiosity.

00:41:17.371 --> 00:41:19.131
I think there's this spectrum of curiosity.

00:41:19.971 --> 00:41:23.951
Curiosity or the lack of it is one of the clearest windows, I think,

00:41:24.011 --> 00:41:25.571
into someone's emotional maturity level.

00:41:26.071 --> 00:41:29.471
Some people just aren't curious, not because they're lazy, but because they

00:41:29.471 --> 00:41:32.351
didn't see a model, because they can't take in someone else's opinion.

00:41:32.531 --> 00:41:35.991
If you're stuck in black and white thinking, hearing a different opinion feels

00:41:35.991 --> 00:41:40.031
like an attack. If you think differently than me, you must think I am wrong and you are right.

00:41:40.251 --> 00:41:43.431
And if I am wrong, then what am I? Bad? Worthless? Dumb?

00:41:43.811 --> 00:41:47.711
So instead of being curious, they tell, they inform, they explain,

00:41:47.891 --> 00:41:49.651
they talk at you, they control the narrative.

00:41:49.851 --> 00:41:52.311
They even tell you what I think that you are thinking or what you are believing.

00:41:52.811 --> 00:41:56.111
And that's not a conversation. That's a monologue with an audience.

00:41:57.051 --> 00:41:59.791
Performative curiosity, if we're starting to move up the spectrum,

00:41:59.931 --> 00:42:01.211
is curiosity as a checkbox.

00:42:01.511 --> 00:42:05.211
There, I asked. They don't lead in. They don't follow up. They asked because

00:42:05.211 --> 00:42:07.111
they were supposed to, not because they wanted to know.

00:42:07.371 --> 00:42:10.971
There is a question mark on the end of it. Okay, no, yeah, how was your day?

00:42:11.671 --> 00:42:15.171
Then you've got weaponized curiosity. And that's where people ask questions,

00:42:15.371 --> 00:42:17.011
but they're more designed as traps.

00:42:17.511 --> 00:42:20.671
Don't you think it's hypocritical that you're upset about this when you did

00:42:20.671 --> 00:42:24.711
that? It's not curiosity. That's an ambush, again, with a question mark.

00:42:25.391 --> 00:42:28.551
Genuine curiosity means stepping outside of your ego, being prepared to hear

00:42:28.551 --> 00:42:31.231
things that feel like potentially criticism.

00:42:31.431 --> 00:42:35.151
And instead of defending, continuing to be curious, to set your ego aside.

00:42:35.691 --> 00:42:39.791
It sounds like, hey, help me understand. and then actually trying to understand,

00:42:40.291 --> 00:42:41.871
actually actively listening.

00:42:42.071 --> 00:42:44.491
Genuine curiosity is wanting to understand someone's inner world,

00:42:44.631 --> 00:42:46.611
especially when it doesn't match yours.

00:42:46.931 --> 00:42:50.351
And it's difficult. It requires sitting with discomfort instead of reacting to it.

00:42:50.651 --> 00:42:53.811
One of the number one responses I see is that when somebody does say,

00:42:53.911 --> 00:42:57.371
okay, I do want to be genuinely curious, and then you share something with them

00:42:57.371 --> 00:42:59.691
and then they don't respond and they just say, well, I don't know what to say.

00:42:59.951 --> 00:43:03.451
And now we get back into the world of emotional immaturity that you're assuming

00:43:03.451 --> 00:43:05.211
there's a right thing or a wrong thing to say.

00:43:05.940 --> 00:43:11.220
Real intimacy is I want to know you. I want to understand. And you can even say, oh, I have no idea.

00:43:11.420 --> 00:43:15.220
I don't even know what to say or to have the courage to be known and to say,

00:43:15.740 --> 00:43:19.220
man, that's hard for me because I disagree. And so, I find myself wanting to

00:43:19.220 --> 00:43:21.140
defend myself or to attack what you're saying.

00:43:21.820 --> 00:43:25.880
That's a place that we can start from. But Uncle Ray is not good at sitting

00:43:25.880 --> 00:43:28.420
with discomfort. He is very good at reacting to it.

00:43:28.960 --> 00:43:34.440
Now, let's introduce Uncle Dave. Uncle Ray had cut his brother Dave out of his

00:43:34.440 --> 00:43:36.040
life years earlier. Total estrangement.

00:43:36.340 --> 00:43:39.480
And then one Christmas, seemingly out of nowhere, Ray decided to reach out.

00:43:39.600 --> 00:43:43.380
And given their history, that alone took a lot for him. I'm curious of what

00:43:43.380 --> 00:43:45.460
that was really all about. What was the angle?

00:43:45.680 --> 00:43:48.980
But the way he framed it revealed a lot about how he understood repair.

00:43:49.180 --> 00:43:52.020
He said, I'm open to reconnecting, but I want to leave the past in the past.

00:43:52.180 --> 00:43:54.520
And on the surface, it sounds reasonable. And I hear that often,

00:43:54.780 --> 00:43:56.480
especially when couples come in for therapy.

00:43:56.680 --> 00:43:59.280
It's like somebody's trying to move forward and they don't want to drag old

00:43:59.280 --> 00:44:03.260
pain behind them. And I do genuinely believe that Ray thought he was offering something generous.

00:44:03.660 --> 00:44:07.340
But underneath that hope was also a very human attempt to protect himself from

00:44:07.340 --> 00:44:11.580
vulnerability, from discomfort, from the uncertainty that real connection requires.

00:44:11.800 --> 00:44:15.540
Because what Ray was really saying from his emotional vantage point was.

00:44:16.149 --> 00:44:18.689
Hey, I don't know how to talk to you about what happened. I'm not even really

00:44:18.689 --> 00:44:20.389
sure what happened. I just don't like the way it felt.

00:44:20.549 --> 00:44:22.969
I don't know how to hold your experience in mind at the same time.

00:44:23.069 --> 00:44:27.089
So the only way I know how to feel safe reconnecting is if we don't ever touch old wounds at all.

00:44:27.409 --> 00:44:30.249
And that makes sense when you consider the family system you came from.

00:44:30.669 --> 00:44:34.009
Avoidance might have felt like the most stable path. But what it also meant

00:44:34.009 --> 00:44:37.569
was that the reconciliation he offered didn't allow space for Uncle Dave's feelings

00:44:37.569 --> 00:44:41.709
or the years of distance or the very real pain that had accumulated on both sides.

00:44:41.709 --> 00:44:45.329
It was an attempt at some type of connection, but it's framed in a way where

00:44:45.329 --> 00:44:50.649
Ray could feel secure without having to step into emotional territory that felt overwhelming to him.

00:44:51.009 --> 00:44:54.209
And here's the hard truth about being human. Even if we intellectually decide,

00:44:54.369 --> 00:44:57.969
let's not talk about the past, remind our bodies or our central nervous systems

00:44:57.969 --> 00:44:59.769
because they don't operate on that kind of logic.

00:45:00.069 --> 00:45:03.089
Our nervous systems remember things that our minds have been trying to forget.

00:45:03.389 --> 00:45:08.249
A smell, a tone of voice, a familiar pattern, any of it can bring old emotions forward.

00:45:08.809 --> 00:45:11.729
Not because somebody's trying to sabotage the relationship, but because that's

00:45:11.729 --> 00:45:14.189
how wounds surface when they've never been tended to.

00:45:14.449 --> 00:45:18.449
That's part of the human experience. So when Dave inevitably had a moment where

00:45:18.449 --> 00:45:22.589
something felt off or an old hurt might have bubbled up, Ray would have interpreted

00:45:22.589 --> 00:45:24.309
that through the only framework he knew.

00:45:24.449 --> 00:45:28.649
To him, oh, so now Dave's breaking the agreement and choosing conflict over connection.

00:45:28.809 --> 00:45:33.129
And from that place, Ray would get to conclude, see, I tried. He didn't want this.

00:45:33.409 --> 00:45:37.029
So from the outside, it's easy to see that the reconciliation was almost destined

00:45:37.029 --> 00:45:41.129
to struggle, not because either person was malicious, but because the conditions

00:45:41.129 --> 00:45:46.469
it was built on did not give the relationship room to breathe and to just be real.

00:45:46.789 --> 00:45:51.109
Real reconciliation is spacious. It says, hey, I'm here and I want to understand

00:45:51.109 --> 00:45:52.469
and we can take as long as we need.

00:45:52.689 --> 00:45:56.049
And it assumes that discomfort will come up and it makes room for it.

00:45:56.515 --> 00:45:59.135
Ray's version came from a place of emotional self-protection,

00:45:59.315 --> 00:46:02.755
offering connection, but only within boundaries that allowed him to stay in

00:46:02.755 --> 00:46:03.475
control of the narrative.

00:46:03.675 --> 00:46:07.595
And when Dave couldn't meet those conditions, conditions that I would worry

00:46:07.595 --> 00:46:11.375
that anyone with a history and a central nervous system could realistically

00:46:11.375 --> 00:46:14.995
meet, then Ray interpreted that as proof that the attempt had failed because

00:46:14.995 --> 00:46:17.815
of Dave, not because the framework itself didn't allow for healing.

00:46:17.955 --> 00:46:21.515
And I work from this place where I assume that nobody wakes up thinking,

00:46:21.735 --> 00:46:26.755
how can I sabotage reconnection today? that they wake up trying to do what feels

00:46:26.755 --> 00:46:31.455
best or safe for them, what feels possible, what matches, what they were taught.

00:46:31.615 --> 00:46:36.375
And sometimes those attempts, as genuine as they are, don't line up with what real repair requires.

00:46:36.635 --> 00:46:39.955
And before I go any further, I want to own something here big time because I

00:46:39.955 --> 00:46:43.195
am aware of it, even as I'm talking about all of this, I'm projecting.

00:46:43.595 --> 00:46:47.415
And projection at its simplest is when we take our own worldview,

00:46:47.755 --> 00:46:51.575
our own emotional logic, our own lived experience, and we assume that someone

00:46:51.575 --> 00:46:53.715
else must be operating from the same internal map.

00:46:54.055 --> 00:46:59.255
And we don't do it maliciously or even really on purpose, it's just the brain

00:46:59.255 --> 00:47:03.175
trying to make sense of behavior by filtering it through what we think we would do in that situation.

00:47:03.960 --> 00:47:06.740
And I fully acknowledge that I'm doing exactly that right now,

00:47:06.860 --> 00:47:10.000
describing Ray's actions through the lens of what I imagine someone might be

00:47:10.000 --> 00:47:13.480
feeling or trying to do, even if that person themselves doesn't consciously

00:47:13.480 --> 00:47:15.500
understand the deeper reasons for their own reactions.

00:47:15.860 --> 00:47:19.300
And the reason I want to highlight this is because it connects directly to one

00:47:19.300 --> 00:47:22.940
of the most important concepts in my four pillars of a connected conversation.

00:47:23.260 --> 00:47:26.220
Pillar one is to assume good intentions, to give somebody the benefit of the

00:47:26.220 --> 00:47:29.640
doubt, that people don't wake up in the morning and think, how can I cause harm?

00:47:29.780 --> 00:47:33.380
How can I make life miserable for the people that I love? That assumption comes

00:47:33.380 --> 00:47:36.640
from my worldview, absolutely, and probably from my own eternal optimism.

00:47:36.960 --> 00:47:41.000
Years of doing couples therapy, while that has been a game changer for a lot

00:47:41.000 --> 00:47:45.160
of people to operate from, to begin to try and have connected conversations,

00:47:45.380 --> 00:47:49.920
but I've also sat with people who are interacting with others and their behavior

00:47:49.920 --> 00:47:51.320
looks anything but well-intentioned.

00:47:51.420 --> 00:47:54.040
I've sat with people who would curse out their partners, who would manipulate

00:47:54.040 --> 00:47:57.540
or stonewall or weaponize silence in ways that were deeply hurtful.

00:47:57.540 --> 00:48:01.120
And pretty quickly, I've got the kind, pathologically responsible partner in

00:48:01.120 --> 00:48:04.020
my office saying, I know I'm supposed to assume good intentions when they're

00:48:04.020 --> 00:48:06.500
telling me to go jump in a lake, fly a kite, disappear.

00:48:07.471 --> 00:48:11.691
And then I say, oh, hold on. No, not that. Let's come up with something different.

00:48:11.931 --> 00:48:16.571
So, I added a part B to pillar one. And honestly, it does change things in a

00:48:16.571 --> 00:48:19.091
very good way. Part B is this.

00:48:19.591 --> 00:48:24.031
Or there's a reason why this person is doing or saying or acting the way that they are.

00:48:24.211 --> 00:48:27.311
And that matters because it shifts us out of the moralization of behavior,

00:48:27.411 --> 00:48:31.851
good person, bad person, and hopefully into more understanding, more curiosity.

00:48:31.851 --> 00:48:35.211
If somebody learned as a child that emotions were dangerous or that vulnerability

00:48:35.211 --> 00:48:38.351
was unsafe or that connection only came through conflict or control,

00:48:38.491 --> 00:48:40.531
then of course, those patterns show up in adulthood.

00:48:40.811 --> 00:48:43.991
And they're going to think that this is the way that you get somebody to listen

00:48:43.991 --> 00:48:46.871
to you is you have to be very, very mean or rude about it.

00:48:47.631 --> 00:48:51.211
Gaslighting, manipulation, shutting down, overreacting, all those behaviors have roots.

00:48:51.571 --> 00:48:55.391
Now that doesn't make them okay. And it certainly doesn't mean you have to tolerate them. You don't.

00:48:55.611 --> 00:48:58.931
You still get to decide the kind of relationships that you want in your life.

00:48:59.011 --> 00:48:59.971
And that's where boundaries come in.

00:49:00.111 --> 00:49:05.731
If this person does this, then I can't continue in this conversation or the relationship.

00:49:06.436 --> 00:49:10.936
But understanding where behavior comes from can help us approach it with clarity instead of chaos.

00:49:11.216 --> 00:49:14.596
And I can't tell you how many times I've been in a session where someone gets

00:49:14.596 --> 00:49:17.856
caught, for lack of a better word, caught in a lie, caught in manipulation,

00:49:18.136 --> 00:49:19.156
caught in an inconsistency.

00:49:19.676 --> 00:49:23.676
And when we slow the moment down, when we stay in the conversation long enough

00:49:23.676 --> 00:49:26.996
that they can't wriggle out of accountability, something profound happens.

00:49:27.196 --> 00:49:29.356
You see this flash of shame across their

00:49:29.356 --> 00:49:33.076
face, not guilt. Guilt says I did something bad. Shame says I am bad.

00:49:33.236 --> 00:49:37.756
I am broken. And that shame almost always traces back to childhood where the

00:49:37.756 --> 00:49:40.256
internal safety mechanism wasn't, hey, let me learn from this.

00:49:40.376 --> 00:49:45.156
But if I am bad enough, if I show that I am broken, then maybe someone will

00:49:45.156 --> 00:49:47.476
come rescue me. Someone will finally see that I am hurting.

00:49:47.816 --> 00:49:51.796
And sometimes, tragically, even that didn't work. The parent didn't come.

00:49:52.076 --> 00:49:56.176
The soothing didn't arrive. So the child internalized the belief that they actually are bad.

00:49:56.436 --> 00:50:00.096
And that belief didn't evaporate the day they turned 18. It followed them into

00:50:00.096 --> 00:50:04.676
adulthood. It shapes so many conflicts, relationships, moments of defensiveness.

00:50:05.156 --> 00:50:09.136
This is why I ask clients, especially early on, can you do me a favor and set

00:50:09.136 --> 00:50:10.376
aside right and wrong for a bit?

00:50:10.676 --> 00:50:14.036
Not because behavior doesn't matter, but because the moral framing keeps people

00:50:14.036 --> 00:50:17.976
stuck in shame. And when shame is there, it shuts down curiosity.

00:50:18.356 --> 00:50:21.916
When we can step back and simply look at ourselves through the lens of why do

00:50:21.916 --> 00:50:25.036
I do that? Why did I say that without declaring ourselves as good or bad?

00:50:25.356 --> 00:50:30.116
We start reclaiming our humanity because the truth is we're all just reacting

00:50:30.116 --> 00:50:32.216
to life for the very first time in that moment.

00:50:32.356 --> 00:50:34.616
That is the thing. Check that out. This is how I reacted.

00:50:34.956 --> 00:50:38.376
Then I can look at it with more curiosity, with more grace, with more compassion.

00:50:39.196 --> 00:50:42.456
We show up with these emotional tools that we were handed from childhood.

00:50:42.856 --> 00:50:46.696
Some of those tools serve us, but a lot of them don't. But our worth doesn't

00:50:46.696 --> 00:50:49.536
rise and fall based on whether somebody else approves of how we show up.

00:50:49.856 --> 00:50:53.376
So when I ask people to suspend right and wrong and instead follow their own

00:50:53.376 --> 00:50:56.756
pattern with gentleness and curiosity, it's because I want them to begin and

00:50:56.756 --> 00:50:58.216
separating their worth from their behavior.

00:50:58.596 --> 00:51:00.776
You're allowed to look back at your reactions, your triggers,

00:51:00.916 --> 00:51:05.616
your habits and say, oh man, that is fascinating. Instead of, what is wrong with me?

00:51:06.274 --> 00:51:09.734
Curiosity is where the growth begins. Shame, that's where it ends.

00:51:09.834 --> 00:51:12.914
And most of us have spent a lifetime living in the latter when what we truly

00:51:12.914 --> 00:51:14.814
needed was permission to explore the former.

00:51:15.114 --> 00:51:19.094
So when we talk about Ray's reaction or the way he approached reconnection with

00:51:19.094 --> 00:51:22.674
his brother Dave, it's not about judgment, at least the way I'm trying to present it.

00:51:22.834 --> 00:51:25.274
It's about understanding the emotional history that shaped him.

00:51:25.374 --> 00:51:28.754
Because these things don't come out of nowhere, which leads us right into the heart of it.

00:51:28.954 --> 00:51:32.934
Where did Uncle Ray learn this? So Sarah's grandparents divorced when her mom,

00:51:33.234 --> 00:51:35.614
her mother, and then also Ray and Dave were teenagers.

00:51:36.294 --> 00:51:39.834
And like many divorces, especially in that era, it was painful and it was complicated.

00:51:40.314 --> 00:51:42.354
And Dave went with their dad.

00:51:42.934 --> 00:51:46.694
Sarah's mom and Ray stayed with their mom. And here's the part that really stands out.

00:51:46.874 --> 00:51:50.914
In her hurt and in her overwhelm, Sarah's grandmother cut off Dave,

00:51:51.274 --> 00:51:54.334
her son, a teenager, because she felt that he had sided with his dad.

00:51:54.494 --> 00:51:56.414
And it's heartbreaking, but it's also very human.

00:51:56.774 --> 00:51:59.914
She was responding with the emotional tools that she had, shaped by her own

00:51:59.914 --> 00:52:03.274
upbringing, her own fears, and her own sense of what loyalty and family were

00:52:03.274 --> 00:52:06.994
supposed to look like. here's where projection is not a great thing.

00:52:07.696 --> 00:52:11.816
It's easy to project into that situation and say what I would have done had

00:52:11.816 --> 00:52:16.316
I been, and I'm literally talking me, a 56-year-old male human being living

00:52:16.316 --> 00:52:19.576
now, what I would have done as a female 40 years ago.

00:52:20.236 --> 00:52:23.416
That's kind of silly. Of course, I would have no idea what I would have done

00:52:23.416 --> 00:52:27.416
based off of all the things that brought her grandmother to the point where she was.

00:52:27.616 --> 00:52:30.816
From her perspective, Dave's choice felt like abandonment. She experienced it

00:52:30.816 --> 00:52:33.256
as betrayal, and in the emotional framework that she had learned,

00:52:33.436 --> 00:52:34.816
families were either united or divided.

00:52:34.816 --> 00:52:38.616
There wasn't much space for nuance or for a young person simply choosing the

00:52:38.616 --> 00:52:41.436
parent that they felt safest with or that they felt obligated to or they felt

00:52:41.436 --> 00:52:46.316
bad for or the one that they needed most at that moment or even as a way to

00:52:46.316 --> 00:52:50.196
break away from the way that they felt about their birth order,

00:52:50.356 --> 00:52:51.496
where they were with their siblings.

00:52:51.496 --> 00:52:55.216
As an adult, we hope that we can start to see the shades of gray,

00:52:55.256 --> 00:52:57.796
but when somebody is hurting, scared, or emotionally flooded,

00:52:58.156 --> 00:53:03.876
the world can shrink down to these stark categories that feel protective with us or against us.

00:53:03.956 --> 00:53:04.876
Not because they're cruel, but

00:53:04.876 --> 00:53:08.476
because that's the only template that they were taught, that they know.

00:53:08.996 --> 00:53:13.196
If you imagine the years that followed, it's not hard to see how she might have

00:53:13.196 --> 00:53:16.536
tried to make sense of everything by talking to the two children who stayed with her.

00:53:16.756 --> 00:53:19.736
She may have shared her pain, her fear, her narrative about what had happened,

00:53:19.916 --> 00:53:23.996
not to manipulate them, but because she truly believed her perspective was truth

00:53:23.996 --> 00:53:28.916
and that she needed them to be there for her. She needed them to hear her to keep them close.

00:53:29.116 --> 00:53:31.716
And so, Ray learned a version of love where loyalty meant agreement,

00:53:31.916 --> 00:53:36.416
where disagreement felt dangerous and where choosing differently could mean losing connection.

00:53:36.996 --> 00:53:40.956
So for him, it's normal. It's the familiar. This is how family works.

00:53:41.076 --> 00:53:43.876
You stick together, you share the same grievances, and you protect each other

00:53:43.876 --> 00:53:45.116
by seeing the world the same way.

00:53:45.276 --> 00:53:49.096
And when he mirrored his mother's feelings, she most likely felt understood,

00:53:49.096 --> 00:53:50.216
which reinforced the pattern.

00:53:50.436 --> 00:53:52.556
That's how he got his external validation, I'm guessing.

00:53:53.036 --> 00:53:56.996
He wasn't being conditioned maliciously. He was being loved in the way that she knew how to love.

00:53:57.578 --> 00:54:00.538
Sarah's mother learned something different, but equally understandable.

00:54:00.738 --> 00:54:03.858
Growing up in that emotional environment, most likely she became the one who

00:54:03.858 --> 00:54:08.298
watched for tension, who anticipated the reactions, who softened conflict before it erupted.

00:54:08.638 --> 00:54:12.358
That role can feel like the safest place in a family where emotional storms

00:54:12.358 --> 00:54:13.478
are very unpredictable.

00:54:13.858 --> 00:54:16.938
She becomes the peacemaker, not because she wants the burden of it,

00:54:17.038 --> 00:54:18.418
but that's just what she does.

00:54:18.558 --> 00:54:22.178
That's what her nervous system learned early, that harmony was survival and

00:54:22.178 --> 00:54:25.398
that her well-being depended on managing the emotional climate around her.

00:54:25.398 --> 00:54:30.118
So if you fast forward 40 years and you put Ray and Sarah's mom in the same

00:54:30.118 --> 00:54:32.098
room, of course, those childhood roles show up.

00:54:32.615 --> 00:54:35.955
Ray's tendency to see disagreement as threat makes sense given the emotional

00:54:35.955 --> 00:54:36.735
history he lived through.

00:54:37.175 --> 00:54:41.235
Sarah's mother's instinct to soothe and smooth and stabilize also makes sense

00:54:41.235 --> 00:54:44.475
because she was shaped by the same system carrying forward the strategies that

00:54:44.475 --> 00:54:46.715
once protected her and kept the peace.

00:54:46.895 --> 00:54:51.375
Neither one trying to really be purposely difficult or dramatic.

00:54:51.375 --> 00:54:54.955
They're simply doing what their nervous systems learn to do. What is the familiar?

00:54:55.155 --> 00:54:57.655
And before we go any further, I want to acknowledge something really important.

00:54:57.655 --> 00:55:01.095
I'm sharing all this from the tiny sliver of information Sarah was told,

00:55:01.255 --> 00:55:04.235
which she heard through the proverbial family grapevine, and then told me.

00:55:04.355 --> 00:55:08.115
I don't have her grandmother's full story. I don't know what her marriage really

00:55:08.115 --> 00:55:10.535
looked like or what led her to make the decision she made.

00:55:10.755 --> 00:55:15.175
I'm just illustrating this as a way to show how family systems evolve or show up.

00:55:15.375 --> 00:55:19.495
Because if we wanted, we could turn this part of the episode into a whole separate

00:55:19.495 --> 00:55:23.895
Choose Your Own Adventure podcast and talk about a narrative about her grandpa.

00:55:24.115 --> 00:55:26.675
Maybe her grandpa was inattentive. Maybe he struggled with his own wounds.

00:55:26.815 --> 00:55:30.655
Maybe he was a lying, cheating, no good son of a gun, or maybe he wasn't any

00:55:30.655 --> 00:55:32.615
of those things. But the truth is, we don't know.

00:55:33.015 --> 00:55:35.955
Family stories are rarely clean, but for the sake of today's conversation,

00:55:36.135 --> 00:55:38.835
we're focusing on the impact of the grandmother's emotional patterns,

00:55:38.975 --> 00:55:42.795
not to judge her, but to understand how one person's pain and coping strategies

00:55:42.795 --> 00:55:45.095
can ripple outward through generations.

00:55:45.355 --> 00:55:49.315
None of this happened in isolation. It's the long shadow of learned roles,

00:55:49.535 --> 00:55:52.595
survival strategies, and the stories that felt true at the time.

00:55:52.755 --> 00:55:57.435
Again, the family butterfly effect. Now what's the cost? They don't do Christmas together anymore.

00:55:57.675 --> 00:56:01.035
And when you say that out loud, it lands with kind of quiet sadness.

00:56:01.455 --> 00:56:04.535
Decades of traditions, meeting at a familiar house, navigating schedules,

00:56:04.715 --> 00:56:08.855
creating memories across generations, pictures, videos have simply fallen away.

00:56:09.542 --> 00:56:12.462
A lifetime of shared holidays, gone. And at one point, unfortunately,

00:56:12.602 --> 00:56:15.482
Tyler told family members that, yeah, now the more I think about it,

00:56:15.582 --> 00:56:18.242
coming to Sarah's family's home all those years, we were actually doing them

00:56:18.242 --> 00:56:20.422
a favor and that we had been putting up with it.

00:56:20.602 --> 00:56:23.322
And that's one of the most painful realities of living in the orbit of somebody

00:56:23.322 --> 00:56:26.222
who sees the world that Ray does. So emotionally immature.

00:56:26.722 --> 00:56:28.602
Even good memories have to get rewritten.

00:56:29.102 --> 00:56:32.342
It can't be that things were good until they weren't. Traditions that once felt

00:56:32.342 --> 00:56:34.182
warm and consistent get reframed as burdens.

00:56:34.822 --> 00:56:38.462
Moments that were shared in joy become evidence of being wronged or inconvenienced.

00:56:38.462 --> 00:56:43.122
And then there's Sarah's mother, the peacekeeper, who still doesn't want to

00:56:43.122 --> 00:56:45.262
cut Ray out to rock the boat, even after everything.

00:56:45.642 --> 00:56:49.422
Part of that comes from a genuine emotional maturity. But part of it is the

00:56:49.422 --> 00:56:52.102
old childhood programming still running in the background. If I can keep the

00:56:52.102 --> 00:56:54.402
peace, maybe everybody will stay okay.

00:56:55.182 --> 00:56:58.862
And what does that cost her? It might mean being accused of attacking simply

00:56:58.862 --> 00:56:59.722
for disagreeing gently.

00:56:59.882 --> 00:57:03.182
It means watching special moments get overshadowed or pulled into conflict.

00:57:03.302 --> 00:57:07.042
It may mean using emotional energy to manage someone who, through no malicious

00:57:07.042 --> 00:57:09.562
intent, may never be fully satisfied or soothed.

00:57:09.642 --> 00:57:12.362
And these patterns don't just stay contained.

00:57:12.622 --> 00:57:15.902
Now, Sarah's future children will grow up hearing stories about Uncle Ray.

00:57:16.082 --> 00:57:19.062
They'll learn which relatives are difficult, which holidays come with tension,

00:57:19.322 --> 00:57:22.742
which topics are safe or left alone. and those lessons quietly shape how children

00:57:22.742 --> 00:57:25.862
start to understand family and connection and belonging.

00:57:26.182 --> 00:57:30.142
Tyler's children, closer to Ray's worldview, may absorb a different set of rules,

00:57:30.182 --> 00:57:33.602
that disagreement equals attack, that cutting people off is an acceptable way

00:57:33.602 --> 00:57:36.842
to resolve conflict, and that loyalty means alignment rather than honesty.

00:57:37.495 --> 00:57:41.055
They may not even know that they're learning a template. They just absorb what feels normal.

00:57:41.335 --> 00:57:44.655
And then those children will grow up, form relationships, and start families of their own.

00:57:44.735 --> 00:57:47.715
And someday one of them might be planning a wedding and a small detail,

00:57:47.875 --> 00:57:51.275
a seating chart, a date, a perceived slight, could activate the same patterns

00:57:51.275 --> 00:57:52.975
that started years before they were even born.

00:57:53.415 --> 00:57:56.055
That's how these dynamics echo through a family system.

00:57:56.735 --> 00:58:00.335
Sarah's grandma made some choices decades ago, and they were shaped by her own

00:58:00.335 --> 00:58:02.635
pain and her own worldview and her own emotional inheritance.

00:58:02.635 --> 00:58:07.015
And then those choices shaped how she raised Ray and Sarah's mom and how those

00:58:07.015 --> 00:58:09.675
patterns are echoing into the next generation and the next.

00:58:09.875 --> 00:58:14.255
This is how emotional DNA travels, quietly, subtly, through stories and reactions

00:58:14.255 --> 00:58:16.155
and expectations and roles.

00:58:16.355 --> 00:58:19.495
Your grandparents' parents made decisions, handled conflict in certain ways,

00:58:19.655 --> 00:58:21.635
expressed or suppressed emotions in certain ways.

00:58:21.835 --> 00:58:24.515
That shaped your grandparents, which shaped your parents, which shaped you.

00:58:24.735 --> 00:58:27.455
And unless awareness steps in, those patterns continue forward,

00:58:27.635 --> 00:58:31.235
unexamined, unchallenged, and unnamed. And the powerful truth,

00:58:31.435 --> 00:58:33.695
the hopeful truth, is that each cycle can be interrupted.

00:58:34.355 --> 00:58:36.615
Awareness gives you options. Doing the work gives you tools.

00:58:36.795 --> 00:58:40.355
And choosing differently, even when it's hard, can create an entirely new set

00:58:40.355 --> 00:58:43.175
of ripples that move forward into every generation that follows.

00:58:43.715 --> 00:58:47.035
So what do you do if you have an Uncle Ray? The first hardest truth is this.

00:58:47.175 --> 00:58:48.615
You cannot change Uncle Ray.

00:58:48.875 --> 00:58:52.175
You can't love him into emotional maturity. You can't explain clearly enough

00:58:52.175 --> 00:58:55.295
or accommodate thoroughly enough or give him the aha moment or the epiphany

00:58:55.295 --> 00:58:57.335
or be patient long enough to transform him.

00:58:57.395 --> 00:59:00.675
But he's also not broken. He's simply running the emotional operating system

00:59:00.675 --> 00:59:02.995
he learned in his family, just like everybody else.

00:59:03.715 --> 00:59:07.395
Uncle Ray is going to Uncle Ray. It's not cynicism. That's reality.

00:59:07.935 --> 00:59:11.975
Now, what you can control, what you do have your own agency over is how you respond.

00:59:12.135 --> 00:59:16.375
You can set boundaries, not as punishment, but as protection for your emotional well-being.

00:59:16.575 --> 00:59:20.635
Boundaries that sound like if the conversations go in this direction, I will not be engaging.

00:59:20.855 --> 00:59:24.915
If someone is wanting me to be in the middle of passing messages,

00:59:24.915 --> 00:59:28.075
I will not do that. You can refuse triangulation.

00:59:28.535 --> 00:59:31.115
When Ray tries to pull you into the story he's spinning, you don't have to play

00:59:31.115 --> 00:59:33.815
the part he's assigning you. You can say, oh, that sounds really difficult.

00:59:33.835 --> 00:59:36.195
I hope you can work that out and step out of the emotional crossfire.

00:59:36.801 --> 00:59:40.621
And you can grieve because there is grief. People spend years exhausting themselves

00:59:40.621 --> 00:59:42.181
trying to create a normal relationship

00:59:42.181 --> 00:59:44.641
with somebody who isn't necessarily capable of meeting them there.

00:59:44.921 --> 00:59:48.361
You're allowed to grieve the version of the family that you wish you had and

00:59:48.361 --> 00:59:51.221
the holidays that didn't happen and the uncle that you hoped he would be.

00:59:51.441 --> 00:59:54.721
That grief is real and it deserves to be acknowledged. And if you're the peacekeeper,

00:59:54.961 --> 00:59:58.521
this is a moment to examine that role too. Peacekeeping often feels noble.

00:59:58.801 --> 01:00:02.241
And yes, refusing to cut people off at the first sign of trouble can be a sign

01:00:02.241 --> 01:00:04.181
of maturity. But there's also the shadow side.

01:00:04.701 --> 01:00:08.821
Sometimes it's maybe not maturity. it might be this childhood strategy still running the show.

01:00:09.081 --> 01:00:13.021
The belief that if you work hard enough, you can calm the emotional waters of

01:00:13.021 --> 01:00:14.161
the entire family system.

01:00:14.361 --> 01:00:17.841
That if you keep everybody else steady, then you'll finally feel safe.

01:00:18.221 --> 01:00:21.541
And sometimes peacekeeping is simply the nervous system repeating what it learned

01:00:21.541 --> 01:00:25.261
early on. Real emotional maturity isn't just refusing to cut people off.

01:00:25.841 --> 01:00:29.381
Real maturity is being able to disagree, hold a boundary, allowing somebody

01:00:29.381 --> 01:00:33.041
else to be uncomfortable and stay grounded in your own worth without abandoning

01:00:33.041 --> 01:00:34.281
the relationship or yourself.

01:00:34.841 --> 01:00:38.461
That's differentiation. That's the goal. And then there's the deeper work,

01:00:38.601 --> 01:00:40.781
looking inward at the patterns that you absorbed.

01:00:40.961 --> 01:00:44.341
Because growing up with an Uncle Ray doesn't just affect how you view him.

01:00:44.521 --> 01:00:48.141
It shapes how you view yourself and conflict and emotions and intimacy.

01:00:48.421 --> 01:00:52.421
Maybe you learn to walk on eggshells. Maybe you learn that conflict must be avoided at all costs.

01:00:52.681 --> 01:00:56.021
Maybe you absorb some of Ray's own survival strategies. And so breaking the

01:00:56.021 --> 01:00:59.001
cycle isn't just about managing the difficult person.

01:00:59.141 --> 01:01:03.261
It's about becoming aware of how their pattern lives, maybe even in you,

01:01:03.261 --> 01:01:04.921
and then you get to choose differently.

01:01:05.161 --> 01:01:08.941
And this is where I want to gently turn the focus to you, my wonderful listener,

01:01:09.141 --> 01:01:12.641
because every family system has its own butterfly effect and that includes yours.

01:01:13.041 --> 01:01:15.801
Somewhere in your family line, someone learned to shut down,

01:01:16.041 --> 01:01:19.101
somebody learned to explode, somebody learned to please and to disappear and

01:01:19.101 --> 01:01:22.881
to take care of everybody else and to perform and to control and to avoid and to rescue.

01:01:23.201 --> 01:01:26.501
And those patterns, whether spoken or silent, got handed down.

01:01:26.621 --> 01:01:28.321
And eventually they reached you.

01:01:29.006 --> 01:01:32.906
So here's the question I would love to have you sit with. If you became the

01:01:32.906 --> 01:01:36.186
butterfly in your family system, the catalyst for change, what might that look like?

01:01:36.566 --> 01:01:39.786
Not changing for your family, not performing to meet expectations,

01:01:39.786 --> 01:01:43.606
but becoming more you, more grounded, more differentiated, more authentic,

01:01:43.806 --> 01:01:45.446
more of the person that you would like to be.

01:01:45.706 --> 01:01:48.406
And here's the thing that most people don't anticipate, that as you begin to

01:01:48.406 --> 01:01:50.726
show up differently, the system around you will often push back.

01:01:51.166 --> 01:01:54.146
Not because you're doing something wrong, but because you're disrupting your

01:01:54.146 --> 01:01:57.886
familiar role. You're no longer the peacekeeper or the problem solver or the

01:01:57.886 --> 01:02:01.286
invisible one or the overachiever or the comedian or the caretaker or the quiet one.

01:02:01.526 --> 01:02:04.926
You're stepping into a new version of yourself that creates friction and systems

01:02:04.926 --> 01:02:05.966
built on predictability.

01:02:06.186 --> 01:02:09.926
But please hear this. Your growth can be the catalyst.

01:02:10.506 --> 01:02:14.266
Your change can be the flap of wings that shifts the emotional climate for generations.

01:02:14.566 --> 01:02:18.446
Your clarity, your boundaries, your healing can plant seeds that ripple outward

01:02:18.446 --> 01:02:21.926
into your children and their children and their children's children.

01:02:21.926 --> 01:02:25.946
And long after you're gone, your courage can be the reason somebody else in

01:02:25.946 --> 01:02:29.326
your lineage feels emotionally safe, understands themselves better,

01:02:29.386 --> 01:02:31.326
or chooses healthier relationships.

01:02:31.626 --> 01:02:35.046
We tend to underestimate our impact in a family system, but every meaningful

01:02:35.046 --> 01:02:38.566
shift starts with one person saying, you know, I think this pattern ends here.

01:02:38.706 --> 01:02:42.646
And that brings us to hope because the butterfly effect works both ways.

01:02:42.866 --> 01:02:46.006
One person's dysfunction can ripple through generations, but so can one person's health.

01:02:46.386 --> 01:02:50.026
Every time you respond differently, every time you set a boundary instead of appeasing,

01:02:50.526 --> 01:02:53.766
tell the truth instead of placating, stay grounded instead of escalating or

01:02:53.766 --> 01:02:56.246
process your emotions instead of projecting them onto somebody else,

01:02:56.386 --> 01:02:59.886
you create a new ripple and your children notice, maybe not consciously,

01:03:00.146 --> 01:03:03.526
maybe not this year, maybe not even in the moment, but they notice that conflict

01:03:03.526 --> 01:03:05.006
can be faced without catastrophizing.

01:03:05.825 --> 01:03:08.685
Disagreement doesn't mean disconnection and that it's possible to hold onto

01:03:08.685 --> 01:03:11.585
yourself without losing others and they'll carry that

01:03:11.585 --> 01:03:14.945
forward and then those ripples continue you got

01:03:14.945 --> 01:03:18.605
dr johnning standing next to a simple poster continuing to believe in something

01:03:18.605 --> 01:03:22.925
nobody else could see good old gila monster saliva the ripples of that courage

01:03:22.925 --> 01:03:26.905
are still expanding preventing alzheimer's reducing addiction saving lives addressing

01:03:26.905 --> 01:03:30.285
obesity a driver made a wrong turn and it changed the course of history edward

01:03:30.285 --> 01:03:34.065
lorenz rounded a number and the world discovered that small inputs can shift entire systems.

01:03:34.565 --> 01:03:37.845
So the question isn't whether you'll create ripples. Oh, you will. We all do.

01:03:38.225 --> 01:03:40.205
The question is, what kind of ripples do you want to create?

01:03:40.445 --> 01:03:41.485
So thanks for listening, everybody.

01:03:41.625 --> 01:03:43.525
I know this one went deep. If it stirred something up in you,

01:03:43.625 --> 01:03:47.265
memories of your own family, your own patterns, your own internal Uncle Ray's, completely normal.

01:03:47.425 --> 01:03:49.765
I would love to hear it. Send me your comments. Send me your questions.

01:03:50.485 --> 01:03:53.005
Send this one to somebody if you think it would help them. We're heading into

01:03:53.005 --> 01:03:56.145
the holidays and we're going to have a lot of people that are going to be around a lot of families.

01:03:56.565 --> 01:04:00.905
So hopefully those will be these opportunities for you to maybe show up a little bit different.

01:04:01.305 --> 01:04:04.705
There's the work. We don't explore this because it's easy. We explore it because it matters.

01:04:04.925 --> 01:04:07.845
Taking us out per usual, the wonderful, the talented Aurora Florence with her

01:04:07.845 --> 01:04:11.285
song, It's Wonderful, because hopefully you get the vibe that you can truly

01:04:11.285 --> 01:04:14.805
start to make things feel a little more wonderful for you and your family system.

01:04:14.985 --> 01:04:16.465
I'll see you next time on The Virtual Cat.