CALLING HOME with Whitney Goodman, LMFT - Stop Waiting for Your Family to Change

Episode Date: January 6, 2026

It’s 2026. If nothing changed in your family dynamic by the end of the year, would you be okay with that? How about five years from now? Whitney has a firm but loving message for anyone who's been collecting knowledge and awareness about their family dysfunction but stuck in that frustrating feeling of not knowing how to take action. She challenges you to recognize how much time, energy, and mental space your family's chaos is consuming and to stop waiting for other people to change before you can move forward.  Whitney Goodman is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) and the founder of Calling Home, a membership community that helps people navigate complex family dynamics and break harmful cycles. Have a question for Whitney? Send a voice memo or email to [e-mail] Join the Family Cyclebreakers Club⁠⁠ Follow Whitney on Instagram | sitwithwhit Follow Whitney on YouTube | @whitneygoodmanlmft ⁠⁠Order Whitney’s book, Toxic Positivity Learn more about ad choices. Visit podcast.choices.com/adchoices This podcast is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice. 02:37 Insight without action sucks 04:09 The daily toll of family dysfunction 12:01 The overintellectualizing plateau 18:22 If nothing changed in five years Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Book a visit now at 905-947-9990 or at amica.ca.ca.ca.com slash Unionville. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Calling Home Podcast. I am your host, Whitney Goodman. Happy New Year. Welcome to 2026. This month, inside the Family Cycle Breakers Club, we are focusing on how to be more emotionally mature. And I want to start off the new year. It's been a couple of weeks since we've been together on this podcast with a little bit of a wake-up call and a pep talk for you as, you start the new year. I know that this is like a really important time to catch you, to grab your attention, to show you what you might be missing out on when you're not taking the next step to prioritize your family's wellness and overall health. If you've been listening to this podcast for months or maybe even years, this episode is for you. For a lot of you, your family dysfunction has been this invisible force that is shaping your decisions, your mood, your relationships, and even your nervous system. And I think a lot of you

are just waking up to this and realizing how much of a toll this dysfunction has been taking on you. And maybe you're listening to the show, you're learning, you feel like you have more understanding, but you're not actually changing anything. You're not actually doing anything different. And I know that that's a really hard pill to swallow because you're sort of just like waiting for this clarity or this magic pill to work, but nothing ever comes. And you have this feeling of like, another year went by and nothing changed. We just had another shitty holiday season where I feel burnt out and unappreciated, unlove, disrespected. Like, I just really didn't have a good time.

And I'm having this recurring thing every night where I lay in bed and replay conversations in my head, things I wish I would have said, things I can't believe I let people say to me. And it just feels like my life is on a loop and that my family's dysfunction and, you know, and chaos and instability is at the heart of it. It's like the thing that I'm always revolving around. Insight without action actually sucks. It feels terrible.

It feels terrible to have this high level of self-awareness and be trapped in it. Like it's a cage. Like you can't do anything. And all you're doing is noticing all the patterns and feeling trapped by them and wishing you could go back to the before when you didn't see all of this, or maybe it wasn't as obvious. And this episode isn't going to be like a soft, gentle episode. And I think a lot of you know by now what you usually get from me. But this is instead a really firm but loving invitation to stop living this way. And to finally say, you know what?

I'm in control of a lot of this. And I can get into the driver's seat and make changes to how I am allowing my family's chaos to rule my entire life. Something I've realized as a therapist is that people are very unaware of the amount of time, energy, and effort they spend on managing their family stuff on a day-to-day basis. And this is typically because it's just the way it's always been, right? This is how we do it. This is how that person acts. This is just the way that it is. And you get so used to playing that certain role in the family, putting out fires, etc., that it's just normal for you. And so this family dysfunction likely shows up every day. in a lot of different ways. It's like you're always monitoring other people's emotions, always on

edge, like walking on eggshells or surveying people. You feel guilt before you even say no or set a boundary. Maybe you have a lot of anxiety about your phone, certain names popping up on your phone. Every time you see that your sister has texted you, it's like, oh my gosh, what does she need? What does she want? Like, you just don't totally recognize the toll that that that's, is taking on you until someone points it out and says, hey, you know, that seems like it's causing you a lot of stress. You might have to do a lot of mental gymnastics or preparation before every single event, every time you interact with certain people. And then you have this huge emotional hangover after the fact. And I want you to know that it's not weakness to be

exhausted by this. It is exhausting. And a lot of times, family dynamics, it's impossible to keep them so neatly contained and perfect. And there's always going to be stuff that comes up. This is about the stuff that is chronic, debilitating, overwhelming. There's zero return on your investment. You are not getting anything back from these relationships. All it is is just more and more taking and giving and you feel like just totally drained and overwhelmed by all of this. Just because these family dynamics are normal and repetitive and there's something everyone's been dealing with and they're not your fault doesn't mean that it isn't your responsibility to address. Because a lot of you are losing sleep, your marriages or your partnerships are

struggling. Your parenting is being impacted. You're more dysregulated and short-fused with your kids. Your career is not going the way that you wanted to or you're feeling burnt out or you're putting all of your energy into achievement so that you can be distracted about everything else. And maybe you feel even a lot older and more tired than you should be or than you are at this age. and so I wonder if you think about like what is draining your tank like if you have a gas tank that symbolizes you as a person how much emotional energy do you think your family takes every week what would that number look like how much do they give back is there any reciprocity here and these relationships are rarely ever give and take and take

on equal footing. There are obviously seasons in life where people can give more and where people need more. And so you have to assess on aggregate. This doesn't mean that we say that every relationship that takes more from us in a certain season is dysfunctional or bad. Instead, it's about what is happening consistently here. How do I feel? Do I like giving this much all the time to this person? Do I feel like they ever consider my needs or say thank you or acknowledge anything in this relationship. And what would it look like to track that over time and the ripple effect that it is having on all your other relationships, commitments, passions, and your health as a whole? I want you to take a second and ask yourself this

question as well. How many years of your life has this been the central storyline? So when you think about the chaos that is your family, maybe it is a parent's drinking or a sibling's incarceration or a parent who is emotionally immature, when you think about that common thread, that thing that just keeps coming up and derailing everything, how long has that been the thing that you revolve around? How long has that been the center of your world or the main character of your life. How long have you been waiting for an apology, waiting for them to develop insight, waiting for repair, waiting for them to change? And this is something you need to acknowledge here. Waiting is still a choice. Waiting, hoping, wanting, trying to make it happen,

those are still choices that you are making. Understandably so. But sometimes they are also causing you immense amounts of pain. And often you're stuck in this loop of when and if this changes, I will be okay. And so I need to make this thing happen. I need them to get sober. I need them to go to therapy. I need them to apologize. I need them to love me in X, Y, Z way. And then I'll be okay. You then come back to this question every time. Is this the year that they will finally change? And instead, I want you to ask yourself, is this the year that I will finally change my approach? Is this the year that I will finally surrender to the fact that an apology, insight, repair, change is all on them. I can be a loving, caring, insightful,

empathetic, and devoted, insert family role type of person. And I can surrender to the fact that I cannot make this happen, especially if I have been trying to make this happen for a decade with absolutely no success. It's time for me to try something different. It's time for me to say, this isn't working. It's killing me. It's hurting everybody else in my family. It's hurting my work, my health, my marriage, my kids, and I need to stop. Because not only is it doing all of that, it's not helping them. So what is this for? What is the point? I think what we have to remember is that insight isn't enough. Understanding why something is happening, having a reason for it, feels very good, but it rarely changes everything.

Having insight doesn't make you calm. It doesn't rewire your nervous system. It doesn't actually create boundaries. It won't stop you from feeling guilty. And I think many of you that listen to this podcast, you have a lot of awareness and a lot of insight. And that may be actually one of the very important and amazing ways that you have coped with the chaos in your life is by collecting information and seeking understanding and

and trying to make it not about you and like, okay, if I understand that they have this mental health issue and this is why they're doing what they're doing, it won't hurt me so much because then it's not about that they don't love me or that they want bad things for me. It's that they have this issue. But unfortunately, like that feels good for a little while. And then it often runs out. And you hit this plateau where you are over intellectualizing. You're over processing and you are underacting. You're underchanging. You think that just collecting all this data and information and insight and knowledge is going to lead to this magical moment where you feel better. And I think throughout that process, a lot of you do feel better for periods of

time. But then that understanding and that excessive attempt at understanding becomes a way to delay the discomfort of actually changing and doing something different. I want you to think about what would actually need to change this year. What do you want to be different in 2026 when it comes to you, your family dysfunction, your family relationships. Do you need different patterns of contact or different types of contact? Do you need to not talk so much or to have different timing with your conversations? Do you need to leave earlier, not go, not respond immediately, say less, react less, have lower expectations. Do you need to allow yourself to feel guilt without that being something that you react to or that drives your behavior.

Maybe you need to work on tolerating disappointment or grieving the fantasy that we were just talking about that if I do X, they will change and if they change, I will feel better. And maybe you need to understand that anger is something you're allowed to feel and that anger can actually be really productive and helpful in a lot of ways. When you have some of these changes or you accept that some of these changes need to happen, I think you can have a few really important internal shifts for your identity. So for some of you that are constantly the fixer, the one who's always like doing everything for everyone and making it better and maybe you're really meddling.

a lot and trying to change people a lot. You might have to become someone that is a person with limits who has boundaries. If you are always the strong one, the one that is never bothered, you might need to become someone who has needs, who asks for things, who asks for help. if you were always the good child and you've continued that into adulthood, maybe now is the time that you become an adult that is whole and has a lot of different facets to you outside of just the good kid. This is also where you get really honest with yourself about what you need and what you're allowed to have, that you don't have to do this alone anymore, that you can

have a therapist or groups like we have at Calling Home or go on our discussion boards and access community or be around friends or other people that understand what you're going through and that you can be a whole person with them. And that you can learn from people who are maybe at different points in their process or they're further ahead from you. And it's important to ask yourself, like, which of these things am I avoiding the most? Am I not wanting to act? Do I not want to have some of these emotional changes, like not reacting from guilt or tolerating disappointment? Are some of these identity shifts, like, really, really hard for me and they feel almost like I'm losing a part of myself or is support very difficult for me?

I don't want to get support because that makes me feel vulnerable and ashamed and unwell. There's a very hard truth about control that you have to accept in order to move into this place this year. And it is that we really have to reframe control, that you cannot control these outcomes, no matter how much you have convinced yourself that you can and that that is a way to seek safety, You cannot control how people participate, the resources they will pick up, their effort. All of that is outside of your control. And you probably have lived a life where people made you feel responsible and like you were in control of all of these things.

And that if they failed or they didn't do well, it was your fault. And so this is a very difficult transformation to have as that type of person in adulthood. When you are working through a lot of this, it is very normal to have a loss of identity. We talked about, you know, no longer feeling like that person that's in control or is helpful or a good daughter or good son. It's normal to experience family backlash from people who accuse you of thinking that you're better than them or feeling misunderstood. Like these are all things that are going to come up and it's okay to be afraid of. But you have to remind yourself that you are already living through the consequences of this. Your family's dysfunction and chaos and the way you're interacting with it is already

negatively affecting you. It's already hurting you. It's about changing those consequences, maybe making them more manageable, giving yourself some distance from some of that pain. That does not mean that these relationships are always going to be super easy or any of your relationships are going to come without some conflict. But you certainly will feel more equipped to handle it and more in control of your own life rather than trying to control the lives of others. At the heart of this discussion is really a very powerful question. If nothing changed in this dynamic in your family for the next five years, would you be okay with that? Would you be okay with continuing to do things exactly like they are for five more years. What would be the cost?

What would be the benefits? What would you get out of continuing to maintain the status quo? What would others get out of it? And what is the cost of doing something different? And what are the benefits? When you answer that question, if you feel like I cannot do this anymore, something has to be different. This doesn't mean that today after you turn this podcast off, you cut everyone off and tell them that you hate them all or that you force forgiveness or you pretend that everything is fine. Instead, it's an invitation to step back and say, what do I want the next five years to look like? How can I make choices from a conscious place rather than an overly reactive one?

Do I need a little bit of space to, like, regulate myself and get back to a place where I'm not snapping or being overreactive? Can I allow myself to grieve the fact that I'm in the position where I'm having to think about these things and that I wish that it wasn't like this and it could be different? Can I be consistent and regularly make decisions that reflect how I want my future to look with my family. And some of this is just boring everyday stuff. It is not these massive sweeping changes overnight. It's often these little actions every

day to decide to put an hour between receiving that text and your response. To not call that same person when you're having a bad day because it never helps. To avoid certain topics with certain people. These little things add up and they help you achieve actual control over your circumstances and your life. If another year has passed and you're feeling like, gosh, I'm so behind. This is taking me too much time. I feel like I can't do this. I want you to know that you don't have to start this now just because it's a new year. But sometimes it's the time when you're the most ready and able and willing to do it. And so if now you're listening to this and you feel inspired and good about it and like,

wow, I really want to take this next step, use that momentum to help propel you forward with the same understanding that you're not behind. You're not broken because this is happening to you or because it's taking a long time. You're allowed to stop waiting for other people to change or for their permission to do something different in your life. And if you want this year to be different, you have to do something different. Because having the same relationships, the same rules, the same silence, same guilt, same actions will not magically lead to a different life. It just won't. And that's the very hard thing about feeling like if I just gather enough knowledge,

things will be different, but you have to do something with that knowledge. I want you to imagine yourself at the end of 2026. It's December. It's the final week of this year. What is different? What has changed in your life? What feels lighter, clearer? What decisions are you making that are different? What are you proud of that you were finally able to do? What would your life look like if you took those steps today and you continued it throughout the year? perfectly, but just consistently, what do you think you would be able to see in your life that was different? And when you think about that process, who's with you while you're trying to do that? Are you going to therapy? Are you in support groups? Do you have a community?

Do you have some type of support, whether that's one person, a few, or an entire team of people? who is there with you while you're doing this. And I want you to know that if you've made it this far in the episode and you're listening to this, I think that something in you already knows that like this is time, this is something you need. And it is the right time to do this. This can be the year that you decide to do something different. And that doesn't mean you have to become someone completely new or overhaul your life. Again, it's really just about choosing not to let your life revolve around people that you have

to change and fix and meddle with and that maybe if you take a step back, your relationships with them can actually get even better. You are worthy of having relationships in your life with family and or other people. that feel good and that are an additive to your life. And I want you to remember that this change is very slow. You are often changing things that happened over the course of your lifetime. And it might be that when you reach the end of this year and you look back, the changes are very small to the eye, but you know how big they are and how much work it took. And you might even notice that some of those tiny changes that are not that visible actually had a huge impact on your

well-being. If you're ready to take the next step, we would love to have you inside the Family Cycle Breakers Club at Calling Home this month. For the entire month of January, we are talking about how to be more emotionally mature. And this is a skill that will help you so much with everything we talked about in this episode. With your membership, you will also get access to unlimited support groups with licensed therapist and other community members, as well as our online private discussion boards, where you can go on and ask questions, ask for advice, vent, and talk to people just like you who really, really get what you're going through. To join the Family Cycle Breakers Club, visit callinghome.com and sign up today.

I am so glad to be back with you in the new year talking about changing your family dynamics, healing from estrangement and learning how to have healthier adult family relationships at Calling Home. If you enjoyed this episode, please like, subscribe, or leave us a review wherever you're watching or listening to this. And thank you so much for being a part of this community. 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 Collingholm or Whitney Goodman. For more information on this, please see Collingholm's

terms of service linked in the show notes below.