Off The Vine with Kaitlyn Bristowe - Grape Therapy: Vino Inner Child Therapy Retreat

Episode Date: January 26, 2023

While Kaitlyn is away doing her own inner child work, we thought why not bring some more resources to the Vinos? Two licensed therapists, Emmalee and Jennifer AKA the ShrinkChicks, are diving even deeper into the topics discussed in Tuesday’s inner child work episode. They’re answering all of your questions when it comes to embracing your inner child and entering your healing journey: Is this work going to change how I feel about my parents? How can we recognize and unlearn our childhood patterns? How can we alter the stories we tell ourselves? Plus, they share resources to get started on your healing journey whether you’re looking to enter traditional therapy or hoping to do this work on your own. They wrap by calling some therapy BS and practicing what they preach by embracing their inner children and delivering some quality therapist jokes.  Books Emmalee and Jennifer would recommend include:  Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay Gibson  Recovery of Your Inner Child by Lucia Cappacione No Bad Parts by Richard Schwartz Homecoming: Reclaiming and Healing Your Inner Child by John Bradshaw It Didn’t Start With You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle by Mark Wolynn Parent Yourself Again: Love Yourself the Way You Have Always Wanted to Be Loved (Self-Compassion) by Yong Kang Chan Thank you to our sponsors! Check out these deals for the Vinos: PELOTON - Explore Peloton Row and their financing options at onepeloton.com/row.  HYUNDAI - The reviews are in. And they are spectacular. The Hyundai IONIQ 5 is MotorTrend’s 2023 SUV of the Year. Hyundai. It’s your journey. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Hyundai, it's your journey, available in limited quantities and select states only. It's time for Off the Vine, Grape Therapy. Welcome to your weekly session. Caitlin and friends are here to share unfiltered advice, lots of laughs, and some major breakthroughs. So put your feet up, pop a cork, and get ready for some great therapy. We are so excited to be doing this takeover while Caitlin is away on her therapy retreat. You don't need to listen to Tuesday's episode first, but it's a great one. So if you missed it, make sure to give it a listen. My name is Jennifer.

And my name is Emily Beirley. You said we're so excited. I'm slightly petrified, but also excited and petrified. We can hold all the complexities. We'll talk all about that today. You can feel two feelings at once. So we are licensed marriage and family therapists. We are co-owners of the therapy group and we are co-hosts of the shrink chicks podcast. We're pumped. I cannot wait to answer everyone's questions today. The purpose of today's episode is to dig into the topics that we discussed on Tuesday's episode about inner child work, but answer your questions specifically. You know what? It's one of the things I wanted to say before we jump into this is for those of you listen to Off the Vine, you have some type of parisocial relationship with Caitlin.

Like you like her in some way. She's so great. One, we have to vouch with. Caleb's one of the best people we've ever met on and off recording. And what she's doing this week is something that is the scary, overwhelming, wonderful, bitter sweets, alarming, every word you can describe of to go away and spend a week intensely doing deep work. We live in a world that doesn't tell us we need that or that it should be over soon. And so I just want to say you're listening to this episode because there's something going on with you. You're going through some transformation. You're having stuff come up for you. And first, I want to just applaud, Caitlin, and I want to applaud every single one of you listening to this episode today. You are

worthy. You are born with all the love in this world. You have all the worth in this world. This is just about digging, growing a little bit more. And we are so excited to be doing this with you. That was so beautiful. And you mentioned how it can be really scary to do this work. It's just so vulnerable. And we talk to our clients a lot about how coming into therapy and talking about some of your deep, deep wounds, it can take time. And so I think a huge piece of this too is to just be patient with yourself while you're doing this work, be compassionate with yourself. And so as we answer some of these questions, they might touch a little deeper for you. So if this brings something up, we encourage you to make sure that you're taking good care of

yourself in whatever that means for you. A few years ago, I'm thinking of this moment where my own therapist said to me, Emily, you love to talk and you hate to be vulnerable. And I think that we think because we talk so much in this world that we're having like true vulnerability and connection. And then you do this work and you're like rock to your soul. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I think that, well, I think that's an important thing to note is to figure out what are your defenses that keep you from being vulnerable? Like mine is intellectualizing everything. Mine's jokes. I'm like, I'm going to throw a joke in. I'm going to let that.

I'm going to use my sense of humor and all of my trauma to make a few jokes here so I don't have to go too deep. That's my number one thing I like to do. We always say our trauma has made us so hilarious. Hilarious. You know, it's so funny. So we've had this opportunity. It's so crazy that we're taking over off the vine right now because we've had the opportunity to be on the show a few times. But Caitlin is one of the first, like, big podcasters that sort of, like, believes in us to, like, give us a chance and let us come on before, like, Instagram therapist.

were so big. And March 2020, we had flights booked to Nashville to go on off the vine for the first time. Guess how that worked out. It didn't go well because the entire world shut down. And we were like, what if we drive? We'll mask up. Yeah, we were like, this is it. We were ready to drive. This was before like virtual was really a thing. And so it was the first start, but we did a virtual recording, which now is so common. But at first, we were ready to go to, we're in Philadelphia. We were ready to go right to Nashville to record with Caitlin, but we ended up doing it virtually. And since then, I think we've been on maybe four or five times now. And it's just been such a pleasure. So we're just a pleasure. It's so funny. You say in Philadelphia,

we should remind everyone that at least one person's going to comment and say, they have a very thick Philadelphia accent. And to that, we will say, let's all have a drink of water and eat a hoagie. and let's talk about some listener questions. Hogi and a bagel. Okay, are you ready for the first one? I'm ready. I'm prepared. How to grow and change from how people once saw you.

I love this question. It's so good because the person who wrote it in clearly is feeling like they are doing amazing work. They're working hard of themselves. And clearly the relationships in their life don't seem to be catching up on that growth, which is a very, very common thing that happens. I think, too, that some. Sometimes when we were in one place and the people around us feel more comfortable in the dynamic with us when we stay in that place, that it is hard for them to adjust to our growth. And I think that this also speaks to the narrative that you have developed about yourself

over time. And we talk a lot about as therapists doing narrative work and working on the story that you tell yourself about who you are and the reasons why we developed that story. And, you know, I think it's important if you're listening to this to take the time to think about, like, what is the story that you tell yourself about who you are? So I can give you a personal example where I was always told that I was too sensitive, right? So for my whole life, I was believing, oh, I'm too sensitive. I have too many emotions. This is me. This is me. That was my story. So then I become a therapist and I realized, oh, wait, this was really not about me.

This was more about my parents' inability to sit with my emotions. And the way in which they handled that was to invalidate my emotions because they are likely invalidating their own emotions. So I want you to think about with that example, I want you to think about what is the story that you developed for yourself about who you are and where did that come from? Because something you can do is reframe and look at that story a little bit differently. That was not about me being too sensitive or there being something wrong with my emotions. That was about my parents' inability to hold that space for me. And so all of us have a story and it really begins in

childhood, right? So for some of our story as I was the easy one. You were so easy as and people and your parents will say this like baby, right? Like you were such an easy baby. oh you didn't give me anything and then your older brother gave me so much and they were so difficult right or oh your siblings were so easy and you were so difficult and you never slept and I was always going crazy and you start to hear of this right even though you're this little baby and like clearly babies are innocent they don't there's no such thing as a sensitive baby or you know what I mean like any like right like there's kids who might have like less stress tolerance and different emotional regulation skills or ADHD and all these different stuff. But like children are manipulative or bad or difficult, but we were giving this

messaging from such a young age that it keeps going along with us. And then we develop these inner child. And this inner child, maybe for Jen, would be one that was really sensitive, right, or anxious or overwhelmed. And then you start to sometimes over-identify with that part of yourself. It starts to complete that story into adults. And then you start to bring it into all of these relationships. Oh, well, it's difficult for me to go out because I'm so sensitive. Or it's, you know, like, of course, I'm the bad guy. I'm always the villain. Or, well, I have to say yes to everything because I'm the easy one. And it will go for pattern and pattern or pattern. So when you start to do this inner child work, I want you to also start to look at your relationships currently. What's your

role in your relationships? How do you feel about your role of them? And did you actively choose them yourself or will you put into them? This goes into stuff like birth order. If we grew up where there was addiction in our household, if we grew up where there was financial insecurity of first generation for immigrants, right? There's all these different roles that comes. So what's happening for me day to day? What was happening in my childhood? And what could be some patterns and connections there? So when this question is asked is, how do you grow and change from how people once saw you? You have to remember, people always see us way less than we see ourselves. So people are going to notice it slowly. But you might have to start the conversation

as opposed to wanting them to just notice, you might have to bring it up. I've been doing all this work to really work on my boundaries. I've been saying no more often. I am not going to keep being so easy. I'm not going to be so people pleasing. You might have to bring up the conversations because people aren't just going to do that. That doesn't make people bad or narcissistic, which we love to say on the Internet. It just makes people self-focused because that's what humans do.

I think, to ask yourself, have I changed the way in which I see myself to? If you can really hold onto, I've been able to change this about myself, I can see myself differently, then it might be less important how other people are viewing you. And then you can hold strong to your boundaries. And the thing that we love to talk about that is really challenging, but so important, is to remember that it doesn't just take one time to set a boundary in a relationship. We wish that it was that easy. It takes time and time again. to set these new boundaries in relationships because it feels so different for people and they have to adjust to it. So it might take time and time again for you to set these boundaries and with the

people in your life to adjust to it. Oh, I like that. The concept we talk about in terms of therapy is planting a seed. Sometimes you plants a seed and we bring it up once and then you place another seed, but nothing ever grows the same day. Listen, if you're in a relationship and you set a boundary and people respect it, whoa, I love it for you. And, for the majority of the time, that's not going to happen. So it doesn't mean you did anything wrong or you messed it up or it's not working. You have to keep implementing stuff over and over again. Like, keep kind of like most things in life.

Keep planting that seed. You and your green thumb. It's funny because we're horrible with plants. Horrible. I should show the dead plants next to me right now. All of my plants are dead. All of the plants in our office are fake. They're all plastic, yes.

What are you to do, right? Growing people, not plants. Okay, we try our best. All right, we're going to take a T.O. A timeout. It's still me, Caitlin. I know you thought I was maybe out of town on a retreat. And that's why I'm in Jenner hosting. And you are right, but a little behind the curtain. I recorded this before I left. Magic. It's a Peloton romance roundup. And it's actually about Mr. Zach Chal Cross's season of The Bachelor. And because I recorded it before I left for my retreat, it means that I actually have not seen the premiere of this season. So, I thought it would be hopefully fun, funny, entertaining for me to go through some of the women of a season and make some predictions for this week's roundup, okay? I would predict that some of these women have some inner child work to do, but you know what? I've just evolved like that, just a guess. So I have a feeling that Anastasia is going to go far and get the first impression rose because I think maybe Bachelor is getting with the times and seeing that she's already an influencer so that could get like even more people to tune in.

I think that's smart. I think Brooklyn, who's 25, and a rodeo racer, is going to have the best entrance. Obviously, she's going to come in, like, on a bucking horse or something. I think a fan favorite, and the next Bachelorette could actually be Mercedes. It looks like she's ready to spread her wings. She has four jobs. She works hard. She's independent, ready to prioritize finding her perfect match.

And she's really close with their mom. Mercedes hobby is also showing people. pigs at the Iowa State Fair, which seems like so southern and sweet. And I feel like she has a non-for-profit if I'm right. I don't know who's going to get the most drunk on night one. Is that still a thing after their two drink rule? I don't know. All right. Well, I guess you guys listening will know how off I am on some of these, or maybe I'm right. I don't know. No matter how much I get wrong, I'm happy that some Bachelor romance is in the air again. It's been a hot minute. And speaking of romance, right now is the perfect time to get rowing with

Peloton Row. And they can promise. and so can I, that you've never rowed like this before. Peloton Row offers a variety of classes for all levels and game-changing features that help you get rowing or advance what you can do already. So go explore Peloton Row and our financing options at OnePeloton.com slash row. Can you talk about the work needed to unlearn being your parents' parents? Okay, can I first say, I want to give you kudos this person who asked this question. I want to give kudos on just the acknowledgement of you being put in that role to be your parent's parent because that is going to be the first step to being able to unlearn that, to recognize the

patterns that come up that continue to put you in the position of being your parents' parent. And there's times, right, if we grew up in a household where there's addiction, maybe it was that like I had to take care of my younger siblings or my parents were struggling to get into their sobriety or I'd say that I grew up in a household where I was first generation. My parents didn't speak the language that was my first language. And so I was doing translating. I was doing filling up paperwork. There's so many reasons that sometimes are just circumstantial that this ends up happening. And still, it then becomes very difficult to reset that. Right. So let's say that in my childhood, my mom had severe postpartum depression. And with that, it was really important for me to

be an easy child and she didn't have high capacity and she didn't have financial resources for her to get help or it was the 80s and nobody talked about and it was just how it was and then you have to say okay I can sit here and not hold this against my mom and blame it forever although you're allowed to be angry you always are but I'm allowed to feel this thing and then say I have to now reset all of this so there's significant work that's needed the big work I'm going to point to is grief work and boundary work. You will have to grieve the childhood that you did not get. An activity we often do with clients is to say, what age did you stop being a child? Some people will say, I still feel like I am a child and I'm 35, or I feel like I stop being able to be a kid at six when my sibling was born.

And it's such a variety, but to say to yourself, when did you stop being a child? Or maybe there's parts of yourself that feels very childlike. Like my parents always took care of my financial situation. And now as an adulthood, I'm still relying on them to help me with taxes, different stuff. Like there might be parts of you that feel childlike and more parts of you that feel very mature and to take an inventory of what that looks like. I think a thing to note too is that as children for survival, it's important for us to be connected to our caregiver. And what happens when your parent is maybe unable to give you the parental guidance that you needed is. that you work to stay connected to them in whatever way that means. And at times, that might mean parenting your parent. That might mean neglecting your own needs to be able to give to your parent

because that is the way in which you stayed connected to them. And so the fact of the matter is, as a child, that was really important for you to be able to survive. So I want to also acknowledge that and for you to be able to acknowledge your inner child for developing those survival skills because they were so important at the time. And now as an adult where you can survive on your own, you can take care of yourself, you can begin to question if those survival skills are still as important as they once were. Are there other ways to stay connected to your parent that isn't parenting them. So it might mean after you do a little bit of that grief work, how can you develop a different type of relationship with your parent?

And what does that look like? And I also want to validate that that can be pretty terrifying to make that change. Absolutely. Really scary. And as we will continue to say through this entire episode, that will take time. And it's okay that that takes time. It doesn't just happen in one swift movement. It happens in little moments over time. But I think the acknowledgement that you are allowed to make a change in the relationship and you are allowed to change the thing that once helped you survive because you can now take care of yourself and you're allowed to change that relationship with your parent. I'm really glad you touched on this part about like children just like want to be close to parents so they do whatever. It's an interesting thing. I'm a parent

myself. I have an almost four year old daughter. And like I sent you a a picture earlier that my daughter was having a really hard time that we had to record this later and she's like glued to my side I send you this picture off I was like oh she is like glued to me right now right like kids want to be near their parents in whatever way that means they do not have the ability if you look at developmental ages of children and if you become a parent I highly recommend you do this is that like some of this is really normal behavior towards development and if you can understand developmental stages of children. It also can help to give yourself compassion, empathy for who you were as a child

of truly just being normal. So true. Your daughter's so cute. Yeah. She is very cute. And my daughter is absolutely adorable. And you can, you start to see this really interesting thing when you become a parent where like sometimes, I think for a lot of people, this switch happens right where you're like sometimes you can start to either have a ton more compassion for your parents or caregivers or you could say what the hell man why did you not do what needed to do to take care of me right like why was this so hard for you exactly right like i was like this innocent kid and how come you couldn't get together and so whatever it looks like whether you're like left with like some resentment and anger or some compassion empathy for your parents is an important thing to just

keep watch of, like, that stuff is going to come up. Like, we keep thinking we go through these stages of life and it's just like move to the next thing and we're fine. And I'm here to tell you that no matter how much therapy you do, we are therapists. Life will still keep happening. You'll still have to process it. A hundred percent. Okay, are you still on the fence about which SUV to get? Waiting to hear the reviews. Well, Hyundai has got some news. The Hyundai Ionic 5 beat out 32 of other SUVs to win Motor Trends, 2023 SUV of the year. 32. They picked Hyundai, and it's the first time they've ever chosen an all-electric vehicle for

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Their words, not Hyundai's. There you have it. Ladies and gentlemen, the reviews are in and they are clearly spectacular. The Hyundai Ionic 5 Motor Trends 2023 SUV of the year. When it comes to award-winning driving, Hyundai is thinking of every mile. Hyundai, it's your journey available in limited quantities and select states only. if your parents never let you fail, like always stepping in, how to get comfy with being uncomfie since I never really had to be. And this is similar to what Caitlin said about her parents, always protecting her. Ooh. Parents have such good intentions sometimes. They do. They really do. And that's a strong codependency. Yeah. And that's what's tough is that like, of course,

and we talked about this on last week's episode is that you're allowed to think of about your inner child and understand that you didn't receive what you needed growing up and also that your parents aren't bad people, that they tried their best, that they were doing everything that they can. Both things can exist at the same time. And so what we're speaking to now is how do you develop distress tolerance when you were not given that ability to develop that distress tolerance growing up? And one of the things that we talk about is that mastery leads to self-esteem. So guess what? The only way we learn is to failing and trying over and over and over again, which sucks. It does. And I think, because we get this question all the time on our

podcast that how do I not feel this, right? Like, how do I not feel this? And our favorite answer, and I think the only answer, is that we can't take your feelings away from you. A lot of times people come into therapy, like, I don't want to feel anxiety or I don't want to feel this. And Yes. And I would love to turn my clients into robots, you know, like it would make things so easy for them to just be like, sure, I'll turn your feelings off. What type of therapy would that be? I don't know. Like a robotics therapy. I don't know. I imagine a clone factory right where your clients go in and they all are the same after. Actually, but I imagine you're not going to get this reference. I don't think, although if you do, I will. But if you watch the Santa Claus 3, there's an episode. So when Tim Allen becomes robotic, Santa Claus, and they all look very weird. And every Jewish bone, your body is like, no.

Yes. Every Jewish bone without a child is like, no. I'm not watching that. So no, I don't know what you're talking about, but I appreciate the reference. And I'm sure other people will. But the fact of the matter is, is that no matter what, right? So your parents were trying to step in with good intention. They want to protect you.

Parents have a natural inclination. I want to protect you from this discomfort. that you're feeling. And it's so well-intentioned, but the fact of the matter is that no matter what, as a human being, you're going to feel discomfort. Things are uncomfortable. And having these uncomfortable emotions is part of the human experience. And so when you deny yourself the ability to feel and sit with these uncomfortable emotions, you deny yourself the ability to be human. So for this person, though, it would be really interested in for them to do an activity of what are the things that my parents did not let me fail at. What are the things that I still feel very

childlike? This goes back to the inventory we're talking about, right? What parts of me feel very childlike, right? For a lot of us, it's like finances, you know, like, and there's one million memes about this, right? Like, me calling my dad to do my taxes when I'm 50. Like, there's certain stuff, right? And I'm not saying those are bad things, but if they make you feel less than or you feel disempowered by them or or their strings attached to them or right if every time you ask a parent to do those taxes you then owe them something that's when you have to learn that skill on your own that's what tax companies are for right like that's keep going back to taxes in the I mean we're clearly very uncomfortable with taxes and that's why we keep that is why we keep

mentioning it but this thing of like right like who's the other part is what if there's strings attached to the things that your parents don't let you fail at. I also, right, so there's things, things that your parents didn't let you fail out and the emotions that they stopped you from feeling. And I think in the emotional aspect, right, for you to be able to say when you're feeling, like, this will not kill me, right? Sometimes when we're so uncomfortable in our emotions, all we want to do is get out of the emotion.

We want to resist it. How do I not feel this? How do I get out of this? and sometimes resisting it, right, makes the, makes the emotion even stronger. And so the resistance to it can make it stronger. So to be able to say, listen, I feel, right, loneliness is a really painful feeling, right, rejection, really painful feeling. All of these uncomfortable feelings are part of the human experience. So for you to be able to sit with it and say, this feeling will not kill me and it will pass.

This is a feeling that will pass over time. How do I not get out of this feeling, but how do I nurture? myself through this emotion. How can I take care of myself through this? Because it sounds like that's something, that is reparenting your inner child as opposed to saying, I need to not feel like, because that's what your parent did, right? You stepping in and saying, I need to not feel this is your parents stepping in and saying, you shouldn't feel this. And so for you to say, it is okay for me to feel this. I can nurture myself through this feeling. And I will be able to get through this and this will pass. Ooh, so if our parents maybe didn't give us enough boundaries,

As adults, we may have to reset boundaries for ourselves, right? Let's say that, like, I lived in a household where there's a ton of high conflict. And we were allowed to name call. We were allowed to say, like, really mean things and just, like, some really unhealthy conflict management skills. And then I get into a relationship and a marriage. And all of a sudden, I'm, like, saying stuff that's, like, really damaging my relationship, but it's so normalized in my family of origin that, like, it doesn't, you don't see what

it does. And then you start to say to yourself, like, I feel like such a jerk when I do this. Like, I really spit off the handle. We have what's what we call as unbridled self-expression. I, like, let myself go. You might then have to give yourself the boundaries that your parents never did. And that doesn't feel great sometimes. And it's one of the times we talk about using your emotions as information. If I feel really poorly after something or very shame-filled, one, where is that coming from? Am I actually really upset about something I did and I don't feel good when I do that? That's appropriate behavior.

Or was I told to my family of origin? And if I speak up for myself, that that is shaming and that's hurting the family. So let's look at it as information to dive a little bit deeper that, like, emotions aren't these things that we just have to run from. But there are some stuff that give us information we got to look into and then we got to figure what the heck to do with. Oh, yeah. Oof, it's good. Ready for the next one? I'm like your oof, your oof backup singer.

My oof, backup singer, there it is. They're going to take this episode away from us. A hundred percent. Deleting it immediately. Okay. All right. I also want to mention it in the show notes today.

We're going to have some book recommendations because the reality is that therapy is not always accessible to everyone. Sometimes it's difficult to find a therapist. Let's be honest, they have to have them licensed in your specific states. There's not lots of therapists in certain areas and rural communities. It's kind of a BS system. It can be expensive. There can be wait list.

So sometimes it's simply not accessible and you're ready to do this work. We're a list a bunch of books in the show notes. But the other thing is we want you to find credible therapists that are good fits for you. Meaning are they appropriately licensed in your state? You can actually look up licensure verifications and make sure that no one has had any violations to their licensure or been reported by anyone. those are all like it's all public systems to find out ask your therapist have you worked with inner child work before what has that looked like or have you gone to therapy yourself what does it look like if i want to end therapy what's it look like if i cancel sessions there's so many questions you could ask to really sit there and say like i have to make sure this is the right thing because you are spending time and money with this person and you do want them to be a credible resource right there was just like a viral tic talk about someone who got scam by their therapist oh yeah right we just talked about this that their therapist The therapist got addicted to online psychics. And that's my favorite part.

Therapists got addicted to online psychics and then stole all their therapy. All their client's credit card numbers. So like, just like any profession, though, someone can start to do illegal or unethical stuff. A hundred percent. And you know what? The thing that we always talk about is how important it is for you to have a connected therapeutic relationship with your therapist, that it's the biggest predictor of therapeutic success is that you feel like you can connect with your therapist.

feel comfortable with them. So you can also ask these therapists for a free 15-minute phone consultation to ask them all of these questions and to find out if they're the right fit for you. Because honestly, finding a therapist is sort of like dating. They've got to be the right fit. I know. And it's kind of a pain in the butt. It is. Just like dating. But also in show notes, please look, we have a list of lots of amazing books that you can start to do this work on your own that comes with workbooks that has all this information. This is a question for Caitlin. and maybe we'll have to make her answer it when she comes back. But I want to ask, so I have a child, so this really can't pertain to me, but you are someone

who is happily child-free by choice. I am child-free by choice. So you ask me the question. I'll take it away. Has your own inner-child perception change your desire to have children at all? Yes. Wait, I'm sure what? Why? So, so I don't know. I'm shocked. Are you? You thought I was going to say no. Yeah. I did. So I'll tell you, I'll tell you why. I think that, you know, when you feel like you grow up maybe too early too soon when you feel perennified, you feel burnt out after a while as a child, right? Like almost growing up too soon. So I think that as I think about it, right, thinking about this question, if I dig a little bit deeper, I think there's part of,

of it where I, my independence is so important to me because of that. And so that I think is, is, is, leads into it a little bit. I think there are so many other parts of it that have led me to make the choice to be child free. But I'm sure that that's a part of it. Yeah. You know, it's interesting is we have another amazing clinician that works with us that if you want a therapist, you can come to a therapy group. We'd love to sit you up some. And also if we're not in your state and you're really struggling to find a therapist also reach out because we have directories of other great people like we really want to help everyone but we have another therapist in our practice who thought that she totally wanted to be child free and that she did a bunch of

work and she decided oh I do want to have a child I just was really resentful towards my childhood and like once I processed through like it did change it for me so I think it can go either way and neither it's good or bad but it is amazing I also think I mean there's so many people, if we sat and were to really talk about our parents' generation, so many of those women didn't feel like they had choices about becoming moms. The fact that women are starting to be able to say, is this a choice that I want to make, right? Whereas before, everyone's just like, okay, this is the next step, right? This is the next step I have to follow it.

So I love that we're talking about the ability to make a conscious choice around it, to say, is this something that I want, why do I want to become a parent? Why is this important to me? What kind of parent do I want to be? Am I doing this for me or am I doing this for my parents? Am I doing this for society? To be able to ask yourself those questions to feel like you have choices. It's so beautiful. The activity is called scripting, parental scripting. We talk about it with like all things. What is the point of being in a marriage? What's the point of having sex? What's the point of doing this thing that I do? Like, where am I getting this information from and where am I developing these ideas about? And if I start to really look at the script, like who's voices are these? Who is coming up with this information? Who is it? Who are they? And where are they? Sometimes it's our inner child. And arts are our childhood stuff, right? It is. Okay, when you've got a lot going on, it can be really hard to find time or motivation for a workout. I know I've been there a million times before, but Peloton has really motivated me to get it in however and whenever I can. You guys already know how I feel about Peloton eats my fave. So I've had their bike for a while now,

take classes on the app, but the Peloton row brand new to me. I went to their showroom in Nashville. I need to get this rower immediately. I should have asked for it for Christmas. Maybe I'll just get it myself. Merry Christmas, Caitlin. You guys, I'm serious when I say I actually had fun working out and feel like I got in a brand new type of workout for me, just full body. Peloton is bringing motivation and energy to rowing like never before with a variety of rowing workouts on and off the row and all new world-class instructors who will help you get in a great workout while having fun no matter what your experience level is. And rowing is no joke. You can work on 86% of your muscles in only 15 minutes and get all your cardio and strength in one shot. The technology was really cool

when I tried it in the showroom. It helped me get into it the right way and they have this form assist while working out. So it's like a breakdown of what you're doing right and wrong and it'll help give you the proper form. And the breakdown is at the end. So you can go even even harder next time. Right now is the perfect time to get rowing with Peloton Row, and we can promise you've never rowed like this before. Peloton Row offers a variety of classes for all levels and game-changing features that will help you get rowing or advance what you already can do. Explore Peloton Row and financing options at onepellaton.com slash row. Okay. I love this question. How to do the work when you don't remember a lot about your

childhood? We really wanted to address this because I think it's a misconception that you have to remember something about your childhood in order to do this work. And you absolutely do not. I think that when you have reactions to things, you can look and say, well, what is my inner child asking for, right? When your inner child is coming out, all you have to say to yourself is, what did I not receive growing up? And you don't have to remember memories. You don't have to remember specifics. But it might just be an emotion, right? It might just be a feeling that's coming up. It might be the way in which you talk to yourself about certain things that can give you insight into what you didn't receive growing up and how you can reparent yourself. So this is the reminder of

we ask you to get out those childhood photos, pick out three to four and look at how you feel at different ages. Are there ones you're proud of? Or there's ones you're sad about? Are there ones you're disappointed or angry with? For a lot of us, we look at like our teenage and young adolescent years. Like, well, look at these like children who we see as innocent. We're like, oh, I feel sad for her. And then you'll have all this anger as your teenage self, right? Like, but wait a second. Like, don't they deserve compassion and empathy too? And so I think that there's something to sit here and look at some of those photos, you might not remember exactly what was happening. But what happens is your body remembers something that was going on for you.

So your body feels like I don't want to look at that picture of myself. That's information. If it feels like I cry when I look at that picture or this upsets me or I feel angry, let's go with those emotions first because sometimes we just don't have the memories. Or we have a lot of anger or happiness or I've been told that oh no no your childhood was so wonderful right like what are you talking about you're the perfect childhood you're the perfect childhood and then you're like I don't know if I remember all of that or you're really angry about something happened and so then you don't remember the good stuff and also your experience is specific to you there's a lot of the time you know if you have a sibling who's maybe three years older three years younger

whatever it is, they could have very much had a different experience in childhood. And so I think the invalidating happens a lot, too, when you have a sibling that had a different experience than you, when you're going through something that your sibling is not going through, when you had an experience that your sibling did not. And so just because a sibling had a different experience does not mean that your experience is not valid. Car crash example. Do the car crash. So let's say that you're in a car. We're going to say it's a nice sedan. It's a four-door sedan, right? Safe car.

Safe car. It's a safe car. We got two caregivers in the front seats and then two kids in the back. Let's say you're in a car accident. And caregiver number one turns the wheel because, like, you just have this, you know, thing, turn the wheel away. Kid of the one backseat comes out of the car and says, wow, dad did such a good job in that accident. I don't have a scratch on me. Kid next to them is covered in blood and glass and is like, the hell.

Oh, dad sacrificed me. And so we could be in the same exact car accident, very different wounds. Does not mean that one is accurate. One is not. We had different experiences. So all of us actually did grow up in different families. That is what is wild. I can have a completely, if I had my brother here, he would say that we had totally different

parents. Would your brother say the same thing? Honestly, no. We would have the same experience. But my husband has three brothers. Every single one of them has a different experience from their childhood. And they're like two, three years apart, each of them. I think oftentimes we look for to a sibling to validate our experience.

And so that's why I really, I think that car crash example is so important to know that you don't need someone who was in your family to validate your experience for it to not be real for you. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I think this is an important question I really want to address here, and we're just going to use this. What do you think of doing inner child work if a parent has passed away? I want to deal with my past trauma, but don't want to have questions my father can't answer or maybe I'm overthinking it. This, we get this question all the time. One, for some people, the fear of if I start doing this work, is it going to change how I feel about a deceased caregiver?

That's really hard to confront, right? What if I grieve this person, I feel good about our relationship, and then I drudge up all this stuff, and it changes how I feel. That could happen. It still might be important work to do. I think that's a personal decision. But if you're feeling drawn towards this, you can also say, before I get into this, right, you give yourself a mantra. Before I get into this, I promise to see my father as human. Humans are flawed and make mistakes are very imperfect and typically try the best that they had. It might change how you feel. You might have some anger towards him. I have different stuff. And that can be really hard when they're not there.

But also, sometimes your parent is alive and you can't do anything about that stuff either. Yeah. It already feels like they're lost. Yeah. And I think, I think another thing to think about is that you don't, you don't need a parent there in order to do inner child work. That it isn't necessarily about, and it really isn't about a parent changing anything. It is about you repair. parenting yourself to give those things to yourself. And I think that's another misconception is that there needs to be a parent there. The parent needs to change something. You need to have a conversation with your parent in order to do this inner child work. And that is just not true. You very much can do this inner child work for yourself and learn how to reparent yourself without that parent.

And it's interesting thing, right? So like we're LMFTs. And I guess we should say what that is, which is licensed merit and a family therapist, which doesn't mean we only work with marriages or families, it means that we are systemic therapist. So we see a full system when we're trying to understand something. And that's one of the things is that we can do family therapy and systemic work with one person in the room. And you can do that work with just you showing up. And one of the things we also talk about is sometimes it takes a whole bunch of people to set a dynamic and one person to change it. And sometimes you don't change other people and what they do, but you change the dynamic by simply changing yourself.

which I think is powerful, right? Because that's all we get to control in this life. Absolutely. Wow. So I think we got to get to our other segments. Okay. Is it time? That's how we switch to other segments is Emily will make like a cute noise.

That's how we do. So something we do in our show is called calling BS. And so we usually do this a segment with guest on shrink chicks, but today we're to call some BS on inner child work and just therapy in general. Jen, what do you got for us first? So I want to reiterate that you, number one, you don't need a parent there in order to do this inner child work. And you do not need to remember your childhood in order to do this work. And so that I think is really important because we get that question and I've gotten that question so many times. What if I don't remember?

What if I don't have the parent there? you very much can re-parent yourself without having those memories or having that relationship with a parent. I think that we have, I think one of things to talk about as therapy in terms of intertrial work is that we have a lot of beliefs about who therapy is accessible for. And the reality is that healing work is accessible for everyone, but it might not look the same for everyone. And so if seeing a therapist every single week is out of your budget, which it is for many, many people, there are other ways to do this. We encourage you to look up podcasts, to read books. And sometimes you can do this work and then you have to meet with a therapist only once a month

to integrate it all and to have a sounding board. There are groups that you can join. There is different things. But what I will recommend is that what we don't want to do is have the blind leading the blind. So if you're doing this work, make sure that it's not just you and a group of other people that just wants to hear the same information given back and forth to each other. Sometimes that's a group of friends. What we don't want is people in our life who just co-sign every single thing that we do. Have some people to challenge some of your thoughts and beliefs and think through stuff. Oh, that one is so good. That might be yes. I love that. Wait, I have another one. I'm just going to keep adding them on. I think another big thing

is that this doesn't just happen quickly. This reparenting yourself, working on your inner child, happens over time. And it can happen at different points of our lives. It can happen during different transitions. And so it's okay to be patient with yourself in this work. It's okay to dive into it, dip your toe into it. It's okay to take time with it. Talk to your therapist about it. Go in, go out. Give yourself time and give yourself patience when you're doing this work. It does not happen all at once and that is okay. You ready to practice what we preach? yes all right so we talked about being a kid again to embrace your inner child so i thought we could do a few activities to really practice what we preach are you ready i'm ready we're doing throwback Thursday

yes okay ready rapid fire okay rapid fire favorite throwback show lizzie mcuire oh favorite throwback movie oh you're doing all at me okay um you have to go too what's your favorite throwback show oh my favorite throwback show oh my god i was going to say that 70s show which is not i think that much of a throwback no it's hard because i watch children show every day now that i have a child's so coco melon don't no poison to my ears i have no idea what that is i just know that it's a child's show it's a child show okay i will say for your favorite throwback movie land before time it want to cry your eyes out ducky lamb before time so good mine um is titan you know Leo just I had I had 1997 I got the double tape it's the one double would

did open up no it was just it was just two VHS tapes and it would stop at a point you put the other VHS tape in God it was so great any days baby those were the days favorite thing to do as a kid cry and wonder why we both became therapist Pretend to be perfect. That was mine. Oh, please. Yes. That's good.

I love that. Favorite class in school. Lunch? Not a class. Maybe science. Oh, you would. I know. Not computers.

You're at the IT tech. Like, okay, not computers. I feel like I, like, just missed the computer era. Yeah, you might have. Typing, right? That we had the same thing. They covered your hands with like a, We had to cover our hands with a box so we memorized the keyboard.

Did you have that? No. Quakers. I don't know. God, a school should go to? Friend schools. Yeah, I don't know. Okay, least favorite class.

Math. Yeah. That was hard for me. Science was really hard for me. I don't understand anything for science. I'm like, this is magic. What was your favorite? It's going to the guidance counselor to deal with the drama that I have never been

myself. Hey, also, I feel like that's on the same level as lunch, but, like, we'll just call it. It was hiding in the guys' house. Leastard was definitely science. To me, science is magic. I don't understand. It's the most wonderful thing. Beautiful.

Wait, favorite present you received? My anxiety. American Girl Balls. Such a lovely gift. It's a gift that keeps on giving. Truly generationally. Favorite childhood tradition. Oh.

Family fights. It's on the holidays. This is the most depressing. They're on back Thursday. Everyone dreading, seeing extended family on the holidays. Okay. Actually, mine, when my dad would be away for work, we would eat pizza in the living room, which was like a note. Like, we all just sit at the table.

And so we would all eat pizza. We would eat pizza in the living room and watch TV. That's a big. Oh, that's a nice. Isn't that nice? Yeah. It really is. Yeah.

It's exciting. Favorite holiday as a kid. probably Hanukkah eight those eight crazy nights those eight crazy nights it's really you know you get a present everyone I am loved 4th of July I still think fireworks are awesome I like um really makes me want a hot dog um I love I love hot dogs I love hot dogs right yeah what's your condiment what's your hot dog condiment I know that's not one of the questions Let's catch up. Mine's my story.

One word to describe your inner child. Valid. Mine's scared. She's still scared. She's still working on it. She's still scared. I'm going to hold that inner child of yours. I love that.

Okay. Are you ready for the final activity? Yes. They're really going to take the show from us. All right. So here's to go. Try to not laugh at these therapy tweets. We're to switch off reading therapy tweets

and the other person has to try not to laugh. I love it. Okay. Are you ready? I'm ready. Okay. Therapist? Oh, you mean my gossip doctor?

Don't laugh. Oh, I'm not supposed to laugh? No, don't laugh. That's the thing. Try not to laugh. I'll keep going. Therapy is so funny. It's like, hi, I'm here for my crying appointment.

Me. I want a therapist to call me my bullshit. My therapist. Your thoughts are wrong. Me. Yeah. Fuck you too, pal. That's a good

I like that one All right, that's a good one Okay, you have yours on there too Do you have yours? Oh, yeah, yeah, I'm ready, hold on. Okay. My therapist yesterday. I've noticed that you make funny jokes or laugh

when you talk about the things that were painful for you. Where do you think that comes from? Me. You think my jokes are funny? Last at all. Because it's me. I know.

I feel the same way. I'm like, did we make that one? I think we might have. Wait, just give you a few more than I lost on the first one. Sorry. Hate it when my therapist is all, maybe you're not a piece of shit. And I have to be all begrudgingly like, yes, yes, sure. Maybe I'm not a piece of shit.

I don't know if I understand that one. You don't? Just give me. Oh, my gosh. Okay. Ready? Next one. Next one. My therapist. You're a good person. Me. Oh, no. I've tricked you too. Wait, but like haven't we all had that thought? Yeah, yeah. These are funny because they're true. Because they're true. Funny because they're true. Okay, well, are you ready? Okay. Therapy is

helpful because every two years, I figure out what happened five years ago. Therapy is funny. Also true. We cannot thank everyone today. We're sticking with us. We cannot thank Caitlin enough and everyone, I know so much work goes into producing and distributing off the vine. We are incredibly, incredibly grateful they took a risk on two silly therapists and have allowed us into their corner of the world. If you are interested in hearing us, you can hear us on Trink Chicks anywhere you get your podcast. You can work with one of our amazing clinicians in person in Philadelphia, PA or Westchester, PA, or virtually if you were in the states of Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Florida, and California, Florida, and

California. I'm still so nervous. Keep listening to Off the Vine. We can't wait to hear how Caitlin does in her retreat. Caitlin, we're incredibly grateful and we're incredibly proud of you. And we'll make sure that you tune in next week to Off the Vine. Thanks for joining us for this week's Great Therapy. Don't forget to rate, review, and follow on your favorite podcast platform. And tune in Thursday for your next session. Hey, Friday Night Lights fans, it's not only football Friday Night Lights and Beyond is an episode-by-episode discussion of the hit TV series Friday Night Lights, hosted by yours truly Scott Porter, who played Jason Street on the show, and my two wonderful co-hosts, me, Zach Gelford, aka Matt Sarrison. And me, Mae Whitman, aka someone who wasn't on the show,

but really, really loves it a lot. We will also bring on some special guests, answer your questions, and tell you about what's going on in our lives, Today. It's not only football. Friday Night Lights and Beyond is available now wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Clear eyes, full hearts,

can't lose.