CALLING HOME with Whitney Goodman, LMFT - Can Estranged Families Reconcile?

Starting point is 00:00:00 Get to Toronto's main venues like Budweiser Stage and the new Roger Stadium with Go Transit. Thanks to Go Transit's special online e-ticket fairs, a $10 one-day weekend pass offers unlimited travel on any weekend day or holiday anywhere along the Go Network. And the weekday group passes offer the same weekday travel flexibility across the network, starting at $30 for two people and up to $60 for a group of five. Buy your online go pass ahead of the show at go-transit.com slash tickets. Welcome back to the Calling on podcast. I'm your host, Winnie Goodman. Today we are going to be talking about reconciliation and if relationships between adult children and their parents are actually possible if they've been estranged or they've had issues or conflict. And if so, what needs to happen? For all of my biggest fans out there that say I never talk about repairing relationships or

Starting point is 00:00:59 about reconciliation or I just want to tear families apart, this episode is for you because this is going to not be about quick fixes. It's about honestly assessing through the research that we have on repair and family relationships and knowing when to walk away. I want to acknowledge that all of you come to this episode at very different stages and with different desires for the relationships and that this can be a huge weight if you are not the one that initiated the estrangement or if you are the one that did and you are in different positions and maybe feeling responsible for fixing this or maybe feeling helpless and unable to or somewhere in between. And so please take from this episode what you think would be the most helpful and

Starting point is 00:01:55 valuable to you. Whenever we're talking about fixing a relationship, repairing it, reconciling, I want you to remember that this isn't just about fixing a relationship. It's often about a system that is sick. You've heard me talk a lot about how families are ecosystems. And when one relationship gets kind of messed up or tricky, typically there are a lot of other things. And in the system that we need to attend to or we need to fix. And that takes a lot of time and effort. And it also takes reconciliation, efforts, and the desire to fix things from a lot of people within the system. And so reconciliation is not just about your personal desire to make things better, to act like nothing has happened, to just get on with it or get over it.

Starting point is 00:02:55 It's about whether the system can sustain repair. And for some of you, the system is so overwhelmed or so sick or struggling so much that no matter how much you want to fix things, the system cannot sustain that level of intensive effort at this time. And that's when we're going to talk more about what you can do on your own when the relationship or the system is not in a place of repair or reconciliation when that is not a possibility at that time. Because unfortunately, that is not something that you can control. We can only repair when there is mutual, often systemic, system-wide effort. And I think that's what

Starting point is 00:03:46 makes this so tricky as well. And we're going to get further into that. So the first thing, I want to talk to you about is the core ingredients of repair within family relationships. And a lot of this is based on research studies that have done about repair. And I'm going to link all of the studies that I am talking about that I read for this episode in the show notes. These are the things that need to happen if we want repair to be possible. The first thing is, is that there has to be active, empathetic listening. Repair begins when people really feel truly seen and validated.

Starting point is 00:04:30 So this is not pretending. It's not listening and letting one thing go in one ear and out the other. It's that we have to actually be listening to understand. So active empathetic listening includes really saying like, tell me more about that. I want to understand how you feel. I have a question about X. Can you tell me more about why? I can see why you would feel that way. That makes sense. I understand why that was difficult. I want to learn more about this. Tell me more about that. So really creating an environment where you are sitting with this person and actively trying to understand why they feel the way that they

Starting point is 00:05:16 feel and what has led to them feeling that way and trying to seek understanding through compassionate calm inquiry. If anybody has been to therapy, you've seen your therapist do this with you, right? And it's this way of asking questions of like, I'm really genuinely curious and want to know what is going on with you. The second core ingredient that is required for repair in families is accountability, which means acknowledging harm, understanding its impact, and taking responsibility. So let's break that down. The acknowledging harm comes after the active listening. So once I understand how you were feeling and what led to that feeling, I can say, I see how when I did this, it made you feel this way or it caused this outcome.

Starting point is 00:06:23 I see that when I yelled at you after work when I was stressed, that that made you feel unseen and unheard and like I don't care about you. I can see how that was wrong and how that was hurtful. You can acknowledge the harm, understand the impact, so what it led to, what the consequence was of that behavior, and take responsibility for it. I did that. I should not have yelled at you. I was stressed and I need to find a better way to manage my stress so that I do not do that in the future because I don't want to be in a relationship where my stress leads to me hurting you. Okay. So do you see there how you're acknowledging the hurt? You're understanding its impact, what your behavior led to, whether you intended it to or not, and then taking responsibility for it.

Starting point is 00:07:23 Okay. So the opposite of this would be defensiveness. Like, I guess I'm just the worst ever. I can never do anything right. You're always riding on me. All you do is complain about me. That is not accountability. and that will not lead to true repair, right? Or saying things like, I'm only human. Can we just move on? You know I love you. That is not accountability. Okay.

Starting point is 00:07:49 The third thing is behavioral change. So after you have listened, you heard, you were accountable, you understood the harm, the impact, and you took responsibility, then real trust gets built through seeing consistent, tangible changes, not just promises or gifts or displays of affection, but real behavioral change, right? And so if we go back to the example of someone coming home and yelling every day after work when they're stressed, some behavioral changes might be, I am working on doing therapy. I am working on meditation.

Starting point is 00:08:37 I am reading about how to manage my stress. I'm going to start working out so I have an outlet. I'm going to take a walk around the block when I get home for five minutes so that I can cool down and not come in and snap and dump on our family. I am working on not yelling at you when I come in the house and I am frustrated. Instead, when I feel myself getting activated, I'm going to take a break. and step outside. I'm going to tell you I feel like I'm about to blow and I'm going to take a moment. And the more that this happens, the more that the behavioral change is implemented and that

Starting point is 00:09:11 there is also accountability within that behavioral change because no one's perfect, you're going to mess up. So if you do snap or yell or you do the thing again that you said you weren't going to, in those moments can you say, oh my gosh, I did that and I said I wasn't going to. I can see why that is upsetting to you and why that scares you because I said I was going to work on that and I am working on it. I caught myself. I see that I did that and it's not how I want to be. It's not how I want to show up in this relationship. And so I want you to know that I see it. I get it. I'm working on it. And I'm taking accountability for my behavior and I'm going to work on my behavior. Sometimes, unfortunately, for those of you that really want to reconcile and you want to

Starting point is 00:09:58 fix things. These things take time. They take a lot of consistent effort for the person to see that there has been behavioral change. Okay. There also has to be a mutual willingness. So research shows that reconciliation requires something called bilateral commitment. Unilateral repair rarely works. And what that means is that both of you have to feel committed to the repair process. And the unfortunate reality is that sometimes you might be committed and the other person is not willing to do the work. Sometimes you might be committed to do the work and the other person doesn't want to see you do the work. And they don't want to see the outcome of that or they're too scared. They're not willing.

Starting point is 00:10:44 They don't trust it. They don't think that you're going to follow through. And it's very hard to be on both sides of that spectrum. the last core ingredient that you need. The fifth one is safety. Without emotional or physical safety, repair is impossible. People have to feel like they can be safe with you. Like you are not going to hurt them. Certainly like you're not going to hurt them on purpose or not actively be trying to hurt them. Without safety, the person cannot trust your efforts. And so that is why sometimes mutual willingness doesn't happen because there is no safety and that's also why the other person

Starting point is 00:11:27 might not be willing to kind of stick around and see what you're doing because they don't feel safe and the truth is this really hard thing is that often safety gets built through behavioral change that builds trust over time and so you might feel very frustrated like I just want this person to trust me again and to feel like, look, why don't they see what I'm doing? I want it to feel better. And because you might be feeling shame or guilt or grief, you are getting aggravated with them not seeing how quickly you're trying to change. And it's because that other person likely doesn't feel safe yet.

Starting point is 00:12:07 And it might take them some time to feel safe. I also think that you have to have a couple of other like added little bonus. ingredients that I'm going to mention here. And that is vulnerability and courage. And Bray Brown talks about this in her framework. I forget exactly which book it's from, but vulnerability is required for repair. You ultimately have to be willing to say I'm going to take a chance on you. I'm going to take a chance on you forgiving me. And I'm going to take a chance on you showing me accountability and that you will change your behavior. And if someone has touched a hot stove a lot of times, they've gotten hurt by you so many times, it's hard for them to be vulnerable. And sometimes for people who have a lot

Starting point is 00:12:52 of shame who have messed up a lot and hurt a lot of people in big ways, they struggle with being vulnerable. It's easier to, as Brene Brown says, really armor yourself up and say, I didn't do anything wrong. I'm not the problem here. You should just get over it and move on because that doesn't require any vulnerability. You can stay safe there from your shame. It's not fun. It's not enjoyable to live like that. But for people who cannot handle the vulnerability, that's often where they have to stay and they lose out on a lot of good relationships because of that. You also have to have courage. You have to be brave to repair. To allow someone that hurts you back into your life to give them another chance is an act of bravery and sometimes it might feel like an act of us being stupid

Starting point is 00:13:37 or doing it too many times and some people get fed up and they're like, I don't want to, I want to have the courage to get this person out of my life because they've hurt me so many times. And others of you need the courage to be vulnerable and allow this person to try or to try to repair yourselves. It's hard to know exactly what courage looks like in these moments. And I think it's different for all of you depending on the relationship. There's also some pretty good research on when relationships are unsalvageable. So these are characteristics of relationships where reconciliation is very unlikely. If there are persistent behaviors that lead to a lack of safety or ongoing abuse,

Starting point is 00:14:26 probably not salvageable, certainly not until the abuse stops. And that requires accountability, behavioral change. awareness, all of that. When there's been a complete breakdown of trust and that trust hasn't been rebuilt, there is no foundation to the relationship, very difficult to fix without that. When there are fundamental value conflicts, when your worldviews make mutual respect impossible, very hard to salvage that. Repeated failed attempts also often end in unsalvageable relationships. So cycles where there's constant just, let's repair this, let's brush it under the rug, let's just move on, let's try again where nothing changes, those relationships often end up in the end falling apart. There's also the fact that sometimes active estrangement is being maintained.

Starting point is 00:15:21 And when a parent or an adult child deliberately chooses no contact is reinforcing that and does not have again that mutual desire for reconciliation because, they feel like there's been a complete breakdown of trust or there's a value conflict or they've had just too many failed attempts, they likely are not going to salvage this relationship. I also want to point out that recognizing these qualities of unsalvageable relationships are not about giving up. It's really just to give you a sense of clarity of like, what is the reality of this relationship. What does this look like? You know, if I have all of these qualities, what is going to happen if I can continue to put myself back into this cycle where nothing seems to be fixed? And for each of you, that's going to look different. There are some people that

Starting point is 00:16:17 do it for 20 years before they decide this is enough for me, some who say I've endured enough in this one year that I don't want to try this again. And I think you can apply that to any relationships, not just difficult parent and adult child relationships. I want to break down some of these situations where repair is unlikely a little bit more here for you so that you can understand what that might look like in your relationships and what the research says about that. There is consistent evidence that ongoing toxic behavior is a primary barrier to relationship repair. And adult children frequently attribute estrangement to their parents' toxic behavior or feeling unsupported and unaccepted. And this is something I've

Starting point is 00:17:07 seen in my work is that the majority of adults are saying the behavior is continuing in adulthood. It's what they're doing today. And I do not feel supported or accepted by my parents. These are something that I hear almost unanimously across estranged adults that I work with. And so when parents in adulthood continue to mistreat their adult children, abuse them, they're indifferent to them, the adult children often conclude that reconciliation is impossible because they are not seeing any of that mutual commitment that we talked about to reconciliation. And I think the fundamental issue here is that continued harmful behavior prevents the establishment of safety that is necessary for repair that we talked about in that first part. When we're talking about the complete

Starting point is 00:18:00 breakdown of trust and safety, no trust means there can be no repair efforts. And I think adults who experienced childhood abuse often feel the need to repair these relationships in adulthood. They want to have a different relationship with their adults. But the lack of trust in the abusive parent because of the foundation of their relationship being built on abuse makes this process very challenging. And so if basic safety cannot be established, whether that's physically or emotionally, these reconciliation attempts can become futile. And I think this is particularly pronounced when there's been severe trauma or when the harmful

Starting point is 00:18:45 party, the abusive person, shows no acknowledgement of wrongdoing. And so an example I want to give you here is, you know, if you had a parent that was abusive physically or emotionally or both in childhood, and when you get to adulthood, they stop doing those things primarily because they just can't abuse you physically anymore emotionally because of distance, societal norms, their age, whatever it is. And that parent does not even remotely acknowledge what happened in your childhood. they say like, oh, I wasn't abusive or it wasn't that bad. I didn't really hurt you. Even though they're not necessarily doing it anymore in the present, it's still so impossible to rebuild that trust because they don't feel like what they did was wrong or hurtful. So how can you trust that they're going to have the ability to make those judgment calls

Starting point is 00:19:41 in the present and not hurt you again? When we're talking about fundamental value conflicts, there is some research that shows that disagreements about beliefs and values are a significant factor in estrangement. And what I have found is that they're actually, you know, in the surveying I've done in the conversations that I've had with thousands of estranged adults, it's less about political differences and more about how those values play out in everyday life. I actually talk to a lot of adults who have the same political or religious affiliation as they're a estranged parent. There's not as much of this like, oh, my parent is this and I'm that. And so I hate them because of that. Adults gave me a lot more clear examples about the truths that their parents hold about

Starting point is 00:20:36 the world and these worldviews that just affect their ability to coexist. respectfully because that parent is insulting someone close to them or doesn't want to spend time around people of a certain group or believes that certain people should not have the right to exist or is very cruel and punitive with their beliefs. And that is what makes it difficult for those people to have a relationship. And repair becomes unlikely because there's often not a mutual desire for it. And I've, of course, heard from parents who feel that their child's values or worldviews or politics are ridiculous and they hate them or they are upset by them and they don't want to have a relationship with them. This does, of course, flow both ways.

Starting point is 00:21:26 I think we need to spend more time thinking about this other roadblock, which is repeated failed reconciliation attempts and how that can actually get you to a point where you're actively main. the estrangement and you don't want to do it anymore. When you get into this cycle of feeling like a pressure to reconcile, attempting to reconcile, and then it failing over and over and over, eventually the person gets to this point where they're like, this person cannot change. They are not doing any of those things that need to happen in order to reconcile or we keep getting to this one point and the relationship falls apart. And so now I am going to actively maintain the estrangement. And when that happens, it means that the relationship is likely beyond repair, right? There is a continuous decision to maintain that no contact. And it's more

Starting point is 00:22:24 of a conclusion than a temporary stop once someone has really gone through all of those repeated failed attempts because I think then they start to view the person as, this is not about what you're doing, it's fundamentally who you are and how you are choosing to approach this relationship consistently over time. And now I don't see you having the ability to change that. And I think that can be really difficult on both sides of this for both the person who is choosing that estrangement and the person who is on the receiving end. But what I want to say is that when someone approaches you with a desire to reconcile or fix things, they are showing a fundamental belief in your ability to grow and change. And when you choose not to take that

Starting point is 00:23:12 repeatedly over time, that belief erodes. And they no longer hold that belief about you. And it can be very hard to accept that someone has gotten to a point where they say, I don't believe that you can be different. And they have to accept you. And if I don't believe that you, You can be different. And I can't have a relationship with this you. That's really hard. That's a hard place to get to. Reading, playing, learning.

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Starting point is 00:24:11 genuine willingness to repair things? Or is this just like surface level compliance? And we'll get into the difference between the two of those. So when someone is genuinely showing that they want to repair and be accountable, and change and fix this relationship and this needs to happen on both sides. I'm not saying that just a parent needs to act like this and the adult child doesn't need to come to the stage with this. They both do. When someone genuinely wants to repair, they will acknowledge the problems typically without being cornered or given an ultimatum or being forced to. They will acknowledge

Starting point is 00:24:56 on their own volition. They will have specific descriptions and awareness of what went wrong, not these vague, just like, oh, I must have been the worst mother ever, or I know I didn't do anything right in your childhood, or, yeah, I just upset you sometimes. I know I'm the worst. Like, they will have actual descriptions of the issue from their point of understanding, or they will be open to talking about it. They will have emotional engagement and appropriate affect when they're discussing harm.

Starting point is 00:25:31 So they'll be able to discuss things calmly, openly, with empathy, not getting super angry and becoming abusive or overwhelmingly angry during these conversations. They're going to be able to have these discussions. They're also showing initiative in getting help or making changes in their life, whatever that looks like. It doesn't have to be therapy. It could be a million other ways that you are demonstrating that you want to fix this and make it better. There's also consistency between the intentions that are being stated. So I want to fix this relationship. I want to be close to you. I want to make this better. And the behavior over time. You can track the intentions and the behavior moving along this

Starting point is 00:26:22 path, right? There's also the ability to tolerate discomfort during these really difficult conversations and to hear how each person feels and their experience and what they're working on and the things that are hard for them and there is this genuine willingness to be open about that. If you see these things, you can probably trust and acknowledge that this person genuinely would like to repair the relationship. Now, surface level compliance happens when someone is showing that they want to fix things, but maybe not really. They just want to say that they tried or they want to just kind of like make things better really quickly, brush it under the rug, move along. This is more like shame motivated type of behavior,

Starting point is 00:27:12 shame or guilt. So this is what that's going to look like. Only engaging, when they're pressured or someone is really like cornering them, giving them ultimatums, or there is like an upcoming trip or plans, like something that they want to quickly make things better for. They might use minimizing or vague statements. Like, I know I wasn't perfect. I'm only human. Like things that just do not acknowledge what happened or make up for the harm in any

Starting point is 00:27:42 legitimate way. There's a lack of emotional depth. they have a flat affect or they are very like aggressive and angry and not actively trying to like listen or have you share so that they can seek understanding. And also they would have very passive participation. So requiring you to drive the entire process of their behavioral change or any of their self-improvement. So you're finding the therapist, you're scheduling the appointments, you're sending them the books, you're sending them podcast episodes, you're the one tracking their behavior like they just have no active participation or drive in the process

Starting point is 00:28:22 and if you stopped the whole process would come to a halt that is a red flag also their words and actions don't match they're telling you that they want to fix things they want it to be better they love you they want to be close with you but none of their actions are doing that at all they also might avoid hard conversations they really just want to focus on the positive make things better, get to the part where everything is good between you without really like getting into the messy stuff that actually requires that. And so if you see some of these things, it might be a harsh reality that this person is not really ready for a mutual commitment to reconciliation.

Starting point is 00:29:05 And if you even notice some of these in yourself, it's worth evaluating like how committed am I to this process and to fixing this relationship. Like maybe I'm not actually as committed as I thought I was. So if reconciliation is possible, let's say that you have identified that you feel like you want to reconcile, you think it might be possible. There's some commitment here. There's some willingness to change. I think you also have to assess the capacity for change of this person.

Starting point is 00:29:38 Can they actually change what you would like them to change about themselves? And there's some key domains for assessing genuine capacity for change that we see in the research on reconciliation. The first one is willingness and motivation. So you've seen this reflected in some of the other things that we've talked about. So they have to have willingness that they are demonstrating and showing in the change process, not just compliance with external pressures, but they have acknowledgement of problems, acceptance of responsibility, and motivation.

Starting point is 00:30:11 and motivation to address underlying issues. They also have the ability to problem solve. So families with a greater capacity for change have better problem solving dynamics. And this includes the ability to identify issues, generate solutions, and implement those changes effectively. They also need to have some key relationship competencies. So they need to be able to engage in relational support during times of distress. have some communication skills, emotional regulation, and the ability to maintain connection

Starting point is 00:30:48 during conflict. And so these are sometimes skills that people really need to gain on their own before they decide to engage in the reconciliation process, right? There also has to be the capacity for sustained engagement. And that is something that I think a lot of people who want to reconcile unfortunately lack. You have to be able to sustain. To sustain. this long term to rebuild trust and a foundation in this relationship. Some people are only really excited with that initial enthusiasm to fix the relationship right at the start and they can't maintain it over time. In order to have this sustained engagement, it's very important that you are able to set realistic expectations, go really slow, and engage in the

Starting point is 00:31:39 consistency and patience and reciprocal effort that is required for rebuilding trust. I want to talk a little bit about the role of therapy as well. A lot of people, I think, want to jump into family therapy together immediately when they want to reconcile. And sometimes I want to caution against this because I think a lot of people, especially who do not have all of those relational competencies that we just discussed that are about the capacity for change, they typically need to. to do a lot of individual therapy before engaging in the reconciliation process.

Starting point is 00:32:16 Family therapy can help, but again, only if both people are involved, genuinely invested, and have the ability to do those things that we just discussed in the part right before this, those relationship competencies. If you are going to see a family therapist or an individual therapist, there are some therapies that can be helpful. So a therapist that really works with attachment theory can be helpful looking at internal family systems or IFS. And then also people who are trained in family systems work, those are going to be people who typically have a marriage and family therapy license or that concentration

Starting point is 00:32:57 within whatever graduate program they did to become a therapist or a psychologist. And I think the question of like, well, how many sessions do we? we have to do often comes up. And when someone asks me that, I know that is a red flag that you are not in this for the long haul of what this is going to take to repair a relationship. Because the answer to that question should be whatever it takes. I'm going to do whatever it takes to repair this relationship. If you truly feel like the commitment is there, you're invested. You want to learn the skills and you think that it's salvageable. I think sometimes when you have that feeling of like, well, how long am I going

Starting point is 00:33:42 to have to do this? It's showing maybe some doubt, some fear, some shame, guilt, or a lack of desire to really participate. And that is something that you should look at and dive into on your own. The discussion of apologies also comes up a lot, I think, in conversations about reconciliation. And so if you are going to give an apology or you're on the receiving end of an apology. It's very important to remember the ingredients of a

Starting point is 00:34:15 real apology, right? And you'll notice that this sounds very similar to a lot of the other things that we've discussed in this episode. So naming the harmful behavior specifically, having genuine remorse without excuses, understanding the impact, and concrete steps towards change. And we have so many great scripts on calling home for members of the family cycle breakers claw that calling home.co, you can learn how to ask for an apology, what a real apology sounds like, how to explain when a boundary has been crossed. I'm going to link some of those resources in the show notes as well and some different things for people who are looking to reconcile or see if reconciliation is possible because we do have tons of scripts,

Starting point is 00:35:04 videos, articles, and worksheets to help you with this process. And you can join the Family Cycle Breakers Club at www.callinghome.com. That's also linked in the show notes and on my social media. Something that I want to point out if you're getting to the end of this and you're realizing I want to break the cycle. I want to repair. I want to move forward. And we're talking specifically about adult children and their parents. In those situations, I do think that often the parents need to do more of the heavy lifting in the repair due to their role in the family and the power that they hold within that family. When you engage in successful repair as a parent with your children in adulthood, you really

Starting point is 00:35:51 are working on stopping generational dysfunction moving throughout your family. And it can be so transformative. And I know that sometimes reconciliation is possible and sometimes it isn't. And this really is all about what is the best thing for your relationship and your family if you are living in the reality of what is possible and what everyone in the family is willing to do to achieve that and what their capacity is. because I think what matters the most is safety, self-respect, clarity, and a deep understanding and acceptance of what is possible and what is actually within your control as the person who is

Starting point is 00:36:48 trying to reconcile, the one that initiated the estrangement, the one that did the hurt, the one that's on the receiving end. It doesn't matter. It's all about you really getting honest about what do I want? What am I willing to put in? What kind of risks am I willing to take in this relationship to save it? And what have I already done? What have I already tried? And how far have I gone to try to fix this and what kind of pain has that caused me up to this point? It's so important for all of you at the end of this to really think about how willing the other people, person is, how invested they are before you invest any significant emotional energy and honestly evaluate whether both parties are genuinely willing to engage in the repair and not even just

Starting point is 00:37:45 willing, are they capable? And accept that some relationships just cannot be repaired for a variety of reasons, particularly when there is ongoing abuse, a lack of safety or active. maintenance of estrangement by the other party. And you have to look for specific sustained behavioral changes over time rather than just that surface level compliance or temporary improvements that ultimately just go back to how things were before. And if you really do want to reconcile and you feel like the two people in this relationship want to do that, you have to repair over a long.

Starting point is 00:38:30 process. Relationship repair is gradual and it requires sustained commitment. And sometimes we just don't have the energy or the desire to do that work. And that's okay too. I hope that you're able to walk away from this episode understanding what it looks like to repair, what is necessary red flags to look out for, how to find external resources like therapy to help you. And how to to navigate that sometimes long and often worthwhile process of repair when possible. Thank you all so much for listening. I want to let you know that next month at Calling Home, we are diving into another new topic, and that topic is Family Secrets. Every month at Calling Home, we focus on a new topic, and all of that content gets added to our content library.

Starting point is 00:39:25 all of our members of the family cycle breakers club get access to our entire content library of resources to help you grow, maintain, rebuild, and accept the family that you have. We are going to be talking about family secrets, why they're hard to carry, why we're asked to carry them, what to do when someone asks you to keep a family secret, and the weight that we often carry when we're asked to do so. We will have weekly groups with me every Wednesday about family secrets and their impact, and you will get access also to our other unlimited support groups like our group four daughters with difficult mothers, our family estrangement group, our estranged adult child group,

Starting point is 00:40:12 and our adult children of emotionally immature parents group. You will receive a new article worksheet, video, and script every Monday delivered right to your inbox and you have full access to our content library as long as your membership is active. So many of our podcast listeners join our groups and end up loving them saying that they don't know what they did before these groups and they are so deeply impacted by the stories that they hear from other people. So if you have felt alone listening to this podcast and you're like, I wish I could find other people that also relate to this and are going through what I'm going through, we would love to have you inside the Family Cycle Breakers Club at Calling

Starting point is 00:40:55 Home. You can join at Callinghome.co, and we will link that in the show notes as well. I hope you all have a wonderful day. I will see you again on Thursday for another episode. Bye. The Calling Home podcast is not engaged in providing therapy services, mental health advice, or other medical advice or services. It is not a substitute for advice from a qualified health care provider and does not create any therapist patient or other treatment relationship between you and calling home or Whitney Goodman. For more information on this, please see calling home's terms of service linked in the show notes below.

CALLING HOME with Whitney Goodman, LMFT - Can Estranged Families Reconcile?

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