Off The Vine with Kaitlyn Bristowe - Vienna Pharaon, LMFT: Little Mindful Moments & The Origins of You

Episode Date: February 21, 2023

Kaitlyn’s friend, licensed marriage and family therapist, and now-author Vienna Pharaon AKA @mindfulmft is back on the pod to continue our lil mental health journey. Yes, Kaitlyn, Vinos, and everyone out there … we are all on this (sometimes dysfunctional) healing path together! Vienna explains how her own origins and childhood wounds led her to a career in therapy and more recently, to writing her new book, The Origins of You. Her book will help readers of all backgrounds identify wounds from their families of origin to ultimately heal, rewire, and improve themselves and their relationships. As Kaitlyn continues her own post-retreat healing journey, she opens up about noticing small shifts in her everyday patterns and ways of thinking, and continues to ask the questions that we all wonder: Is it ever the case that ignorance is bliss? Does time heal all wounds? And, what does healing actually look like? Let’s grow together, Vino fam!  Thank you to our sponsors! Check out these deals for the Vinos: PELOTON - Explore Peloton Row and their financing options at onepeloton.com/row.  HONEY LOVE - Treat yourself to the best shapewear on the market and save 20% with the code VINE at https://www.honeylove.com/VINE!  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.

Okay, let's talk about the original enemies to lovers story. Before all of our reality TV couples, before the rom-coms, we binge, there was Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy in pride and prejudice. And Audible has just dropped a brand new original that will have you completely hooked, I am. It's not just any audiobook. This is a full cast performance. So Marisa Abella, you might know her from industry, brings Elizabeth Bennett to life.

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Explore Peloton Row and their financing options at OnePeloton.com slash row. Honeylove, treat yourself to the best shapewear on the market and save 20% off at honeylove.com with code Vine. 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 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. It's me. Hi.

I'm talking about therapy again. It's me. And if you've been following along with my little mental health journey the last few months, I just want to say thank you. I know that I'm, you know, obviously in a position and extremely lucky to have the means to be able to go to a place like Hoffman and work on myself and do all the things. take the time off. And I know that therapy is not as accessible for every one of you. So to me, that's why it's important for me to share my experience. I see how beneficial it is for my mental

health. And I want to share it with you guys on this podcast so that hopefully this information can, you know, help those of you out there who are struggling or need these resources or maybe don't know where to start. And I was talking to Vienna today, which you're about to hear, about how, you know, just having this kind of podcast in your ears and how there can be shifts and little aha moments that will make big changes for you. So keep listening, okay? I'm here for you. You're not alone and you never will be because you've always got a little dysfunctional OTV family. You know, we talk about inner child work. We're going to have to do therapy together in our 80s from all this dysfunction from this podcast. Going into today's guest,

who is one of my favorite people to follow on Instagram. She is a licensed marriage and family therapist behind the Instagram page at MindfulMFT, which I'm sure you're all familiar with because I can't stop, won't stop talking about it. We dive deeper into how our origin stories play a role in patterns that we have today and what it means to heal. There's some really beautiful information in this podcast, so I hope you enjoy. My face. Hi, I miss your face. Oh my gosh. How are you? I'm so proud of you. Thank you. I know. I'm feeling good. I'm proud of myself too. You should be. That's writing a book is no joke. Plus like to go that deep into everything that you do and like it's going to help so many people. I feel like it's like a baby to you almost. It is. It's funny. I recently now recorded the audio book for it. Right. And so when I got to the end, it was such an emotional experience. It was sad that it was ending.

It was sort of the final piece, the completion part of it. And, you know, that moment where it's like it's when it publishes, it's no longer your book anymore, right? It's like out in the world. And yeah, I just had a moment at the end where I was like, I love my book. You know, I went into it. I was like, I wonder if there's going to be a moment when I'm reading where I'm like, oh, I wish I had said it differently. or I wish I like I should have done this and I don't have any of those moments.

I love this book and I'm so proud of myself for getting it out into the world. So thank you for saying that. I appreciate that. Oh my gosh. That's so cool. I just I think about stuff like even let's say dancing with the stars where in it you're like, why did I do this? This is so much work.

This is so heavy. Holy crap. But no, I'm supposed to be doing this. This is a passion. It's going to like reach other people, blah, blah. And then you go through all these ups and down. of it and at the end you're like weirdly sad it's over because it consumed you for so long and you're proud of something but you need to just sit back now and be like it's still there i could still

go youtube all of my you know dances from dancing with the stars you have an actual like physical thing that you can be like i did this yeah that experience is so resonant because i remember at one point early on in the writing process i was like can i please give the advance back like make it stop make it go away you know all the things and i think you can probably relate to this too obviously you won that feels great super exciting but i think it's it's the completion of something regardless of the outcome of it where you're like i am so proud that i stuck with it that i did it that i grew that i created something i can revisit it so many times and so i i feel that way with with this as well and didn't you at one point didn't the editor or someone

and give you a response to the first chapter and go like actually this isn't it this isn't working that must be discouraging from the beginning she is so kind and she has such a way with words but I had sent over the first chapter first two chapters or something and she politely was like no this isn't working and it's like okay well let me try one more time and I tried one more time and it was like the same answer she's like you're a great storyteller and that's working but the rest of it basically is not. It's like, okay. And just like such a humbling process. And it was definitely a challenge. I wrote about this in one of my newsletters. Like I am a therapist by trade, as you know, and I work with people all day, every day, most of the time. Writing a book being an author,

you know, that's not, that's not what I do. And I didn't know how to write a book where I couldn't speak to people's specific personal stories. I didn't know how to write to people who have been in therapy for decades and those who have never been to therapy. And it was one of those things where it's like, how do I make it good and write for everyone? And I could feel my worthiness wound, right? Just like, whoop. Like can you get it perfect for every single person? I was like, I got to step away from that. I need to just write what I need to write. And it will be what people needed to be. Well, that's a good point because I never thought about how hard that could be to write something that everybody's going to connect to because they could be such personal stories,

but you did. I've been reading it now for, well, it takes me a long time to read books, but I'm like, I get so into it because I'm just so into this work right now and love it so much, but you really did a good job of making it relatable to everyone in a way where the book will benefit everybody. I think so. You know, it's like, I storytell a lot in the book and I find that sometimes it can be hard to see our own selves, but sometimes we can see ourselves through somebody else's story, right? If it's just about, I need you to be reflective and I want you to think about all of these things, there is constraints there.

But when I'm telling you a story about someone who sounds a little bit like you or the story that sounds a little bit like your partner or your sibling, right, like that becomes an entry point. Yeah. And how long did it take you? to write the book because I know it's such a process. It's a process. I wrote it in about seven months, which... That's great.

Yeah, it was fast. We'd joke because my husband wrote it. So we had a baby. My husband and I then both got book deals. We both wrote books, five months postpartum, and we were like, highly not recommended. Don't do this again. But somehow, you know, you just hit a next level, right? you're like, okay, this is what it is and I'm going to find a way and you really do. I don't know.

Like, I feel like parents specifically, moms specifically. You just, you're like, how am I doing this? But you're doing it. Like, you're doing it. You just have this superpower and it's incredible. And that's cool that you and your husband both got book deals. Are you both still doing retreats and relationship workshops on top of everything? Yeah, we just had a meeting today. We're going to have a couple's workshop in New York City in June and another retreat in July. So incredible. I mean, that's it for people that don't remember. We talked about, I mean, we haven't done a podcast together since 2020.

I think it was. And that's how I first got familiar with you was I went to one of your workshops by myself with my girlfriend, like not with a partner. And I sat there and just took notes the whole time. I was just fascinated by everything you two were saying. And again, it makes so much sense to me that both of you would get book deals because I know you're like, I'm not an author and that's, you know, I'm a therapist by trade, but you have so many wise words and things to share and things to say that it just, it does make sense

that you would have a book. So I'm, I just love it. I can't wait for everybody to read it and just benefit from it. Now, I know you told me this at some point. And I think I know the answer, but for people that are listening, Why did you become a therapist, specifically marriage and family? Yeah. So my parents went through a separation when I was in first grade and then the divorce process,

which took nine years. I talked a little bit about it in the book. I'm also an only child. And I share that detail just because I was this little human who was going through this big experience by herself. I was watching the two people who I cared about and loved really crash and burn. That's what it felt like. there was so much conflict there was so much chaos psychological manipulation and abuse paranoia emotional flooding it was a lot to be around and one of the ways that i

managed and and coped with it was by being okay with things by like just taking care of things on my own flying under the radar and i started to present as a little girl who was totally fine with everything and I didn't want to add stress to a system that I thought was broken. You know, and whether that was true or not for them, you know, they could probably sit here and be like, no, you could have been not okay and it would have been fine. But I think for me as a little human, my perspective was that there wasn't room for it. And so, you know, I went through a period of time that was very, very hard. The high conflict went on for a really long time. I think there was a part where it's like, I want to.

to make sure that I don't go through this. And so I got curious about what makes some relationships work, functional, thrive, and others be so dysfunctional and unhealthy. And we know that our family systems are the first place that we get our education about just about everything. Yes, teachers, coaches, religion, society, right? All of those things will add to it. But our family system, right, that's the first environment, whether it's blood or not blood related is, where we learn about how we communicate, how we move through conflict, how we navigate boundaries,

what we believe about ourselves and beyond. And I just started to get super fascinated with it. I wanted to make sure that I essentially safeguarded myself from ending up in the same place that they did. Yeah. So, you know, it came from a bit of an un-evolved place initially. It was very fear-based of like,

I need to protect myself from ever having to go through this. And then it really evolved where it was like, I just have a deep curiosity in this. and because all of us really don't have this fantastic education around what makes relationships thrive or why we keep showing up in the same patterns over and over again. Like I just took a fascination to it and I wanted to be able to create a space for people to dive into this work and really understand it so that they can create the lives and the relationships that they actually desire and crave and want in their lives.

It's a lot. That's a lot to take on as your job as well. So you have to be pretty passionate about that. I think that's what makes you so good at what you do. But you were saying about how when we're young, we learn from family systems. Now, I learned this from some work at Hoffman and from your book. Is it true that you either adopt patterns from your parents or rebel against them? Is that like two options? Because that's what it feels like when I was doing all this work, I realized at one point I was like, no, I didn't get that from And then it was actually Jason who was like, well, would that be something that you are rebelling against? And I was like, oh, shit, yes. Yeah. Yeah. I think when we're tiny, we're in a space of adoption, adaptation. Like, who do I need to be to fit in? Right. How do I get my needs met? If I want connection, love, presence, attention, validation from a parent or, you know, one of the parent figures in our lives, like what do I need to be good? Do I need to be a pleaser? Do I need to be perfect? Do I need to be exceptional at sports or get straight A's?

Like what are the conditions for me to get what it is that I crave? I talk about a belonging wound in the book. And it's, you know, when family systems have a tendency to do something where they're like, if this is who we are as a family, right? If you want to be a part of us, this is what we believe, this is what we think. This is how we show up in the world. And if you don't do that, then you're on the outside, right? And there's too much of a threat for kids, right?

When we're tiny, we are not ready to rebel just yet. There's a point where we can go to a place of rebellion, right? In those early years, attachment, connection, safety, security is the most important thing. And so we do trade our authenticity for that stability, for that sense of safety and security. there can be a time, and maybe this is what you're talking about, where we're like, screw that, right? Like, I'm going to go in the total opposite direction of what you want me to do,

and I'm not going to fit in with you, but it's, and it does come from this rebellious place, but it's kind of like, screw you. I don't care. What's interesting about either is that we're still driven from a place of inauthenticity, right? It's like from the place of like, screw you, F you, I don't care what you think.

I'll be the black sheep of the family or whatever it might be. The other angle that I want to talk about is that with patterns, we can either repeat patterns in the most obvious of ways or the pattern plays out in a much more subtle way through a path of opposition. So one example of that. And I think that this is important because when we're swinging that pendulum, right, whether we're adapting, adopting, rebelling, repeating, or opposing, we're not integrating, right? We're not actually in this grounded, eyes wide open place where we have healing in the driver's seat of our lives, right?

It's like more that our wounding and our pain is in the driver's seat. So one of the easiest examples that I can give is if you grew up in a family where there was so much conflict and you're like, I never want to be around that. It doesn't feel safe to me. I don't want to engage in it. I hate it. You get into relationships in your adult life where you're like, conflict avoidant. I'm not going to ever raise my voice.

I don't want anybody who raises their voice towards me. But the problem with that is that that person then never voices when they're hurt, when they're upset. They don't know how to actually move through conflict or pain where they get to communicate about it. And so this path of opposition, right, saying like, I'll never be highly conflictual. still leads to issues that create disconnection, that block intimacy, that block repair, right?

So it's like, it's very fascinating how patterns from the past and pain from the past can either repeat in the most obvious of ways or it repeats in ways that are a little bit less clear and more subtle. Okay, something relatable. I feel like all my vinos can relate to this. We all have that one bra, that one bra that one bra that we wear on the daily because it's, the most comfortable one we own. And let me tell you that bra you thought that was nice, does not compare to my new favorite. I am talking about Honey Love. And if you're not familiar, Honey Love has revolutionized the bra game.

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that's code vine at honeylove.com. Hey everyone, it's your favorite jersey housewife, Melissa Gorga, and I'm so excited to announce the start of season two of my podcast, Melissa Gorga, on display. We're taking it to the next level this season with more juicy conversations with my celebrity friends, including my funny hubby, Joe Gorga, plus all things entrepreneurship, family and parenthood, pop culture, and of course, First, I'll always spill the tea on what's going on in my world. It's my life unfiltered.

Make sure to check out Season 2 of Melissa Gorga on display. Available on Podcast 1, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I did see a TikTok that said, now I never want to fully get my facts from TikTok because you never know if people are like just trying to go viral, whatever. I did see one that said around 80% of your brain is developed by five years old. And I Googled it because I was like, what? And it said 90%. And so we can't really remember much before the age of five, but we hold on to that anxiety and triggers related to what happened at such a young age.

Is that true? Yeah, there's so much that gets coded. And, yeah, like those first, you know, I've generally heard zero to seven. but yeah those early developmental years set the framework and the foundation i mean going back to what i said before right it's like our family systems and that's why exploring the families that we grew up in are so important because that is where we get the framework the blueprint of life you know and then yeah like we grow up and we get to a point in our lives where we're like wait do i believe that or was that just handed over to me right it's like literally this is who you are this is what a

little girl does this is what a little boy does here is what we believe right it's like and at some point we have to check in to say wait what do i believe what's true about this what doesn't align for me but many people don't do that in a lifetime right it's like you can coast all the way through and never ask those questions i'm curious what you think as a parent now because when your child is so young and impressionable and vulnerable and you have to set structures and boundaries in place and teach them rules how do you know what rules you're making and things that because it's what you believe so you're putting it on them at what age should they and could they be like oh i don't know if i align and how do you as a parent say allow them to feel and express what they believe while

also keeping them on track and not you know getting into trouble you know what i mean totally you know the role of parent is is hard and I even say in my but like this is not us trying to throw parents under the bus or point fingers right it's like being a parent is really challenging and so many parents will say like you know what what can I do to make sure that I don't screw up my children and you know I always say like all you need to do you're never going to create perfect circumstances for a child you're going to say the wrong thing you're going to do the wrong thing you're going to drop the ball they're going to get hurt there's going to be experiences that, you know, break them open. But the more that you're willing to

resolve your own pain, the more accountability and ownership you take, the less pain that's going to be passed to them. So to your question, you may set a framework for something that you look back on a few years from now and think, oh, you know, like, ah, shoot. Like I don't love that this is what we gave you. And I think the parents who are willing to say, I'm sorry or I screwed up or I don't like that this was your experience. And to just be willing to name that as soon as you recognize it, we're malleable people. You know, it's like there is something so beautiful about a parent being able to say, I'm sorry, I messed up. I see your experience. Here's how I think I limited you or here's how I biased you in some way. When I talk to, you know, I generally work with

adult children. So adults, but who were children at where points are still children, right? And like, so many people want acknowledgement from their parents. They want a parent to be able to say, I see what your experience was. And I'm sorry that that is what you had to go through. We know that we can't go back. We know that we can't change what happened. But all. people really want is to be seen. They want to be heard. And that is true, even though children will not think about it in the same way. You're setting the stage to say, it's okay to make mistakes. It's okay to misstep. It's okay to apologize. There is a way to take ownership and acknowledgement and accountability for certain things. And then we can find another path forward. Yes, our job as

adults is to protect our children for a period of time. They can't run rampant on their own. They're going to get into a lot of trouble. And so we are there to try to guide as much as possible. And yeah, our bias absolutely comes into the picture and our pain comes into the picture, right? It's like that will be there. But the more that you work on yourself, the more that you resolve, the less that will get passed on.

And it's never too late to acknowledge it. and pivot and do something different. And that is like the message that I would hope everybody could hear and take away from this. You have a lot of incredible messages and messaging. Your Instagram is probably my favorite account to follow just because it's always just your words just are like they really impact people. You know, I hear quotes all the time, but your words, I don't know there's something about them. And a recent one you had was healing isn't some destination where you live without any hurt or pain.

it's a practice of managing what exists within differently. And I thought that was really interesting because I think we all think of happiness and like feeling good as a destination that we're going to get to. And as soon as we get there and achieve it, we'll be like, ah, here we are. But does that ever happen? Right. It's like this idea that you're going to arrive on the other side and you'll get to that place where nothing will ever affect you anymore.

And it's like the charge changes. right the way that it takes up space inside of you changes but when we have pain we will come back into contact with grief over and over and over again the cadence of it it's its intensity can shift but this idea that we're going to find this moment this destination of like freedom from pain freedom from reactivity freedom from ever feeling anything that we don't want to feel it's just an illusion and I think it puts us on the wrong path of something that we ought to be chasing. What we're chasing is allowing ourselves to acknowledge the pain that does exist. What we are looking to do is to witness that pain. We're looking to grieve, right? And then we're

looking to find moments in our lives where we don't react or choose or engage in something in exactly the same way that we did before that leads us to more pain and suffering, right? We're looking for the moments to do something slightly differently. I had a client recently share frustration with me that she knew she should have left a relationship maybe like six weeks prior to that moment

and she had stayed in it. She was pissed. She was frustrated. She was critical of herself. I knew it. I saw it and I didn't do it. And what's important about this story is that she is a woman who historically has stayed in relationships for a decade past what it is

when it like when that moment has struck where she's like, I need to leave. And so I paused her in that moment and was like, hang tight. You know, like I hear that you're frustrated about this. But I also want to acknowledge that sometimes our growth is not about how we don't enter into something that we know we shouldn't enter into sometimes it's about exiting sooner than we would have before and this is a victory you know this is a win the fact that you're able to see that okay this is no longer an alignment for me and i can move as quickly as six weeks instead of what my history has been like that is the growth you know and so i think we have to sometimes see growth through this different lens of i exist in the world I'm always happy every day and I never do this and I never get reactive and there's no pain

that lives inside of my body. It's like that's going to send you down a wild rabbit hole and we need to make space for us to have the human experience but to see the victories in these tiny shifts and pivots that take place in our lives. I don't think you even understand how much I need to hear that right now because I came back from this retreat and I, then went to Hawaii and I'm just living on this high of being like I felt so just like self-aware and excited and encouraged and all these good feelings even though it had been like heavy and a lot and then I came home into like you know the real world and I even put on my Instagram story I was like oh I just went shopping for pain in my like DMs and did all this thing and somebody said to

me or a few people were like, didn't you just get back from this healing retreat? Like, why are you doing that? And I started feeling guilty about that. I'm like, why am I doing that? But I didn't acknowledge that I said it and I said it out loud and I stopped doing it in that moment. And I shared it and I moved on. And that to me is a little win that I need to celebrate because a lot of things, like I said earlier, I'm in this awareness hell where I'm just like so hyper aware of all the patterns coming through. And then my patterns have patterns. And then I'm like,

I need to celebrate the fact that I'm so aware of them and that it's not going to be a magic pill that I take that just switches things, that it is going to be such a slow healing process that doesn't mean I'm ever going to be healed and be like, okay, those wounds are gone. And so thank you for saying that because I just realized it's an ongoing journey. And I just needed that reminder instead of just something I can, achieve. I really am such a creature of wanting to see immediate results in so many things. Like, if I work out, I want to see the muscle like that day. If I do anything, singing lessons,

I'm like, why am I not a karyander would like in my birth week? Like it's, I do this all the time. So I can't expect to achieve what, what I just said earlier was the impossible of feeling completely healed. It's a great reflection because what you just said is that you exited the pain sooner than you would have normally. Yeah, exactly, right? And like there is a come down. I always say this at our retreats. It's like you are in a bubble right now. And it's going to get burst, right? The reintegration back into our normal lives, right, is going to feel really different than this. It's going to feel really different than Hawaii. It's going to feel really different than anything that really raises up, you know, your energy. And that's an important thing to remember. And I love that you had that experience, not because I love the idea that you get painful, messages in your DM. But I think just noticing that part of the growth is I don't stay in this space feeling like I deserve to receive these things that I want to hear. You know, it's like, no, no, I'm going to set a boundary here and I'm going to exit sooner because that's what taking

care of myself looks like right now in this chapter. Yeah, it's so true. And my listeners are probably like, oh my gosh, are we still talking about therapy, Caitlin? But I just think it's so important. And I just, I wonder if there's like ever a point of too much learning about, you know, your inner child or your things that you've gone through, your, your wounds and, and where you come from because I'm like, even if people might be, I don't know if they are, but if they are like, oh my gosh, another therapy podcast, Kayla talking about her therapy. But I'm like, but doesn't talking about it as much as possible, slowly chip away at those negative things we tell ourselves and rewire the brain to to think a different way. way. Listen, I think that there's merit in taking pauses sometimes we need to. Sometimes we can just like fully engross ourselves in all of this like quote unquote healing work by every single time that I have taken some time to look back at my past, to look at my family system, to learn a little bit more about what it was like for me growing up or to actually acknowledge something that I wasn't

able to acknowledge before. I learned something new. It opens something up. The reality of it is, as we age, right, we're going to come into contact with something new forever if we let ourselves. You're going to be 80 years old and you're going to have a moment that brings you into contact with something that you haven't had to be in contact with before, right? Different stages of life bring different things into focus, right? It's like later on in life when death is around us more, right? That's going to bring us into focus with something that we didn't have to be as in focus with earlier on in our lives. When we get to X, you know, it's like there's so many different experiences.

Life will give us endless things for us to learn more about. And so when we're willing to do that, right, we're going to connect to things from the past that we've never even identified before. And that's the beauty of what this work is. When I can start to understand some of the origin pain or the frameworks that put certain things in motion than I have a much greater chance to be able to move through whatever it is that's showing up today. Exactly. And that's what I need to remind myself too of like, okay, now I'm realizing the patterns. It's not just going to be, okay, you realize them now and now

they're healed. It's going to take so much work now to just get through that. And I think people probably get discouraged too where they're like, is ignorance bliss? Because this sounds like a lot of heavy shit like that I need to do to do some healing. Like maybe what I don't know can't hurt me. Do you ever find like, obviously, you're not going to agree with that. But I guess my question is as a therapist, what do you think the most challenging part of treating origin wounds are? Because I do think people get discouraged. Totally. So ignorance still does hurt us because the pain exists regardless of whether or not we can identify it. Yeah. I understand the sentiment, right? I have so many people who are like, wait, doesn't the dating pool get smaller if I start to grow and evolve and have

better boundaries and, you know, communicate better and move through conflict differently. And it's like, it is. It's true. You know, and so to some degree, I hear you and I understand the point of what you're saying, but this becomes about internal peace, right? This becomes about an internal healing. And I still believe that when you do that work, there is an opening. There is alignment with other people who are aligned with you. What makes this work hard? And what makes this work hard is we don't want to go there. We're afraid of opening up Pandora's box and seeing what's there. We have a relationship with our family now that's workable and we're afraid that if we open this up, it's going to change the relationships that we have today. We have the narrative that

our parents did the best that they could with what they knew. And we use that as a way to rationalize. And one of the things that I say, it's like all of that can be true. I get that. And context doesn't change the fact that we still have painful stories. stories right and you know certainly our relationships can shift if we come into contact with something if we identify something that maybe we didn't identify before it can feel a bit overwhelming like you said your awareness overwhelming you're like ah like you know short-circuiting in different places like oh my god this is too much but there's you know when you can move through it in a place where you feel held and guided which is you know what I hope that the book does for people

then I think it goes at a pace that is workable. Yes, it can be confronting. Yes, it can be scary. If you like your parents or the people who raised you, you know, you want to protect that. You know, it's like you don't want to hate people and I get that. But I think what I do is that we hold grace and compassion and we hold pain and accountability.

Right. And that's the intersection of we can still. care for, respect, have grace for others and where the shortcomings are. And we still need to be able to honor what our experience was. All of the other stuff is a distraction away from our pain. And the more that we distract ourselves away from our pain, the less we are able to resolve it and actually move forward. I love the and. The ands lately have really been getting me because I love when two things exist at the same time. So we are, we can have compassion and grace and understanding if we really, you know, do the work into understanding

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I know that people say time heals all, but time does not heal wounds, childhood wounds, does it? No, I hate to burst the bubble. I'm such a bearer. Bad news. But yeah, right, that old saying, it's like it doesn't.

It puts space in between. We get really good at a, avoiding. We get really good at coping. Certainly like the charge of something, how often it comes into our minds. Yeah, of course, those types of things do shift. But healing work is what heals wounds. You know, like to just put it straightforward, right? It's like, no, actually addressing our wounds is what heals our wounds. And so, yeah, we all know that a breakup, for example, feels like death right afterwards. And then with time, we have different perspective and all of that. But if we don't tend to what these ruptures in our lives rub up against, we're not actually

healing our pain. Yeah. In the book you address five specific origin wounds, worthiness, prioritization, belonging, safety, and trust. Are those like just the five key ones? Are there more? Are these like, like, why these five? Yeah. When I was sitting down to write the book, I was scribbling down like every possible wound that we could have. And I found that most of them, like these were the umbrellas that most things could fit under. You want to use an abandonment wound as language that resonates more. That's fine. It's not black and white. You don't have to fit into a box. But these were the five core origin wounds that I felt like encapsulated most people's experiences of pain and yeah and so one of the things that I do want to say is that

what happens in our lives can be internalized by people in different ways so for example if a parent did abandon a child child a might have that get internalized as a worthiness wound my parent left because I'm not worth sticking around for another child might experience and internalize that as a trust wound the people closest to me are people I can't trust and believe in my life you don't fit into a box just based on whatever painful experience you had part of this work is to understand the way you internalized whatever those painful events were yeah is that like the most important thing you think people need to know about when it comes to their own origin wounds yeah I think that's one of the most important things I think I talk about

this concept of wound comparison and how easy it is to be like my life story is nothing like this other person's life story. I do that. Yeah. Yeah. And that again is a distraction away from our pain. You're not in competition with other people. People are not in competition with you when it comes to pain. Right. This is about connecting to your story without rationalizing it, explaining it, minimizing it, distorting it in any way. I was so good at that for so long. Even in the early stages of grad school, I came in and was like, my parents so divorced didn't affect me at all. My parents' relationship really had shifted over the years. What I had described before, they were now two people. We could have holidays together. They would drive

in the same car to like my lacrosse games or my violin recitals or whatever it was. And so I was like, yeah, we're good. And that minimizing of my pain, right, my ability to rationalize that they're really good friends now, so nothing hurt me, was my way of keeping myself from having to feel what needed to be felt. And that was too scary for me. I didn't want to go there. It required me to be vulnerable. It meant that the persona that I had held forever, this like cool girl, unaffected, I'm always fine, was going to crack wide open. And so I was so committed to that story. And that's the, you know, when we can take a step back and we can see, oh, like, I do every we all do things to protect ourselves from something but the question is like what is it that

i'm actually protecting myself from and is there a way for me to actually identify what's there so that i can move away from and i don't mean like becoming reckless with it we can still be protective of ourselves and go at a pace that works but instead of protecting ourselves from you know addressing the pain we start to dive into it and And actually, you know, for me, this work allowed me to actually have incredible relationships. Like I would come in and be like, why are all of my boyfriends leaving me? And why can't I, you know, it's like, why do I have resentment? And it's like, oh, that's because you keep saying that you're fine with everything.

You can't actually address anything that's hurtful or painful in your life. You pretend like you're okay with the things that you're not actually okay with. And all of that stems from you being a little girl. who had to become needless, who had to pretend like she was fine in order to survive. Holy crap. That, I mean, yeah, even certain things you were just saying, I was even having moments of like, I do that. I minimized what my parents' divorce did to me because it was, you know, I was comparing

it to other people's divorced parents where I'm like, well, it wasn't that bad. And well, I got really lucky because my parents did this. Like, I do that to myself too. but again, my parents did compare to others and they were friends and it really affected me and that, you know, that's that... Yeah. And that's the part that we want to focus in on

is the and. It did affect me. Here's how it affected me. One of the most important questions that we can ask ourselves is what did I want as a child and not get? To just sit with that. I remember when a therapist asked me that question and it blew me open, right? It was just like, What did you crave for as a child and not get? I was like to know that it was okay for me to not be okay.

Yeah. And now it like pointed directly at the wound. I was like, all right. That's it. And it's like I remember when I was in my late 20s, I was in a relationship with someone. His ex was coming back into the picture. She wanted to be back with him.

He was considering it. We were dating at the time. And I was like, it's okay. like take your time figure out what you need you know just oh like it makes me want to cringe just hearing about it right i'm totally fine i'm unaffected by it i'm the cool girl no you know not bothered over here do you do what you need i totally understand right like that was the right i totally get it there's so much context here and remember having a conversation with a friend and the light bulb went off and i was like boom there's the role from childhood still throughout all of my adult relationships i'd never

broken up with somebody until this point and like how can you break up with somebody if you keep pretending like everything's fine right it's like makes sense and I remember the light bulb going off and oh my god it was the scariest thing that I had done at that time my palms were sweating my heart was racing beating out of my chest and I'm like holy shit I'm going to break up with somebody like wow this is huge you know and I'm like I am not okay with what you're doing I remember the words coming out of my mouth I'm like oh my god I don't know if I've ever said that before wow and it was a simple yet profound experience. And that's back to these micro pivots and moments of growth where it's like, I can look back at it now. I'm like, oh my God, all you said was that you don't like

something, you know, that doesn't seem like such a significant thing. But at that time in my life, this was such a profound moment for me to speak the words. I am not okay. I'm affected by what you're doing. I don't feel respected by this at all. And I am removing myself from the equation. And like we never spoke after that. That was it. That was the ending. And, you know, it was hard. There was grief. It wasn't like, oh, my God, I'm so empowered. I was like, you know, curled up. And yes, getting away. I told him, you know, that was not the experience. But there was something. I mean, it was so healing for me. And it was, I felt proud of myself. And I knew how big the moment was because it was in that moment that I shifted a pattern that I had held for decades of my life. And. there's nothing quite like it. And I always describe that when you pivot like that, I don't know if you, do you ski? Yes.

I just learned last year, but yes. Okay. But the concept of like cross country skiing, we know it's so much easier when the path is already there. But to jump into fresh powder, like it's much harder, right? Because the pathway is not there. And that's what I describe it as.

It's like this jump into the fresh powder. It is hard, right? You've got to work harder at it. But the moment that you do it, you're like, oh, my God, I did it. I'm still here. I survived it. And now I have a track. And now that that track is here, it's a little bit easier, a little bit easier.

My husband, LOL's so hard. He's like, I've never, ever experienced the version of you that has not told me when you're not upset where you don't like something. He's like, don't know that woman. You are totally fine sharing how you feel now. Right. And it's like, it's that muscle strengthens. Yes, because it took you that practice and that one time to shift something in your brain to start that new path to then be able to go down it again.

And I love that analogy because that makes so much sense to me. Sometimes it is just that one tiny little shift that again, we would probably, you know, brush over and be like it's not that big of a thing. But looking back on it, you're able to see how big that was for you in that moment. So that's, oh, beautiful shit right there. You obviously work with a lot of couples. How can doing your own work affect your relationship? Like, do you think both people have to be really putting in the work of themselves to have a healthy relationship?

Ideally, yes, right? Like, best case scenario is both people want to understand their pain, their wounds. They can look at their family systems. They can, you know, they're open to this. That best case scenario obviously doesn't happen all the time. I have people who say, like, my partner is closed off. off and shut down. They don't want to look at this. You know, is, am I, are we doomed? And possibly, right? Like, if I'm being really honest, maybe, right? If the needle can't move at all,

potentially. But there is something true about how one part, when one part of a system is shifting, the whole, the whole system does still shift to. And so whether it's, you know, they don't want to explore something within themselves, but it's you sharing, hey, I realize this thing about myself that maybe sparks some type of curiosity in the other person. Or they see you communicating differently. Or they experience you setting a boundary with them that they're like, whoa, wait a second. Like, I don't know this part of you. Or you're just modeling something to them and they're seeing the benefit that it's having for you. Like sometimes those things can absolutely be the inspiration. And so it really, I think it depends on how closed off a person

really is and how committed they are to being that closed off. But without question, we affect systems when we shift. People say that vibration, right, is felt in different directions. And it does not just go top to bottom, like generationally. It can go sideways too. And so you should not be deterred from this work, even if you have a partner or a parent or a sibling who doesn't want to go there with you. Stay committed to your beautiful work because it's going to lead you somewhere incredible, regardless of the outcome with those particular people. I'm so glad you said that because that was something that I had thought about and that they had mentioned the Hoffman process too was like, you don't want to be like a pusher on people to do things because like you're

enlighten now and like look at me like you want to you want to just show them the light within you that you mean your best self that would encourage anyone to go do the same thing because they see the benefit of you know just radiating that like that that work that you've done that you're like more aware and and you don't be the like pattern police to somebody you're just showing them what you can do and what you're capable of for yourself and that encourages other people Yeah, I mean, right. Nobody likes to be pushed into it. We always say, like, you can bring somebody to the well, but you can't make them drink it. And, you know, and I also think, though, one of the things to consider is that sometimes I remember having a conversation with someone and they said, I am so afraid of doing the work because I'm afraid of growing apart. And I think, you know, that's something to highlight because sometimes we resist our own if somebody is resisting their own because we know that if we go on this path, there's a possibility. probability that we're going to start to move away from one another. And, you know, that part can be really confronting. And so again, this isn't a push into the work, but it is an exploration of what are

the constraints that keep you from wanting to do this. Oh, I love that. Isn't there saying something like what you resist will persist or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. That's true, too. Before I let you go, I heard you have a confession for me. And then I want to know where everyone can follow you and find your book. Okay, I said before, I was like, I don't know if my confession is as juicy as some of your guests, but on the book front, I said before my husband, Goner, he was writing the book at the same time. He was like, I think he was a few, he was a couple of months before me in the process. So he comes out of the writing room at one point and he's like, I don't know what I'm,

doing like what am i like what am i even writing is this even going to land for people is this like is this going to be any good and i have a very non-mindful moment and i'm like babe stop stop being so insecure like just you know whatever whatever and he's like like you know six weeks later i come out of the writing room and i'm like babe i i don't know what i'm doing like why do they think I'm the expert in this. So the confession was like, he outed me at one point. He was like,

you were not very good in that moment. I was like, I was not very good in that moment. I was like, get over. It's not being so insecure. Just write the damn book. And then I'm like, holy shit, I'm right there with you. Why do people think,

do I even know anything about family systems? What, like, why did they decide that I was the expert in this and like make it all go away? So I had my tail between my legs for sure. I know. That's funny, but that's, again, now you can both relate to how difficult that process is and feel extra proud of what you've done. So where can people follow you on Instagram because your quotes are incredible and get the, I'm sure the book is in all the links. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So yeah, you can follow me at Mindful MFT as in marriage family therapy. The book is The Origins of You. So yeah, pretty much anywhere that. books are sold so wherever your favorite book selling place is you can grab a copy there and yeah i mean that's like most of the stuff that's going on we have the workshops and retreats and um all of that coming up but uh you can find all of the offerings in my instagram bio yes oh my gosh if anyone has

the chance to see go to one of your retreats or one of your speaking events or anything you guys do It really started changing my life. So thank you. Thank you for everything you do. You do so much for me as a friend personally to and online. So thank you. And yet, the book is incredible. And it's for when this podcast comes out, it's out today.

So if you go get your copy, Hub Day. I'm so proud of you. I'm so excited for you. And you're just going to get the most incredible feedback from it helping so many people. So thank you, Caitlin. You're incredible. I appreciate you so much. I appreciate you.

Thanks for coming on and taking the time to chat with me today. And let's talk soon. Yeah, love, thanks so much. I'm Caitlin Bristow and 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. All month long on Pluto TV, stream the biggest Tyler Perry movies,

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