Off The Vine with Kaitlyn Bristowe - The ShrinkChicks: Diving Into Inner Child Work

Episode Date: January 24, 2023

Before Kaitlyn departed for her week-long therapy retreat, she brought in two experts to help us learn more about inner child work. Emmalee and Jennifer, AKA the ShrinkChicks, join the pod to explain everything inner child: Who is our inner child? Does everyone need to do inner child work, or what are some signs we should? How can we raise our children without harming their inner child? And what can we do to work on our inner child outside of traditional therapy (there’s plenty!)? Em, Jen, and KB are very vulnerable in today’s episode as they use examples from their personal lives to dig deep into inner child wounds, anti-relational behaviors and cycles we fall into, and even share confessions from their childhood. Stay tuned for Thursday’s Grape Therapy where the ShrinkChicks return to answer all of YOUR questions about inner child work. In the meantime, be sure to check out their podcast to learn about inner child work and much more. Thank you to our sponsors! Check out these deals for the Vinos: PELOTON - Explore Peloton Row and their financing options at onepeloton.com/row.  PROGRESSIVE - Quote at Progressive.com to join the over 29 million drivers who trust Progressive.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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And Progressive, quote at Progressive.com to join the over 29 million drivers who trust Progressive. Welcome to Off the Vine with Caitlin Bristow. Get ready to laugh, connect, and feel empowered with Caitlin and her guests as a They sip wine, lots of wine, and get candid. They say vulnerability creates connection. So save the highlight reel for Instagram, because when we're among Vino's, there's no filter. It's time to unwind.

Here's your host, Caitlin Bristow. Welcome to Off the Vine. I'm your host, Caitlin Bristow. And if you all have been listening to the pod or follow me on Instagram, you know that I am currently away for a week of inner child work at Hoffman and it's no phone, no computer. So please tease and peace, thoughts prayers for me right now. And I don't want to beat a dead horse. Why do I keep using that expression. It's always so gross too. But it really just is a big part of my life right now and I want to take you all on this incredible journey of mine and maybe even inspire some of you who would like to do

something like this to take that leap and heal and get to know yourself and just do it. Am I scared? Yes, I sure am. I'm actually terrified. I'm not usually a person who gets scared of being alone, but I am this time. I'm scared of being alone. I'm scared of taking myself to the airport, being alone, going there alone, being alone with all of these thoughts. But what do I always say? Do it scared. And that doesn't just apply for therapy or emotional healing.

Just do that thing that you've always wanted to do, even if you're scared. This just happens to be mine. What's a little scary right now? So I wanted to bring on guests to talk about the topic way better than I can. And so I invited two of my favorite therapists, Emily and Jennifer, also known as the shrink chicks, to walk us through what inner child work is, how to know if you should explore this type of work and what to expect if you do. And we also have a little surprise for you at the end. So keep your ear holes open for that. Their confessions, just wait for them, especially Emily's.

Hi. I was telling Emily, she hasn't updated her Zoom since 2012. She was the first user of Zoom. Jen had to help me download a fucking app this week. Like, I am like, I don't know how to fucking you shit, man. I don't know. I'm trying my business. She's archaic.

Wait, what's wrong with your Zoom? Do you need like an update? No, no, you know, you know when you get on Zoom and it says like video preview, it came up. And everyone was like, oh my God, what is that? What? That happens every time. Wait, I'm Jessie. I don't see a video preview.

Yeah. Okay. Thanks. I'm sorry. I apologize. What the hell? Do I need to update my Zoom? Everyone, listen.

I'll be your IT. I'm the IT department. Call Jen for any IT. She helped me download an app this week when I, to get a new credit card. I didn't know how to do it. No way? Yeah. It's bad.

You know what? I feel like that's kind of a nice way to live, though. Well, we can get into. a fact that I have a parentified inner child because I was taught to be an adult my whole life and that is why I am now grandma. Oh, wait, that makes a lot of sense. Okay, we'll get into that.

Right to grandma. Let's just dive right in head first. Why are you a grandma? Okay. I do want to say thank you for being here and it's always good to see you guys. Like immediately as you pop on my screen, I'm just like, oh, this is going to be fun.

It's going to be fun. It's going to be fun and educational and therapeutic and all of the good things. I probably will. I'm very fragile this year. Oh, you know what? I've been seeing that a little bit, but you want to know what?

Here's the thing, what you need to know is when you get deep into healing, you are like f***ed up and depressed for a while. Nobody tells you that part that you're just f***ed up for like a solid fucking year. And then it's really good. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. That means you're doing good work. It's because it's so raw. Like, it just like rips you open. Well, that's the thing. Okay, we're obviously recording this before I go to Hoffman Institute. And when this episode airs, I'm actually going to be like in the thick of my inner child work, no phone, just left with like silence and my thoughts and all those things that we're all afraid to do, but I'm going to do it. Yeah. Just just little old Caitlin working on littler Caitlin who needed some help then. But she's getting it now. But I feel like that all already brought up so many emotions because. of all of the paperwork and the pre-work that I had to do before I go on this retreat. I'm like, I always say, like, I feel pretty lucky for how my childhood went. Like, I feel like I had, like, a pretty great childhood.

That doesn't mean there's still not so much that needs to be healed. But I feel like I just said, like a broken record talking about this all the time. But I don't know. I just got so emotional doing that pre-work because it was going so far back to places that people don't go that far back to. and it makes you think about things that you wouldn't have thought about unless you're doing this kind of work. And I feel like that already just cracked me open. So I can't even imagine what this whole process is going to look like. So I know you two just did an episode on inner child work. So I wanted to know if you have any advice for me going into it. Like never doing,

I've always done therapy, but I've never done like inner child work specifically. Advice for diving. A lot of advice. We have a lot of advice. So the one thing is, I think you just says something that's very important, which is what catches a lot of people of guard, which is like, I had a pretty good childhood. Like, it wasn't very traumatic and I was pretty privileged. And so I feel like there's a type of discomfort and guilt that comes with them doing this work. And what we have to remember is that actually in general, our world is traumatic.

To be a child in this world and the expectations we put on children in this world is actually a traumatic experience. Yeah. So, and that sounds, I know, like a bit dramatic. And stay with me when I say this, which is that we. are held to an unrealistic standard in this society from way too young of an age. And so that one, the compassion for ourselves, but also of our family of origin, for our parents, our parents are pretty much for the most part doing the best that they can with the skills that

they have. And sometimes it wasn't enough for us. And that doesn't mean that our parents are bad or evil or horrible or any stuff that comes up. It means that like we are so unbelievably human and fragile and flawed. And that can be something we get mad at or can be something that we are unbelievably compassionate and grateful for because if I can see my parents for just being human, that also means that me myself, I get to be human. And I would rather be human. I think that that's common too, that it's some of the reason why people will keep themselves from doing inner child work is they feel like, okay, if I can acknowledge some of the things that I didn't receive growing up,

then it means that I'm betraying my parents in some way. Like I'm saying they did something bad. But just as Emily was saying, they were doing the best that they could and that you can still acknowledge the fact that you didn't get what you needed growing up and acknowledge that they were doing the best that they could. That it doesn't have to be one or the other. I didn't get what I needed. And so they did something bad.

I didn't get what they needed. They were doing the best that they could. Yeah. I mean, and there are some really sad, unfortunate, circumstances where maybe the parents weren't doing the best that they could. And that's got to be so hard. I can't even imagine because I genuinely believe with my whole heart that my parents did do the best that they could. And, and I'm so like actually even doing some of the pre-work, I was like, wow, my parents really loved me. Like I know that for sure. And that's, I'm so

lucky for that. I just know, you know, there's so many situations where, and maybe there aren't your real birth parents and you have to do your inner child work around that or you didn't have parents, something tragic happened to them. Like there's so many different scenarios where you need to do that inner child work. But I wanted to kind of even ask because a lot of people now that I was talking about it have been curious. So I thought obviously you two would be way better at talking about all of this than me. But what is inner child work and like who exactly is our inner child? Is there like a specific age? Let's start with what is inner child. work. Okay. So our inner child is pretty much who we were before all of the shit happened to

us. Yeah. Right. If I could put it pretty succinctly, it's who we were, what we naturally gravitated towards growing up without all of the constraints and maybe emotional wounds that we experienced in our childhood from society. All of these, and they may be big events. they may be small events that happened. And it doesn't have to be a particular age. It's just who you were before all of that. How do you connect with that person who has been almost caged by all of these experiences that have affected us over time? So when we think about, you said like, so what age is that? So once you think about like, well, what's the wound, right? Like, was it abandonment? Was it rejection? Was it neglect? Any of these things? So if I think back, I'm going to use some examples.

We'll use, we use a lot of examples from ourselves, right? So I'm going to think back and think about the first time that I felt like my body was not good, like other people, that my body was too big. And I have a very, very profound memory of like a photograph, a Polaroid photograph that was taken probably when I was about six years old with my best friend. And I noticed that her body was just smaller than mine. And my immediate reaction at six years old was, oh, God, I'm gross. So that moment, six, right? So in that moments, that's the. inner child that I have to nurture. I also have other wounds from childhood, right? So maybe

there's one at eight years old. Maybe there's one at 11 years old. And for me to sit here and nurture that inner child and that wound at that point, the experience a childhood wound I might have had at six may be very different than 11. And both deserve love and care to then experience it. Because what I have to say to that six year old is your body's different. Your body doesn't look like theirs. That's not good or bad. It means literally nothing. It has. absolutely zero moral value. But I'm so sorry you feel that way, right? The fear I had at six years old was I won't be loved the same way they are because my body isn't as good as them. So whatever that emotion it brings up from the wound is where we want to start to track

the inner child. This is a freaking deep question, but like how now as as people out there are listening who are parents, how do we go raise our children not making these same mistakes or having the knowledge to give them that love that they need, is that even possible? Or like, I know you have a little girl, don't you? I do. I do have a beautiful four-year-old. And the thing that's the thing we have to remember when we become parents, if we're interested

in that, is that, like, actually your job as parents is to not protect them from this. Because they're going to experience it either way. You can love your child so damn much and they're going to experience this. My parents weren't sitting there telling me anything bad about my body. I saw a photo and I made that because I had heard other things, right? So you can do the best damn parenting in the whole world and your child will experience wounds because that's life. Our job as their parents is to give them roots and to give them wings. I'm going to ground you in our family and connect you and I'm going to make you feel protected, brave and strong enough to then have wings towards life.

So it isn't about making it perfect because that is where we then lead into massive burnout in parenthood. it. And we don't want that either. It's impossible. It's impossible. It's an unrealistic standard and horribly sets. And it leads to more perfectionism and more people please. And then trying to be perfect then ends up hurting them in other ways. So it's really. And we're speaking a lot to the fact that when you are a child and you aren't getting the things that you need in order to heal those wounds, that you end up developing these very specific coping strategies, ways of surviving. And you take those coping strategies into adulthood. And they were things that were once so helpful for you and they end up being possibly hurtful for you in adulthood. Totally. Oh my gosh. I can think of so

many things. Like, again, my parents totally, I can remember, they just wanted to protect me so badly that I actually ended up not learning proper coping skills, which I realized later in life and had to, you know, really work on that. But again, again, I go back and I'm like, I wouldn't have wanted that any other way. I, I, that helped me in life. I had OCD. I had anxiety and then protecting me made me feel safe. We're down the road. I as an adult didn't have great coping skills. So I see what you mean there. That makes a lot of sense. And I know you said in your episode about this that there are actually signs as an adult that we should work on our inner child. I want to know what kind of signs those are, what people

should be looking for. Okay, the first we go to people pleasing. Yes. We know it. We hear it. This phrase is everywhere now. But if you struggle so much to disappoint people, you struggle to say no, you struggle to set boundaries. There is the inner child within you, the fear about what will happen if you do those things, right? That inner child is giving you information. So that is the, we're going to look at that one. Emotional reactivity, being highly reactive. And I think that that's a question. And And something that we talk about a lot is when you're having an extreme reaction to take the time to say, well, what am I feeling right now? What's going on for me that's triggering this? Because that will give you insight into what the wound is, where it's coming from.

Right. So, for example, if you ask someone for something and they say no and you have a strong reaction to it, what's the feeling underneath it? Is it a rejection? Is it abandonment? Is it whatever it is, you can get down to what the wound is. and that gives you a sense of where your inner child was wounded. Hyper independence and avoidance of emotions, right? I don't need anyone.

I love that I don't need anyone. Hey, we're humans. We are literally supposed to need each other. There's nothing wrong with that. But we have been a society that has trained you that you are so much safer if it's just you, you rely on. And I think it's beautiful to have your own distress tolerance. It's beautiful to have your own self-regulation. It's beautiful to have your own relationship with yourself.

And it's really beautiful to have relational skills in life, to have healthy relationships in romantic and platonic ways. That's a really good point because I, I'm not trying to make this all about me. I'm just like relating things. Yeah, we can use examples. Yeah, we can work with it. Okay. Because I, I'm like highly, well, again, gosh.

me five years ago to me today or me 10 years ago even like my reacting with emotion has gotten so much better just because I've been working on it but I still am I'm a highly sensitive person at times and I have such a weird duality of like being like not even needy but like I'm emotional but then I'm also that person where I'm like I could do everything by myself I would probably be happier if I just did everything by myself I know I'm capable of it so that makes sense because you can obviously have more than one attachment style or whatever we're calling these. And I like that you go, what you're talking about is you go to extremes, right? So like I can be highly sensitive and have a spiritual activity and be like so involved with people. And then it's like,

you want to know I don't need any of this and absolutely not. And that bounce back, that's inner child. And right? I have to protect myself. I need, I need, I need. And then I don't need anyone at all. And both are reactions, right? So I think that we look at the person who's highly outwardly reactive and say, oh, that's very clearly a reaction. We don't look at the person who's shutting down or pushing people away because in society, our society says, oh, that's great. They're like taking care of this. That's an individualistic society.

That's wonderful. We support that. But that can also be a reaction, even if we're in like an argument with someone, right? You have like the partner that's reactive, the person that is more shut down. And you look at the partner that's reactive and say, oh, they're so reactive. There's something going on. The shutdown is also a reaction. So it's the fact that you.

you have the awareness of that is so important to be able to say, well, what's going on for me? I recognize I'm reacting in both directions. Yeah, I think that's what's really exciting about going to do this retreat is that I've done so much therapy, talk therapy and things that I can work through. But now it's like the healing needs to happen where I'm like very self-aware, but how do I heal? Yeah. It's interesting because Eric Erickson, who has development at all these stages, has these like stages of development based on our age. And I would imagine for most of your listeners,

they're somewhere along the ages of 20 to 40, 20 to 50, right? And the interesting part for so many of us is that is the stage of intimacy versus isolation and the virtue of that is love. That for most of us from 18 to 45 years old are figuring out how to be our individual people and then also be in relationships, intimacy versus isolation. And it is completely developmentally normal at most of our ages that your listeners probably are is to be feeling this. How do I be with myself and how do I be with others? Wow. Isn't it crazy that so much of us like I was talking to a dream expert yesterday and even the fact that we all have the same reoccurring dreams, teeth falling out, being naked in public, like all these similar dreams because we are all like

just humans who have the same fears and all stems of like around love. To me, it feels like, you know, in acceptance. And it's so crazy that we all have these ways of coping or things that we do to self-soothe or, like, we're all so similar in so many ways. And that we're all just like don't know how to love ourselves and love somebody else in the healthiest way possible. Why is it so freaking hard? It's so hard. Because you know what? Intimacy is so scary and risky.

Is it because there's the potential. of getting hurt? Like is that really the main thing? Exactly. It's so vulnerable and vulnerability is so important in order to have these healthy relationships, but so hard and scary because there is that fear of being hurt or that fear of being rejected or the fear of it being shut down, right? That being vulnerable, it's so painful to be vulnerable to someone and have them not reciprocated or have them not hear you. It can open up very easily, open up those childhood wounds. So do you think working on your inner child could potentially like, I'm trying to think of if I did this work and then I went through the heartbreak that I went through 10 years ago

where it ruined me. Would I just have better like ways of or quicker ways of healing or better ways of healing? Like would I have approached that breakup differently? Even still at the age of 37, even though I've worked on myself, even though I've done certain amounts of healing, I'm still, like all of us, scared of getting hurt or hurting somebody. I have this deep fear around it. But I'm like, does that ever go away? Like, could you do all the healing in the world and that will still be a fear? Yes.

Yes. Cool, cool. And there it is. But what you have to remember is that you can never go back to the first step. It is impossible because you're not that anymore. So the pain you feel, the pain could always be there, and the experience of that pain will be very different, right? So even if, let's say, I went through another life-changing break-up. And one of the things I tell people all the time is like, even like with marriage, like marriage is no guarantee of shit.

Like my partner can wake up tomorrow, take a look at me and be like, nah, no thanks. And like, so like it's a piece of paper, right? It means like literally nothing. Anyone can change. And so, yes, you would go through this unbelievable heartbreak, but who you are 37 is not who you are in your 20s. Yeah. Every day you learn and grow and hit something new. So even if you had the exact experience, you are not the same person having that exact experience again. And something that could change with your inner child work, right? So if you're working on reparenting yourself, you're reparenting your inner child where, let's say, for example, growing up, you weren't heard, right? Your feelings weren't validated. And so you took that into adulthood where when you're upset, the way in which you respond to yourself is the same. way that your parents responded to you. You shouldn't feel this way, get it together, grow up, whatever those harmful reactions that you have to yourself that maybe you learned

growing up in order to cope. That the way in which you can reparent yourself through that is to say your feelings are valid. You are worthy. This breakup has nothing to do with who you are as a person. You are still lovable. So even though the experience can be painful in that, in that reparenting that inner child work, if you were to go through that breakup again, the way in which you talk to yourself and cope through it can be very different. And with that, it's the same thing. If I find myself having meltdowns or emotional reactivity, do I have to reparent myself to say, hey, it's actually not helpful to behave this way?

Am I being harmful to my relationships when I have unbridled self-expression and unbridled reactivity, right? Having a meltdown, right, to this thing. Like, you ever have like a meltdown where you're just like, I am unhinged this morning? Perfect. Let's do the things. Yeah. So probably at some point during that meltdown in your head, you're like, this is a little bit crazy. I'm being a little bit unhinged, but you can't seem to stop yourself. That's trigger. So that's your adaptive child that came in and went right down to the skills it had at a young age. And what we have to learn actually is to have emotional regulation to say I actually have to go put myself in a timeout and calm down. I actually have to walk away because at this level of activation and elevation,

I am not doing anything besides hurting myself and my partner. And it is absolutely 100% okay to have meltdowns as an adult, but are they harming myself, others, and what's happening here? I know for me, here's how I know. This is such an embarrassing thing. I'm going to really expose myself here. I'm excited. If I have a meltdown, I have two big dogs. One of my dogs is a rescue. He will shake. If I start to get too emotionally reactive, he starts shaking.

He has a very traumatic pass. But I'm able to say, holy shit, if my dog can feel my energy, I have to go upstairs and calm down. I am not doing anything to help. And I'm also not being hurt because once I start doing that, no one's going to take me seriously when I do that, even if what I'm feeling is so freaking valid and right. That is so true. I'll never forget a story that someone told me they're brilliant. This person is brilliant. But I don't want to call them out because I don't want to expose their dad. But this this guy I know, he was, I don't know what age, probably like 13, like early teens. And his dad was yelling at him. And he just sat there and was looking around and kind of like just didn't pay attention. And when his dad finished yelling, he goes, oh, are you? done? Because I actually didn't listen to anything you just said because you were screaming at me,

but I would love to have like a conversation. I like the child would say that to the parent. And I was like, that's actually so true. Yeah. It's so true, right? And we don't like admitting that. Like, I don't want, if anyone in the world saw us at our worst moments, right, would you ever want your worst moment put on the front page of a newspaper? Never. Newspaper. That's the fear, right? Any newspaper, right? Like, say, this is what I'm talking about. I have had one of my lowest moments put on the cover of us me three. So, yes, I get that.

Same thing, right? And so if we're being truly honest, is that in those moments, we are not bad people, but no one is hearing in us. No one is seeing us. And we deserve to be seen and heard when we desperately need it. And that is what's underneath it. Right. Like when we are having a melt, we want to be heard. We want someone to be there for us. We are, we are aching for it. And when you were younger, maybe that worked for you, right? Like having that meltdown, maybe your parents would come to you and say, oh my God, I'm here. What do you need? Right? That there was something you were receiving from that. Yeah. And maybe that no longer works anymore. Yes. That is something I've had to learn. Yeah. And it takes time. Listen, it takes time. And so the question is you can see. say when you're going upstairs to say I'm putting myself in this in my timeout corner, I'm going to

self-soothe. What do I need right now? What did I need growing up that I wasn't receiving from my did I need more boundaries, right? Did I mean my parents to say, listen, you can self-soothe. You are able to do this. I trust you. You can trust yourself. What did you need at that time? Because those thoughts and the way in which you talk to yourself, you can bring that into yourself soothing. 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,

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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's I know we talked about the signs of needing inner child work. I kind of cut you off because I went into my own issues. But did you name all the, all the signs? So I think something we missed was beating yourself up.

Yeah. Right? Like being really hard on yourself. If you had a parent that was really critical of you, if you, if you had a caregiver, if you had someone who was really critical of you, and you internalized that if you recognize that often when something goes wrong, you are hard on yourself. And the reason why kids tend to do that is because they believe that if they blame themselves, maybe they can change something to have more control over the situation.

Because as children, we have no control over our surroundings. And so children naturally develop this way of saying, well, if I blame myself, maybe I can do something different to change the situation so that I feel safer. And it's crazy because people can do that with like anything. I know one of my girlfriends does it with cleaning. Like it's like if she is in control or something's triggering her, she will lose it over like a piece of dust that's on the floor and it's not like, you know, clean because that's under her control.

I do that with my looks and my appearance and my body. I go into like, well, what can I fix about myself like on the outside? So that the inside maybe would, you know, that's something I do. So, and that's, that is a perfect example of a way that we try to say, well, if I take control of this, maybe I will feel safer. Maybe this will make me safer. Maybe it will keep me from being hurt, keep people from leaving me, keep me from being rejected, right?

That in general, we can't protect ourselves from the pain of the world. And that's what's really, really hard, but we definitely try. Here's the secret, right? Here's going to be the secret of, you know, if it's a side or not, okay? Is it an antirelational behavior? So this is what I mean by that. For Jen, Jen is someone who will isolate when she is activated. I am someone who will not shut the fuck up and have unbridled self-expression.

So for me, going to take a break is a really healthy thing. For Jen, isolation is not. I should go talk to the person. She should go talk to someone, right? Got it. Is it antirelational? When she goes into her little shell, then a hurt, her marriage, it hurts her relationships. When I don't stop talking because I'm so anxious and

I keep going with it, that hurts my relationships. So it's not that one behavior is good or bad is, is it an anti-relational behavior for you, if that makes sense? Yes. Jason and I, Jason buries too much and I word vomit too much and both are not the right way. Exactly. So what you need in that moment is for you to pull yourself in and to ground yourself and take the break, And while you do that for him to pull out and come towards. And that is what you go. So it's not so it's hard to say when we say like, well, what's the exact sign? Because what's a sign for Jen is not what's a sign for me.

Right. And so part of this is that how do I know who I am and what's the behavior that hurts my specific relationships that I engage in? And where does that come from? And relationships are all about cycles, right? What I do affects the other person, right? So if I'm shutting down, right, let's say me and Emily are in a relationship, which we are. If I'm shutting down, right, during an argument or something that's triggering the both of us, right? When we're in relationships, we have something that might be triggering both of our childhood wounds. And when that is happening, I'm shutting down. Emily is reacting stronger. The more she reacts, the more I'm triggered. The more I shut down, the more she's triggered. So it ends up being a perfect cycle. And what matters is that you both can communicate outside of the argument about. And your cycle. We did an eight hour day of like intensive couples therapy and it was so awesome

because there's just something about having that third person there who's a professional that makes it a safe place to talk about your feelings but you both don't react the way you usually would in like your impaired way of thinking because you're like well I'm in front of somebody. So you're like you're and it was so. awesome for us. We say that all the time with couples when they come in and we're like, how did you do that so well? They're like, well, you're here. And I was like, you can't take us home with you.

You know, like you can't. We'd be really expensive. You can't take us home. How can you take this with you when you get home? But if you're an opportunity to do an intensive like that, like we are such a good fans. We have therapists that at our practice do these intensives because here's a thing. You can fake it for 50 minutes.

Most therapy sessions are 50 minutes. It is actually really easy to hold it together for 50 minutes. 50 minutes. It is not for three hours. It is not for eight hours, right? Yeah. So at that, yeah, right? So at that time, I did that with about six months ago, my partner and I did a three day, a three fucking days in a row of six hours straight. Intensive, right? And you cannot fake it and hold it together. Nobody can. And so if you're saying, I'm going to couples therapy and I'm not having these results, this is where intensives are unbelievable, unbelievable decision. And part of this comes from, you know, Because you start to look back and see the same, right? When we talk about this example, in my childhood, I am an intense person. I had strong feelings. My mother could not handle that. That was not my mom.

My mom is like an academic, very highly intellectual. And so when I would have big feelings, my mother would totally shut down and go to her room. It was the most rejecting thing I could ever experience. My mom was trying to take care of herself and didn't know the best way to handle my stuff. But so when Jen goes into that space, if we're in a relationship, I feel that same rejection that I felt as a child. Jen going into that is not about me as nothing to do with me. It's about her. Right.

But when it hits the inner child wounds, when it hits the inner child, I go back to being a child who is hurt and rejected by my mother. And that is the worst feeling in the world. Yeah. It really, it's so true that like, because you just don't know any other way. At that age, you don't know any other feeling except for what you experienced. and so how would you grow into, you know, like putting yourself in a different position and understanding it if you've never done it, especially as, you know, this little innocent child. It's so crazy, though, because for me, I'm like, when I was doing the work again, I'm like, man,

everything that's like really, we have happened after I was 13. So I'm curious about the inner child work and how it's going to show up for me. But I wanted to know, are there, you know, we're talking about signs that we should work on our inner. child. Is there anyone out there who wouldn't have a sign that doesn't need to work on their inner child? You all need to do it. No. My first, it's a robot. And that's a robot. Yeah, robot. And that's what I mean about this idea of like, because so many people would be like, well, but I didn't have this traumatic experience. I didn't go without food. You know what I mean? I didn't go. There was no abuse. There was not stuff. Right. But what we're saying is this world is actually traumatizing. The world

that we live in is just hard to navigate. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. And little beings. are so pure and live in this world and are held to these unrealistic standards. Yeah. And so, no, all of us have had a child work to do. I don't care. If you find someone who doesn't, you can come tell us, and I give you $100 because bullshit. Jason used to say, until he started like doing the work, he used to be like, no, I seriously

think my childhood was perfect. And I was like, dude, I don't care how perfect your family was because they really are close. like it doesn't matter you still have so many things to heal and open up that you don't even know there probably like there's just so many things you can open up from your childhood that you probably don't even remember and I remember working with an energy healer she's like something around the age of seven for you happened and I'm thinking I'm like seven and I'm like and she's like yeah it was a time blah blah blah and you're feeling a lot of like this inside and and I'm thinking back. And I'm like, oh my God, my parents separated for the first time when I was seven. And

they got back together. And it was like very clear to us that they would get back together. It was just they were taking time. But like, I didn't realize how much that it affected me at that age for them just saying like, we're going to live separately just for a little while and come back. And it was, I remember writing about it actually. My third grade teacher blessed Mrs. Malcolm. She was the best. And we had to write like. journals and she said if there's anything really private that you want to write about just put it on this side and I won't read it and I remember being like my parents are separating and now I look back and I'm like my gosh that makes so much sense and the other day I was talking to somebody as well and they kind of got a little bit not heated but they were like you're very privileged in your therapy you get you can afford therapy you could talk about it every day on your podcast if you wanted to you could have the best therapists on you can afford going to this Hoffman retreat it's thousands of dollars like and and so i wanted to ask you if people might not have time even or resources to actually work on this with a therapist are there things they can do on their own to

work on this yes that's one of the coolest things about intertile work where she's like there's actually a ton of at-home stuff you could do right you just talk about a beautiful one mrs malcolm we love you journaling journaling is a huge thing but to sit back and say okay if i think back to the first time i felt embarrassed the first time i felt rejected the first time i felt abandoned and then i'm going to write about that and what did I need? And then how do I give that to myself when I start having these emotions? Right. So for me, is I actually needed somebody to come in in my early childhood and say, like, you're going to be okay. Like, I know you feel these big things and like you're not going to explode and you're not going to die from feelings. And that like just like hold it together

and ground yourself. And so I have to say that to myself now. So this ability to start really strongly developing your inner monologue, reparenting yourself. Brilliant thing to do at home. One of the other things that I love is to find a picture of yourself when you're a child, one that really speaks to you, one that like you're like, oh, that was a time that was really hard for me, right? You know when you look at a picture of yourself and you're like, oh, I was sad. Like, that was a sad time or like that was a really, really hard time for me. And to really be able to picture your inner child when you find yourself being critical, being reactive, any of those, any of those things that signal that there's time to do some inner child work, I want you to visualize that child, that picture of yourself, because it really helps you to talk to yourself, once again, that inner monologue, to develop your reparenting in a different way as you picture and visualize yourself as that child. If you were a child who had to maybe emotionally regulate your parents, let's say they were going through some type of addiction or divorce or

some time of child with your own stuff that you got parentified early. So maybe you were treated older than you were. I would really invite you to do childlike things. Play, get messy, get silly, blow bubbles. And don't be hard on yourself for it. Oh my gosh. Let yourself do it without judgment. Jump on the bed. Have a pillow fight. Do silly things that you feel silly doing. And if you're saying yourself like, this is so stupid, you should keep doing it because that's probably a sign that you need it. Like if you see it as small, play with children. Go play outside. go skip, go ride a bicycle, allow yourself to be a child that you did not get to do because you were taking care of other people. Wow. Oh, I hope people really do that. I hope anyone

listening that is feeling that is having a little aha moment and they go do something childlike. That sounds really nice. And it's one of the things that we also see a lot when people become parents is like, oh, I can't play with my kids or I'm so uncomfortable doing this. A lot of those people didn't get to be children themselves. One of the questions I asked people is when did you stop being a child? That people, some people say seven, some people say 27, right? We all had such different experiences. But if you were unable to be a child early in your life because you had to grow up for your family, because that's what it was, because, you know, it's specifically like people that are like first generation and have to translate for their parents, all these different things that could be.

go let yourself be a child now in adulthood. It is a beautiful gift to give yourself, especially if you want to be parents. Go play with your kids. Be stupid. Be silly. All those things. And if you say, I'm so stupid. I'm so silly doing this.

Keep going until it feels like this feels good. Yeah. Yeah. There's so many. Like I just did a kundalini yoga yesterday. And I had to have that same conversation. I'm like, I feel stupid right now, which means I need to do this more. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yep. I think that's common in like, whether it's like a dance class or like a workout class where they're like do this dance and you're like, oh, God. Yeah. It's like a really good sign that you need more time to be childlike. Yeah. And I feel like we could all use a little bit of like, you know, our playing like a child these days. Even if we did get to be a child. I feel like that still sounds. I feel like I was a child until I was like 25 and that sounds really nice to me. Like I'm yesterday in the yoga.

she had me like just start jumping and dancing and I'm like I love jumping and dancing I do that but just like I was laughing out loud doing it because I'm like this is so fun like this is just bringing me so much joy and Jason actually walked in the room and so he walked in at one point and I was doing like just a normal downward dog and then the second time he walked in he like he almost got emotional looking at me because he's like what are you doing like I came out and He was like, yeah, like, he's like this morning you were like a little bit emotional and then I saw you just like smiling bopping around your room like you're just hopping like a rabbit around like. And it was just so funny because I was like, I was just being a child. Yeah, you were. And there and that's such a beautiful gift. And also we have to talk about like the importance of intimacy like in long term relationships and marriage of like can we be kids together? If your sex isn't silly sometimes, have some different sex, man. Why, like, let there be silliness and play and pleasure in your life?

That's so true. I feel like a lot of people are so, again, this probably relates back to, like, if you talked about sex, like, growing up or learning about it or if you had to, like, feel shame around it, I'm sure that has to do with your intimacy later in life, too. Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, so many people have an intrial wound of being told they can't masturbate, right? Like, I know what we're getting off.

But, like, truly, and then what does that do for your relationship with yourself and your body? So whatever that wound came from in childhood, let yourself feel it and say, like, I was a freaking kid. Kids cannot be wrong. They're just kids. Developmentally, we're all just figuring shit out. My daughter came home from school on Monday and she stole something. She came home and she was so excited to show me. She's like, guess what I have?

And she had stolen this magnifying glass from her science class. And I was like, oh, babe, like, we can't actually take that without asking all this stuff. And she's, like, crushed, right? Like, she was so excited to show me this. It felt important to private to her. And so at no part to my child do anything wrong, she just did a completely normal developmental behavior. So also keep in mind, like, normal developmental stages and let yourself just be human. I said to Emily, I was like, she's definitely going to be discussing that in therapy.

Because she was so excited to bring it home. And Emily's response to it was like, oh, no. Oh, babe. My mom wasn't excited And that's the thing You can do the best damn work And don't worry Your kids will still talk about in therapy

And that will keep our professional life So thank you for that Yeah yeah we appreciate it So true That's so true I also wanted to I know we're gonna get it I'm going to show a childhood picture of

So we can do a little exercise But I did really really want to touch On attachment styles And how they're kind of related To our inner child Because I know we form them When we're quite young So quick review

We'll do it really quickly what are the different attachment styles and what do they really mean? Okay. So secure attachment, securely attaches that whatever talks about, you know, we have new data that like nobody's securely attached. So there's data that says, if you read certain data, it says, oh, there's like 60% of people are securely attached. And we don't really think that that's true.

People might report that. The issue with some of this data is itself important, right? So securely attached is I'm able to maintain great relationships. The number one thing I want to make sure people understand about attachment style is you can repair attachment stylehood in adult relationships. Yeah, there's this, there is this idea that if you are one, if you fall into one category of attachment styles, that you cannot change it. And that can be very pathologizing and untrue. You can absolutely change your attachment style in the course of a healthy relationship and working on your relational healing.

So there's secure attachments. There is insecure attachment. We have anxious, avoidant, disorganized attachment. there's a few different, like, very popular names for these. So essentially, insecure attachment is I might feel that I can't really rely on Jen. I feel anxiously attached to her. So what that might look like is that I have to check in with her all the time. I have to check.

So if I don't answer the phone, Emily's response to that is, oh, my God, she doesn't like me. She's not answering. She's mad at me. I have to call her. I have to figure this out. Avoid an attachment would be if I call Emily and she's, He's not answering the phone. And I say, oh, who needs her anyway?

Ficker. And so then I just can handle it myself. Secure attachment would be, I call Emily. She doesn't answer. I'm like, oh, she's probably busy. I'll just keep doing what I'm doing and I'll call her again later. You can, it's like you can acknowledge with secure attachment. You can understand that the person has their own lives, right?

That it doesn't bring up any insecurity for you if there's some sort of shipped in the relationship or there's a, you believe that if you have some sort of separation with the person, that it's not a wound in your relationship, that you're going to come back together. What about codependency in a relationship? Because to me, when we were doing that therapy, she said, like, she's like, there is some codependency going on here. And I was shocked by that because we are so individually independent. And then I started looking into codependency in a relationship. And it was surprising to me what came up. So what does codependency look like in a relationship? And is that bad? So here's the thing. It's, okay, there, it is completely normal to have a certain amount of codependency in every relationship. Relationship, people affect one another. Absolutely,

right? If I am aware of my, of my partner being happy or sad, right? I guess there's a certain amount of codependency with that, but it's also like nice and relational and like something I should give a fuck about. So the thing you can think about here is that is Jen's behavior, or Jen's mood greatly affecting something I haven't experienced, right? So if Jen's having a bad day, all of a sudden, my having a bad day, that's codependency. And is it, and Emily takes it on as it's her job to make me feel better, right? Right. So it's her job.

It's my responsibility that I have to make her feel better because otherwise I'm doing something wrong. So you hear codependency a ton, especially with folks to struggle with addiction, right? Which is that, let's say Jen is struggling with some addictive trait, and I feel like it's on me to keep her sobriety. So I'm, like, tracking her phone, I'm making sure she doesn't go by, use anything. I am, like, being overly micromanaging. That's codependency. I put it on me to do. That's not helpful.

It's enabling. And it's, and it's, it's, once again, an anti-relational behavior because I'm not actually having healthy relational interacted. I'm becoming her mother. Got it. And that's not sexy. And that's not sexy. That makes sense. This week's Off the Vine is brought to you by Progress.

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Quote today at Progressive.com to try the name your price tool for yourself and join the over 29 million drivers who trust Progressive. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates, price, and coverage match limited by state law. Okay, so I was told to bring a picture of myself to show you guys from when I was just a little, little KB. So what are we doing with these photos? And do you guys have photos too? Okay. We have on our phone. We're doing yours. We're doing yours first. Okay, okay. Well, I have a, I can't decide which one because, like, when you said a time where you're like, things were hard. Yeah. So you're going to L.O.L. at this. But I found a new one. I had one before. And then I was like, oh, I was just a really happy little kid at that time. So here's, here it is. Okay. Oh, my gosh. I love her. I love her. Okay. So tell me. Look at my legs. Look at your legs. Yes. Right. So tell me, look at this picture. And how do you feel about her? I've this is something that what so the other not the other day a few months ago I did a float have you ever done that like a saltwater float yeah and I was doing this meditation and all of a sudden I burst into tears because I pictured myself holding hands with this little girl and like like thinking about what I would say to her and I just burst into tears so then I look at her now and I'm like oh my god I just want to like take care of her.

Okay. What do you want to take care of about her? Yeah. How would you take care of her? Well, like, she already had body dysmorphia at this age and was, I was so shamed for being so skinny. And I remember being like, like, we were doing these photos to try and look like models at this age. And so, like, we set up a white sheet and, like, tried to look, like, we, like, looked at magazines to try and look like models to try and look like models. And I just remember being like, like once I hit a certain age, then I'll like develop boobs and a butt and then I'll and then I'll be pretty. And then I'll be and then I'll be and then I'll be pretty and then I'll be happy and then

I'll be accepted. So this little girl is longing for love and acceptance. Yeah. When we see her. And you can see it in a certain amount of that photo. I hope you put that up on lines for people to see, which is that there's a there's some pain you can see in her eyes. And the fact that she's just not just trying to be a bottle face.

There's sadness in those eyes. Exactly, right? And also trying to be something towards love and acceptance, right? I, because what that tells us is if I can achieve that, whether I can be a model, whether I can be loved, whether I can go to the boobs, whatever it is, then I'll be safe in this world. There's security that comes with that. And so the fear that if I don't have those things, I'm at risk for being rejected, abandon, not love, not safe. in this world. And so the feelings we have towards that photo, right? At one point, you probably be like, oh, that's so embarrassing. Look at her trying so hard. Look at that pick me energy, right?

You know, like any of these things that we tell ourselves. Yeah. So what's it like to just love her and want to protect her? What would you say to her? See, here's where I struggle because all of the things that I've done in my life, I believe have been, of course, based on my personality, but like, look the bachelor of the bachelorette they only pick people who are like certain body types certain hair color certain faces and then like i got jobs as like the bartender the beer cart girl like all these things that's like i told myself i was getting them because it was like oh well i had like this certain look and i don't want that to sound cocky like and i'm so hot i actually struggle with feeling like i am beautiful certain times so i like look back on this and i want to be

like you will see that your looks aren't going to bring you success, but then I'm like, but did they? And then I go and that's why I've been so focused on like symmetry on my face. I get paranoid about symmetry. So I get Botox and I feel like my job if I get older and I age, I'm not going to be successful anymore because who wants to see an older woman on Instagram being like inspirational. We want to see the 22 year old Alex Earle who's on blowing up on TikTok with her. You know, like, it's, I still do this to myself. So what if, what if you were able to say to that little girl, you are amazing just as you are? Yeah.

And she is. And she is, right? Yeah. That there's, because the internal monologue that says you need to change in order to be worthy, you need to do something different, you need to look a certain way in order to be worthy in order to be successful. That's, that's the wound. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And that is the wound.

And I think it's really significant, this thing you're talking about, which I want to bring up, which is like, but like those things did sort of work for me, right? So like here's where our brains go, which is like, okay, but like because they're what, right, like my looks did help in some way. And like my body did help in some way, right? Like, and it gets me to where I am. And in some ways, and I hate to say this, which is some of it's a false sense. Oh, 1,000 percent. Sure, you got those things. But did it actually bring you the love, the connection, the deep.

healing right so got you money and it got you the ability to get those things which is incredibly helpful the reality is you have to pay for therapy um you know like in some ways it like does help you have access to things you're able to have these therapists on like right and goes back to that person says but it might get us to a certain place but it only gets us so far what happens is we have the false sense of here's where it got me and then you're right what happens when we turn 50 when we turn 60 if this doesn't happen now we age out of the false sense and And that's when it goes back to this developmental stage. I'm talking about it of intimacy versus isolation.

And so that's the thing so many of especially women are dealing with this at this age is like it feels like I have these great connections or it feels like I have these friends on Instagram and it feels like I have this stuff. But is it also sometimes leading to isolation? What is the real depth of connection? Because that's what that little world actually wants. Yeah. Tell us the things we're going for is going to give us those things.

And what you have found out is it might get you a little bit there, but it doesn't do the whole way. That's so true. And like that's what I've been searching for lately in life is I've done again me, not me beating a dead horse again. I've done so much work. But like I still haven't healed that inner child that thought what would get me far would be this. And then it proved me right. And then now I'm here. So what does the future hold for me if I don't have my. looks like I've I've gone down that like spiral so many times that I'm like now I'm so aware when I'm doing it and I'm so aware when I have these thoughts and I'm able to look at like and think about this little girl here and be like oh my God I just love her so much but I still need so much healing done yeah yeah and so but that feeling you have the reappearing towards her which so we want is to sit down next to her sit in front of that little chair she's on and say hey right now this feels like it'll get you somewhere and I'm going to be here for you

every step of the way when that has to switch I'm going to stand up for you I'm going to be the person to remind you in your ear that sure maybe you'll be a model someday maybe you'll get all these things and if it doesn't give us the real deep healing and connection we want I'm still going to show up for you I'm going to accept you every part if this all falls apart The podcast gets canceled. If Instagram shuts down, if every opportunity, I am going to love you completely. You have succeeded. That's really beautiful.

I love that. Don't you want to just like pull up the chair the way she did? Yes, so badly. We're going to try this right after this podcast. We're going to. Yeah. You should make you pull up a chair and look at her like that. Yes.

Yeah. Like Uncle Jesse from full house. Yes. Always did. And that's what to do, right? And that's an exercise you could do is go get a chair, sit in it that way, put that picture in front of it and say, I wish I could save you from it all. I wish you could, I wish I could save you from every ounce of pain you're going to have. And still, you're going to be amazing.

Yeah. Yeah. Again, like I do, I feel like who I am underneath everything because, again, I don't want to be like, I'm so beautiful. Like, that's not what I'm saying at all. That was just a belief system. Like I do, I look in the mirror now so differently than I did in my 20s with like so much compassion for myself. And I, I love what's underneath the suit that I'm wearing. Like I really do.

I just, that's the negative pattern that comes up for me when I do have my like tantrums or meltdowns or anything or doubts of myself. That's where I'm so excited to do this retreat because I just feel like it's going to be so healing. for those wounds that I keep going back to in the same pattern. Oh, yeah. And also, you opening up this conversation in such like an authentic way, I think will also help so many people in being able to do that work for themselves. I hope so, because even if it's not like related to anything I'm saying, they can think about their own inner child and what they need.

So thank you for being part of it. So for people that are listening, we want you to get a photo of yourself where you love and you think she's adorable. And then I want you to find her he or she or they. I want you to find that picture. And then I want you to find a picture where you feel embarrassed of them or you feel mad at them.

And you have to give love and self-compassion to all every single part of yourself. Yeah. I would be mad at like my 22-year-old self. So she still needs love and compassion. She definitely needs it, I think, more than that. Yeah. Before we get into confessions,

because I think we should do inner child confessions or things that have embarrassed us as a kid. I have a little new segment alert. So get excited because you are part of my first Hyundai Essential Skills series. I have to tell you, I bought a 2023 Hyundai Palisade two months ago. You did? Yes, I did. I'm obsessed with my Hyundai.

I was in it. It is incredible. It is beautiful. I bought it because we got another large dog and we needed a larger car for our large dogs. I'm standing by Hyundai Palisade, my favorite VIII. I've ever driven now. Oh, well, then you're perfect to talk about this way because I will be doing a few segments brought to you by Hyundai. And the first one is all about skills related to staying true to yourself. So I actually felt like inner child work was the perfect topic to explore here. So I was hoping we could give, each give a tip for staying true to your current self and your inner child self. And I think, I think we all know that being an authentic, genuine version of ourselves and our child. And our child. is not always the easiest. So I want you two to go first with giving a tip to stay true to your current self and your inner child self.

Okay. Staying true to yourself, current self, is the ability to tell someone I'll get back to you. To not have the pressure, to have an answer in the moment, to give yourself space and time for intentionality. I would like that for my current self, for younger self staying true to yourself. tell more people to fuck off. I mean, I think as a child, right, the ability to say, like, don't talk to me that way. I was saying, you know, when you just think about, especially for a young woman, like, a lot of times how desperate we are to be loved, that I would have like guys say or do anything. Yeah.

I mean, and that is heartful. So saying true yourself is the ability to set some boundaries of people about what you actually allow them access to. Yeah. That was going to be my tip for the adult self was setting more. more boundaries, right? Sometimes I think our bodies tell us quicker than our minds do that we need more boundaries. Sometimes we can feel it, right, if you feel anxious or there's like a tightness in your chest. So I think really listening to yourself and listening to your body's reaction to certain things and to be able to speak it, right, to say it out loud, right? When we're in a

situation and we're feeling like, ooh, this doesn't feel good to listen to that feeling and say, what do I need right now in order to take care of myself? Staying true to my younger self, I think would be able to speak, to say things more, right? To be able to express myself in ways, express my feelings, validate myself in ways that maybe I wasn't validated. So that would be staying true to my younger self. Yeah, I feel that I want to take all of yours because you can. I really feel aligned with all of those things that you just said.

And I'm like, I don't even know what mine would be now because that's take a ball. Definitely, definitely listening to my intuition as. an adult staying true to myself because I have incredible intuition and sometimes I go against it because I'm scared of the outcome, but like never, ever have I ever followed my intuition and regretted it. So I think that's a good point. And then my younger self, I, it's so funny because I feel like I was such a specific child where I actually did say like, this makes me I'm not doing this, like, maybe too far the other way. Like, I wouldn't even wear certain clothes my mom would put me in.

I'd be like, absolutely not. I do not like how this feels on my skin. Like, I was so, like, particular. But maybe I would say kind of the same as yours where it's not letting people treat me a certain way just to feel accepted. Yeah. I definitely did that as a child. So thank you for sharing those. All right. So the Hyundai Essential Skills series is brought to you by, of course, Hyundai. For more information, go to www.hunday.com. Hyundai, it's your journey. Now I'm going to make you embarrass yourself before we go. Yes.

So I was thinking about a confession because obviously it's hard for me to think of confessions every week. And I was like, okay, go to your. inner child and I remembered this is like child I think I was three and I needed help wiping and I we were at my cabin in British Columbia and we were about to take the boat to go back to drive home to Alberta and I had to go the bathroom really bad and so I went and I called my dad to help me wipe my bum and I was standing there and he walked in and he looked in the the toilet and he was like oh my god how does something that big come out of somebody so small and i was mortified i felt so that i like could not poop for a long time i refused to have anyone help me i would try to do it on my own and i was so embarrassed that i couldn't even look

my dad in the eyes for like a long time and he thought it was hilarious right and he didn't care but I was just mortified. Yeah. Parents with good intentions, right? Haven't poofs in 89. That's what I mean. Good intentions. Most people are trying.

You, the constipation is probably so real. It took me a long, long time to come back with that. What do you have? You know, I was choosing between a couple because there's so many. But one that came to mind is I wanted a dawn. so bad growing up that I acted like a dog for maybe like a good month like I ate out of bowls on the floor and so I don't know as they look back I think you know I'm thinking is that embarrassing or like I think it was just really manipulative because I ended up getting a dog I think my parents were so

embarrassed that it led to us getting a dog so that was that was another I love that thank you and yours I'm ready for years yeah me too Okay. I'm trying to think right. Please do the one. You know which one I would have to do. Okay. So I went through a phase.

Emily told this story the first time I ever met her. So I went through a phase in my childhood where for some reason my dad worked in banking and around the holidays. They'd get food best. And at some point somebody said him a honey baked ham. And I for some reason went through a phase where I used to dress up this honey every morning. I would wake up. I would go to the fridge. I would take out this honey baked ham.

and I would dress it in an American girl's all clothes and I would put it in a stroller and I would walk a honey-baked ham named Ham Bino around my neighbor It's like in retrospect I can't believe my parents let me like just like How long was it out of the fridge?

No, like it would be out of the fridge for like eight hours during the day And my mom would be like you got to put it back in the fridge at night I would just every morning take the honey baked hand out Do you want to sleep with it? Would you want to sleep with it? Would you want to sleep with it? Like cuddle with the ham?

I don't know I should ask my mother But, like, all I know is like, no, no, no, I had to put it back in the fridge at night. That was a rule. And I played with this honey-baked ham, dressed up in schools, hambino, every single day under two weeks. Let's bring him back. Where is it? You named him, Hambino was his name. And I'm pretty sure my parents then just, like, at one point, like, somebody sent my dad's sausage links, and then those were twins.

They probably hid them from you all the teeth that her dad was getting. So, like, I just went through a phase of, like, dressing up meats and playing. And now no one lets her her. round hams anymore. My gosh, that is incredible. Yeah. Yeah, he's fit really well to American Girl in all clothing. Yeah.

Like, if it was raining out, I put it in like the, like the Samantha rain jacket and the jacket. Yeah, no, no. Like, I was like it had a relationship with this ham. Yeah. I still happen to it. Yeah. Habino sounds like too harsh of a name for the sweet girl.

I know. I don't know. I know. But it wasn't gendered. It was not like that. It was just this being that I love. The cut dress. And then eventually my mom was like,

this is fucking weird. I'm going to get to a new one. And then she threw it out. And, you know, RIP Hamino. I'm going to get you a new one to heal your inner child. Thank you. Because, you know, I mean, I hope to God they didn't eat it because that shit could not have been. My mom definitely tossed it.

I mean, that is. Kids do the weirdest shit. I mean, I didn't. I've talked about it on this podcast before where I used to pretend in the third grade. that this kid Mike Amos had a camera that could watch me at all times so if I said out loud Mike's camera on he could like watch me

and I'd be like flipping my hair and like I'd like act cooler if I thought he was watching and then one time I forgot to turn it off and I got into the bathtub and I was so embarrassed like I was like oh my God my camera awesome okay was this after the Truman show because I think after watching the Truman show

I always thought a camera was watching me what year did that come out I don't know but I really I think that made all paranoid. Also really excited about this. This is something I've never actually done before. So while I am away at Hoffman, I thought we could continue inner child work for the vinos because that was a lot about like what my inner childhood was and we were like, you know, talking about it in general. But I wanted them to submit some questions for you guys to answer while I'm away so we could kind of, I always like to think of us as a family. So I'm like, well, they can do some stuff too while I'm doing

my work. So I actually won't be on the pod. You two will be hosting. And continuing the conversation with my listeners, which is so cool. And I can think of the two better people to do that. So is there anything in particular you want them to write in about? Tell us if there is, for some of us, we have this pocket of shame, something about our childhood, right? A time we feel embarrassed about, a time we feel rejected or abandoned about. If there is something that feels stuck in your mind, we'd love to hear about it. If you find that you struggle with your emotional reactivity now, if you constantly feel rejected, if you feel judged, if you feel like everyone hates you. We'd love to answer any of your questions about something that

you feel is impacting your relationships now. And let's figure out how trace it back to childhood and how to really heal that to make you have the best possible relationships in adulthood. I love it. I feel like that'll be so beneficial for so many people. And like what a beautiful resource for them to have to, you know, be able to have you answer some of their questions. And thank you guys for doing that. We can't wait. Thank you for having us. We're so excited. That's going to be incredible. I was even thinking, I'm like, I wonder if they'd want to do like an Instagram Takeover, too.

You could go on my. Totally. Caitlin Bristow Instagram and share little tips and tricks every day that I'm gone. Just like jump on, do a little takeover. I'm just like making, putting you to work so that I could go and heal. It's really fine. We got you. But of course, then you can promote your podcast and things that you do.

We love it. We're here. Yeah. We're here for everybody. Absolutely. So, and I'm going to come do your podcast. podcast as well. Yes, I cannot wait.

And you can ask me anything. I am such an open book. I would love to chat. And again, just thank you for the work you do. And for anybody listening, tell them where they can listen to your podcast. You can listen to us, the Shriggchicks podcast. You can check us out on Shrink Chicks, on Instagram, on YouTube, any of those things. If you are looking for a therapist to do some deep, wonderful work with, we'd love to hook

you up with a clinician at the therapy group.com. and yeah, we can't wait to keep talking with you all more. Yes, I can't wait. Thank you so much. And like I'm walking away from this being like, I'm so empowered to go do my work. You got this. You got this. I'm so exciting to hear about it.

Thank you. Yeah, I know. I'll come back and tell you guys all about it. That's for sure. And I'm Caitlin Bristow. I'll see you next Tuesday. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Off the Vine. Don't forget to rate, review, and follow on your favorite podcast platform.

And we'll see you next Tuesday. Hi, podcast listeners. This is Kelty from the Lady Gang podcast with over 150 million downloads and about 150 negative reviews on iTunes. You know that people either love us or they hate us and that makes a great show. Lady Gang is a twice weekly podcast where we help you feel less. alone in your life with the help of our favorite reality stars and housewives, but mostly me and my two friends, Becca and Jack, talk about the ugly and ridiculous and crazy things that happen in our lady life. Come get inspired. Come get a virtual podcast hug from us every Tuesday

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