CALLING HOME with Whitney Goodman, LMFT - Emotionally Immature Parents with Lindsay C. Gibson

Episode Date: May 28, 2024

In this week’s episode of the Calling Home podcast, Whitney speaks with therapist and author Lindsay C. Gibson discusses the challenges of dealing with emotionally immature parents. They’ll discuss how emotional immaturity exists on a spectrum and can be influenced by various factors such as life stage and external circumstances. Lindsay will explain how adult children can express their feelings and set boundaries with their parents, rather than try to change them. Find Lindsay’s book Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents on Amazon.  Have a question for Whitney? Call Home at 866-225-5466.  Click here to get “Toxic Positivity” on paperback.  Join Whitney’s Family Cycle Breakers Club for further support and discussion on family dynamics at CallingHome.co. Follow the Calling Home community on Instagram or TikTok.  Follow Whitney Goodman on Instagram or TikTok.  The Calling Home podcast is not engaged in providing therapy services, mental health advice or other medical advice or services, is not a substitute for advice from a qualified healthcare 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When you're with Amex Platinum, you get access to exclusive dining experiences and an annual travel credit. So the best tapas in town might be in a new town altogether. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Terms and conditions apply. Learn more at Amex.ca. summer's here and you can now get almost anything you need for your sunny days delivered with Uber Eats what do we mean by almost well you can't get a well-groom lawn delivered but you can get a chicken parmesan

delivered a cabana that's a no but a banana that's a yes a nice tan sorry nope but a box fan happily yes a day of sunshine no a box of fine wines yes Uber Eats can definitely get you that get almost almost anything delivered with Uber Eats order now alcohol and select market product availability may vary by Regency app for details. I am so excited about my guest today. Today on the Calling Home podcast, we have Lindsay C. Gibson, a therapist and author who's here to talk with me about moving forward in life with emotionally immature parents and how to have productive communication with them.

I'm Whitney Goodman. Welcome to the Calling Home podcast. I'm glad you're here. What's typically misunderstood about emotionally immature people is that emotionally maturity happens along a spectrum. And a person's immaturity and inability to deal with emotions can vary depending on a lot of factors like what's happening around them and the stage they're at in life. This is where a ton of confusion comes in because some emotionally immature parents can actually excel in a lot of other areas in life, which can make it difficult for adult children to identify

how this affects them or how to call it out. Earlier this year, I posted on my social media about Lindsay being a guest on my show, and I received thousands of questions from listeners. A lot of you are adult children dealing with emotionally immature parents. And so I'm so glad that we're finally able to share this episode with you. And I hope it not only clears up any confusion around the causes of emotionally immature parents, but also provides clarity on how to move forward, communicate, and set boundaries with them. So I think what I'd like to start with is, you know, if you could give us a definition of what an emotionally immature parent is, especially for a person who's maybe hearing this term for the first time. Pumpkin is here at Starbucks and we're making it just the way you like.

Handcrafted with real ingredients like our real pumpkin sauce and rich espresso, sprinkled with pumpkin spice. It's full of real flavors you'll keep coming back for. Made just for you at Starbucks. First of all, emotional maturity occurs on a continuum. So there isn't like there is an absolutely emotionally immature person and there's a perfectly emotionally mature person at the other end. It's movable for people. So for instance, when we are sick or stressed, poorly resourced for one reason or another, we tend to slide across the scale toward the emotionally immature. And we, you know, we don't have as much patience. We don't have as much impulse control. We say things we

didn't mean. That kind of thing can, so we can vary depending on our circumstances. But there are a few things that are kind of like hallmarks of emotional immaturity. And if you have these qualities, then there is a good chance that you're going to, you know, be on one side of that continuum toward one end or the other. So the first hallmark of emotional immaturity is that the person is very egocentric. Emotional immaturity is kind of what it sounds like. It's a grown-up who is functioning at the emotional level of a three, four, five-year-old. Now, people may say, well, wait a minute, that couldn't be true because my dad owned his own business or my mother was head of the PTA or, you know, my family was like the main family in the church. How could these perfectly adult people be emotionally immature?

sure. And it's true because that's a hard thing to reconcile because it's possible to be intellectually very well developed or socially very well developed. There might not be anything wrong with your planning ability or your business acumen. But in the area of stress management and emotionally intimate relationship, your very closest relationships, that, that's where the signs of emotional immaturity will really start standing out. Now, they leak out into these other areas as well, because sooner or later you're going to hit stress or you're going to be in a deeper relationship with someone.

But for the most part, that is kind of compartmentalized, and so all this stuff comes out at home, and the child of emotionally immature parents get to listen to people say, oh, you know, your dad is so great, your mom is so sweet, or I wish she was my mom, or, you know, and they're like, oh, you know, if you only knew how they behave at home. Okay. So we have the egocentrism. All roads lead to them. Every topic ends up coming back to them at some point so that they always remain the center of attention. Oh, hi, buddy. Who's the best?

You are. I wish I could spend all day with you instead. Uh, Dave, you're huff mute. Hey, happens to the best of us. Enjoy some goldfish cheddar crackers. Goldfish have short memories. Be like goldfish. And that makes it very hard for them to have real empathy for other people's situations. They just don't put themselves in other people's shoes. They don't imagine what the other person is feeling or how something's going to hit them because of their egocentricity is just all about what I feel like saying right now or what I need to do right

now. So the poor empathy is really probably the most hurtful thing to a child growing up because children need empathy like plants need water. They need someone who is trying to understand what's going on inside them, someone who can imagine their subjective experience and let that child know, I see you, I know you, and you're good. You know, I love you because I know you, not I love you because you're my kid, but I see you and I love you for who you are. That's crucial. Without the empathy, they don't think about how their behavior lands on other people. So they're often completely shocked when someone gets mad at them or an adult child maybe wants to cut back on contact or wants to discuss the problems in the relationship. They are shocked because they don't have that mechanism inside.

that would have allowed them to kind of pick up on the dissatisfaction and the other person. So they're always acting like they're blindsided by these, you know, revelations that the child has a bunch of issues from growing up. So they don't self-reflect. They don't ask themselves if there's a problem in the relationship. Gee, I wonder if I had something to do with that. I wonder if there was something that I was doing. or maybe I should think about that with myself. Several people have told me that.

No, that doesn't happen. As soon as they hear a criticism, they involuntarily, reflexively go into self-defense. That's not a choice on their part. They're not being bad by shutting you down or by getting defensive. They can't help that. Psychological defenses occur without any voluntary. feeling at all. It just happens. And before that person knows it, they are defending themselves. They are

blaming the other person. Okay, it's your fault that I said that. If you hadn't done this, I wouldn't have done that. They get into a very externalizing, blaming kind of mindset. And they just, they can't reflect on themselves. So they don't apologize. They don't get it. They see themselves in this very positive light. Then there's the quality of what's been called affective realism. This means that they interpret reality completely through their own feelings. Okay. And you might say, well, we all do that.

And that's true. If I'm having a great day, everybody seems very nice. If I'm having a bad day, you know, people seem short-tempered with me, which is probably more about me than them. but for the emotionally immature person, they wouldn't think that. They wouldn't imagine their effect on other people. But what affective realism means is that if my daughter says to me, Mom, I don't want you to feed Bobby candy before dinner when he's over at your house.

And the mother hears that as a moral criticism. You are a bad person, okay, and I don't love you anymore. because affectively, emotionally, that's what it felt like to her to be told that she was doing something wrong, because their emotional regulation ability is so fragile that even a request like that is going to be taken very personally and it's going to have a moral overtone to it for them. And so they're going to come across in a way like you've just said something incredibly disrespectful and hurtful to them. In addition to that, their general view of reality is, reality is what I say it is because I saw it and I know.

And they know that they're right and you cannot convince them otherwise. So they deny, dismiss, and distort reality in a way that often makes it nearly impossible to have a corrective kind of communication with them. So those are just a few of the characteristics, but those are the big ones that really when you see them, you can speculate that that person may have some significant emotional immaturities. Absolutely. I think there's so many things in what you just said that I've seen play out in my work, right, whether that's hearing stories from adult children about their parents or watching some parents try to navigate these discussions with their adult children,

especially, you know, when their adult children come to them, like you said, and say, hey, I have some things from childhood I'd like to discuss. and that feels like a huge moral injury or wounding to them. I want to go back to something you said at the beginning that I think has been so transformative for adult children to hear this, is this idea that these parents can present very well in other areas of life. And I think this is what makes this so complicated because we've been taught to identify the signs of abusive parents, right?

Or parents who are outright, we can look at them. and say, they're doing something that I can easily identify is bad. I think what makes emotionally immature parents, some of them on that spectrum, so tricky, is the fact that they do succeed in other areas of life, right? And so I'm wondering if you can speak to how an adult child can reconcile that, that, you know, my parent seems highly successful in certain areas of life, whether that's social or work, but they seem to really struggle with. with me. And that can feel so much more hurtful, I think, when it seems like they have the

aptitude to excel in other areas. Yes. Well, the first thing that we have to realize is that social role is incredibly supportive to our psychological stability. Okay, it just is. That's the what humans are. We are held by our culture. We are reigned in by our society. We're on our best behavior when we're in our social role. And that supports us psychologically, okay, because we kind of remember who we are. We feel ourselves in that compartment of the role and we feel stronger. And so we function really well. But you take all that away and you go into the free fall of day daily living in a family where people's emotions are, you know, coming up all over the place, that person is no longer held or sometimes they try to be held by it because they get very

rigid about I'm the mom and you're the kid and they try to bring in that role compartment to stabilize everything. But when they ultimately, as we all have to have to deal with that kid at an emotional relational level, they really start reverting to a reactive, emotionally reactive mindset, which in their case is going to be like a little kid, you know, that self-centered, self-preoccupied quality. And so, you know, when the door closes and you're at home with them. They're not supported by all the cues to their grown-up self. They're suffused in this emotional pot that we call the nuclear family. And it brings out the most impulsive, most intense, unresolved emotional issues of those parents. Okay. It's just like a little petri dish for that.

So what the child ends up experiencing is going to be very different from what happens when that person is contained in their work role or their social role out there in the community. Another thing that's important to realize is that this gets into brain hemisphere differences. But in industrial technological societies, there is a very strong emphasis on left brain hemisphere functioning, which is very analytical, sequential, logical, very fact-oriented, very concrete. Okay. And that works really well.

Organizational structure, you know, all of this is left-brain stuff. And it's not really emotional. It's certainly not relational. It is an I-it kind of relationship. It's a transactive kind of relationship. and that works really well in terms of societal or business models. So that part, your left brain may be doing great and being very successful. But it's the right brain where there is this synchrony, emotional synchrony and empathy

that goes back and forth between parent and child that really forms the holding environment for that child to feel loved and to discover who they really are and to learn about relationships and closeness and all those wonderful emotional things we need for our emotional health and intelligence. The emotionally immature parent, I think, has had some things happen in their early relationships that have compromised their ability to feel safe with feelings.

In other words, that being in their emotionally intimate part of their brain leads to unpleasant things or leads to feelings of falling apart or being unstable. And so lots of them move over to left brain functioning. And so that makes them very critical. I mean, the child comes to them with an emotional issue. Maybe the kid is upset. And the parent ends up approaching it like a problem.

that needs to be solved, or they get critical, why did you do that? Why did you say that? Why didn't you do this other thing? I would have said, why didn't you say? Because it's all about this analytical approach. So it can make more sense when you think that, yes, when it comes to transactional business kinds of things, their strength is in their break it down, analyze it part of their brain, but when it comes to what a child needs, even an adult child, anybody needs in a relationship with another person, they are really not going to hang out for long in that part of their brain. They're going to get out of there as soon as possible because it makes them very uncomfortable. It's another cardinal characteristic, the inability to tolerate much emotional

intimacy. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I think when I hear that, it might allow any of the adult children listening to kind of free up some of this shame or self-blame that they have, that my parent is choosing not to excel in this area of life with me, but they're choosing to do well in these other areas. Because I think sometimes it can really present that way, especially if you are in that, you know, child part of you that is kind of feeling like, well, if they wanted to, they would and look how they excel in these other areas. I think you just spoke to this a little bit about like why emotional immaturity occurs, that there certainly could be something that happens within the early stages of someone's life. What I do find is that there are adult

children who are quite emotionally mature that have been raised by emotionally immature parents. And I'm wondering if you can talk about why that happens and, you know, how some of these adult children can kind of contend with this fear that they're going to become like their parent. Yeah. Isn't that fascinating? It is. I mean, I just have always had this desire like, oh, I love to go back and look at what happened that caused this. Usually it's like one child. It could be a couple of children. But it's, you know, in a large family, it's not the majority of the kids. But how does this? person turn out to be, you know, apparently emotionally mature when they have parents who aren't and then they have a bunch of siblings who are emotionally immature too. That's a very common dynamic. Yes, absolutely. How does this happen? Yeah, well, I think there are several possibilities for that. So, you know, not having a time machine, we'll never know for sure. But if only. Yeah. What I think happens is, And this is an idea from a therapist friend of mine, Tiffany Root, I think that there are, first of all, children who are tagged to be the caretaker for the parent, the often the emotional caretaker.

Now, lots of times I think that's the oldest, but sometimes it's not, which tells me that there's something about that kid that the parent instinctively leans on. either to be functionally parentified, that means that, you know, they do things, like get the kids up or pack the lunches or they do the cleaning or, you know, they function as an extra parent. That can be actually strengthening to a kid in adulthood because it teaches them that they are competent. And the parent is essentially saying to them, I believe in you. I see your competence.

I'm leaning on you. I know you can do this stuff. And that's huge for a kid. That really strengthens the ego of the kid in a psychologically good way. But you can also be parentified emotionally, meaning that the parent sort of depends on that child for emotional support. A child might be a confidant for the parent, might listen to the parent's marital problems,

might advise the parent on, you know, how to, you know, talk to the spouse or, I mean, they get into an emotional, an emotionally intimate role with a parent that is totally inappropriate, meaning that that child is nowhere near ready to give that kind of listening or advice. And yet they're being used almost as a kind of a therapist for the parent because they need that. So why, you know, why does this kid, kid get picked, I think it's because that child has innate strengths in terms of their sensitivity and their perceptiveness. Now, I go to those because they are neurological substrates of our functioning. In other words, it's not something that we learn. We don't typically learn how to be

sensitive. We aren't typically taught how to be perceptive as a basic quality. But there's some little kids that come into the world and they are interested, they're noticing things, they pick up on stuff. So they're very perceptive. They're very sensitive. And so I think it gives them, and oftentimes they're intelligent. And so because sensitivity and perceptiveness go with intelligence. So the parent, I think, senses that this kid has insight or a, you know, take on things that can be relied on, and they start turning to that kid. I think that's probably what happens with it. And then the other part is that that child, fortunately or unfortunately,

learns that they have this strength, that when they are in this mode, you know, listening, attending, helping, looking at for other people, being sensitive to other people, good things happen. They get attention, they get interaction. People will say things that are complimentary about them, like, oh, you know, you're wise for your years or you're an old soul. It's like, I don't know if you're an old soul, but I do know that you've been perennified. Right. So, you know, it's like sometimes you're forced into wisdom, you know, long before you should be. So those are some of the, some of the, the reasons that I think some children are able to, you know, kind of move up in their emotional

development and be more mature than their years, so to speak. The other thing is that the parent will tend to emotionally enmesh with the other children. In other words, they're not turning to the other children to be their caretaker. They're turning to the other children to be like mirrors of them or to be emotionally a part of them. So they treat those children as people who play certain roles within the family. And those poor kids often never get out of the family matrix because they have the role. You know, it could be a positive role. They're, you know, they're the little princess. They're the star performer. Could be a negative role. Like they're the sick one. They're the one that needs all our attention and support.

But whatever it is, that parent gets very invested and enmeshed with the role that that kid is playing in the family system. And they just don't get a chance to individuate and become their own person. Whereas the one that they're relying on, the caretaker child, that child is getting some individuation because of the dynamic that I just described. Yeah, I think that theory. makes complete sense and it's what I have seen played out, you know, anecdotally in my own therapy work. And I imagine that the adult child that is listening to this podcast probably

fits into that box, right? Was the one that maybe developed more emotional maturity as a result of their innate traits and also the positions that they were put in with a parent. And so it seems that that particular listener is really struggling with this question of like, do I tell my parent that I think they are emotionally immature? And if so, how do I do that? And I'd love to hear your recommendations on handling this realization. Yeah, that is the question. I mean, when someone comes for therapy or coaching or whatever, that's what they want to know. And of course, it's when you, when any of us have an insight and it's like, that's it, you know, we want to go and tell that person that insight because we, it's just a human thing we do,

we expect that they're going to have the same like aha experience because we just told them the insight. but that's of course not likely to happen if you are going to be told that there is something about you that has been very hurtful to me and not only that it is called emotional immaturity okay so all you got to do is think how would I feel someone informed me the phrase certainly doesn't make you feel like you want to hear more about it. I'm so glad to hear that. I've always wanted to be emotionally immature, yeah. You have to think about how you want to deal with your insight into your parents' emotional

immaturity in a way that ups the odds that you're going to get a positive, if not positive, at least a workable response from them, with. without alienating them from the very beginning. Because keep in mind, I'm just going to talk directly to that person who's wondering about that. Keep in mind that that parent is very emotionally reactive. They have extremely thin skin. They don't have any resources for processing and reflecting on themselves. and so when you say anything that appears to be critical of their character, they are going to

shut down and get defensive, and then they're going to blame you. Because just like a baby spits out something that doesn't taste good to them, we all spit out what has made us feel bad. You know, it's like you can't swallow something that tastes terrible. So what I recommend to people is that instead of, you know, sort of dropping the bomb of my realization that you're emotionally immature dad, you're going to bring up a behavior that maybe you want there to be some discussion around or change around. And you have the opportunity in doing that to suggest or set a boundary on that. So it becomes a very pragmatic, practical, issue. Like when you invite me for supper and I can't come because I've got stuff going on,

I don't really like it when I get the silent treatment for the next week. So, you know, I'm never saying no to hurt you, but I can't say yes all the time. Do you understand why I would need you to be understanding of that. And can we do something different with that going forward? Now, that may not work either. There are no magic bullets. But you're a lot more likely to be heard on that than when you confront the parent with, you know, you've never seen me. You've never listened to me. You've never been there for me. It's always been about you. Because as soon as it's out of your mouth, they're going, no, it's not. No, I'm not. No, I'm not. That's not true. Because they have to keep it at a distance. They can't take in what feels like poison to them.

Okay. All that being said, what I am fully supportive of is that adult child trying to experiment with telling the parent how they feel. It's almost like success is not what we're after in the sense of changing that parent. Success is us being able to put into words and to speak up for our inner experience to this other person who has hurt us. Sometimes that is worth its weight and it doesn't really matter what the parent's reaction is because it was so important for you to be able to say it to them. That's emotional intimacy from your end. You are being true to yourself and you're actually being true to them because you're saying, this is how it's affected me. And I would like to tell you more about that. Are you willing to listen? So self-expression and self-expression like that sometimes

happens spontaneously in the early part of therapy. It's just like, you know, the client comes in one day, and they said, well, I had this talk with my dad, and you're like, what? You know, we didn't, you know, I know you're going to do that. But they have that, that upwelling, that inspiration to tackle it. And I'm all for that because it's real. You know, there's something real that transpires between that adult child and their parent, where that adult child gets to be themselves, really, with that parent, that creates emotional intimacy. Now, if the parent can't handle it, they can't handle it. But something else has happened besides this kind of adjustment that the kid and the parent have fallen into that's probably pretty distant, brought it probably pretty fake. And this kind of, you know, charges

through that and starts out from a place of honesty, which is something's wrong. I don't know if you're going to listen to me about it. I don't know if there's any hope, but I'm going to at least let you know that things aren't, you know, happy in the kingdom because of these things that I'm feeling. So when you're asking the question about how do I tell my parent, how do I go about this, I think that there are probably two things to consider. One is, what is your need? Your need may be, I'm finally going to be honest with them. I'm just going to tell them.

I can't worry about how to do this. I just got to get this out. And then we'll deal with what happens after that. That is, in my mind, completely legitimate to do. On the other hand, if it's sort of like maybe you're not ready, to do that at that level. But you are ready to not have them call the shots all the time, or you are ready to let them know that that's not a cool thing to do with your child and that you're not going to allow that. So something where you need to set a boundary on a behavior

is oftentimes really good practice. It's good practice for the parent who learns that everything is not about them, that they're going to have to at least consider. that they may get some blowback on their behavior going forward from their adult child. And it may be good practice for that adult child because that adult child is learning that the parent is not the most important person in the relationship. There are two people in the relationship. And I can say what I want if I'm not hurting them or abusing them. And let me try that out. Let me try being that person who speaks up and sets some boundaries for what I need. So both things, both ways of going about telling them in my mind are completely legitimate and

maybe used at different times in the process. But I think, you know, I would never discourage someone from trying because I don't know. Maybe that parent does have some ability to listen. I don't be the person who says, you know, they'll never change or don't try that. You're wasting your breath. Never say that because I think the trying is what strengthens and develops the adult child. That's my focus. I'm not interested in rehabilitating the parent. So I never discouraged them from that because I don't have a crystal ball. And this is a very important relationship. So I want them to, you know, satisfy themselves that they have tried. and it didn't work or maybe it did work.

Yeah, I love what you're saying because I think it's so in line with the work that we're doing at calling home with this level of acceptance that has to come with all this, right? Of like, this is who my parent is, this is how they are behaving, and I can control the way that I choose to communicate with them and the way that I choose to show up and really kind of putting this back on the adult child of like, what would it feel like for you to say this? what would be empowering for you to share, regardless of their response? You know, how do you want to show up within this relationship? And then we can kind of deal with, you know, whatever comes from their side.

But I love that view of it that this is ultimately empowering for the adult child and not necessarily about changing the parent, which was the question that I got over and over, you know, for this episode that I'm sure you get a lot, is, can my emotionally immature parent change? Can they improve? Yeah. And I think those two approaches that I just mentioned get at different facets of that question. You know, one is can they hear me if I tell them in a sincere, authentic, emotionally intimate way, how I feel and how they've affected me. Can they hear that? Can they see what I'm feeling and can they be there for that? That's incredibly important. And it's hard for them. If, you know, the more critical you are, the more they'll shut down. Just a word, word to the

wise. But the other thing is, you know, maybe they're able to listen to a concrete boundary. Maybe, you know, don't do this or I love it when you do that kind of feedback in a very small, very immediate, a kind of way that can have more success at times. But, you know, when I say success, I mean that they may be willing to comply, okay, because they wouldn't want the consequences of not complying, which is maybe that you don't spend as much time with them. So either one of those is something, you know, for the person to try, try at because they are empowering that person. kind of in different ways in that relationship. But it has to be for your own development,

just like you say, Whitney. It has to be for the purpose of that and not out of the hope that this is going to, you know, magically change the person because that, you know, may not happen. But again, it's like, do we want to write them off? Or do we want to be like research scientists and find out how much of this can they listen to?

Because maybe you haven't been able to tell them any of this before. Do we want to assume that they would never be able to understand it? I mean, I don't think that's really fair to the parent either. Yeah, I think there's certainly a lot of stages that the adult child goes through and trying to test things out of like, okay, if I say it this way or say it that way. and I find that a lot of them get to this level of fatigue, right, of like I'm tired of having to be the adult in this relationship or to treat my parent in this way. But to me, that's where that acceptance does come in, right? Of like, this is how my parent is. They have the emotional

maturity of a nine-year-old, of a five-year-old. And if I'm going to have a relationship with them and they are like this, what is that going to look like? How am I going to communicate with them? And I wonder if you find this to be true that I think when people start to take that approach, they can actually get further than when they are saying, I am going to make my parent into this emotionally mature, aware person, and like, I'm going to drag them, you know, kicking and screaming to that place. And I find that that hardly ever works. I totally agree. And I would also say that trying to deal with these parents is so different. and so complicated because of this long childhood history and because so many of

your own needs as an adult child have been unmet or compromised or, you know, injured over the years. So, you know, however a person wants to wade into this awkwardly, brazenly, I'm all for it. I look like, okay, let's just pick up the pieces later. The fact that you have some forward momentum, you want to go argue with them, okay, you want to go tell them off. I'm like there to understand your process. Let's understand what you're feeling and what you're going to try to get across and how you're going to do that. Let me not be the person who's going to tell you how to do that at first. Later on, I might suggest that, you know, maybe they would be more responsive if you were less in their face. But at the very beginning, you know, we all have to

like stumble, bumble our way into major relationship changes. We really do. I mean, none of us is adept at, you know, shifting gears smoothly and moving into a more adult relationship. Sometimes we've got to, you know, crash into things. So however you can get going in being connected to yourself, and defining your boundaries with an emotionally immature person, you are doing a great job, okay? We'll, you know, worry about sticking the landing later, all right? We'll give you points for style later. But if you're moving in that direction toward more honesty and emotional intimacy, you know, all the rest of it can be refined later. I love that. I think that's a great point for us to kind of end up because it's so empowering gives people some hope and also really shows that

like nobody is doing this perfectly. There is no exact roadmap to follow. And I do think that's such an important reminder because often adult children trying to navigate this, get in this place where like if I just do everything right, I can make this work. And that's never the case. I mean, you and I, I'm sure can both attest to working with many people where often those like stumbles and roadblocks are what got them, you know, to that next good place in their relationship. And so I really appreciate you saying that. And I appreciate you being here today. I could talk to you about this forever. So it's unfortunately we do have to wrap up. But is there anything new ahead for you that you would like to share, anything you would like the calling home community to know about your work? Yeah. Actually, I do have a new book. It's the guided journal for adult children of emotionally immature parents. And it's kind of like, I tried to make it like how a conversation with me as your coach or therapist might go. And also to give people some ideas about things to think about

for personal change for themselves and to think about their history and their relationship. So I really enjoyed doing the journal because I was asking myself these questions and actually getting quite a lot out of it. So the journal is the next thing on the horizon. And let's see, I also have some reels and posts on TikTok and Instagram. And that is through Academy of Self-Help. And then there's my website, Lindsay C. Gibson, P-S-Y-D. We'll make sure to link that in the show notes.

Oh, very good. Thank you. Thank you so much.