The Sabrina Zohar Show - 57: The importance of inner child work and how childhood issues seep into your dating life with therapist Sarah Ann LaFleur!

Episode Date: February 2, 2024

On this weeks episode of The Sabrina Zohar Show, Sabrina is joined by therapist Sarah Ann Lafluer to chat about inner child work, how to heal through abandonment/rejection and how unresolved childhood trauma seeps into every aspect of your dating life! Want to work with Sabrina? HERE! Stuck After the Podcast? Master Implementation in 8 Weeks with Sabrina's Foundation Course Join the Make It Make Sense: Getting Through a Breakup course HERE! Get Ad-free episodes and 2 Bonus episodes a month HERE! Dont forget to follow Sabrina and The Sabrina Zohar Show on instagram and Sabrina on Tik tok! Video now available on YOUTUBE!  Disclaimer: The Sabrina Zohar Show, formally known as Do The Work, is not affiliated with A.Z & associates LLC in any capacity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of Do the Work podcast. My name is Sabrina Zohar and I am your host. Friends, we've got a very special episode today and not because it's anything specifically special and in and of what the content is, but because it's special to me. Because for my journey personally, inner child work was the key that unlocked so much for me. Understanding where did I learn this behavior from? Where did this become solidified in my brain? When did I, how did I start to connect all these synops?

is together that this bothers me, this didn't, and starting to really understand, like, where was I moving from? Because for so often, if we're sitting here being like, wow, I feel like I'm a six-year-old, it's like, great. So then that's the part that we're moving from. And that's how that's the parts of us that need us. And so I have Sarah LaFleur. She is a trauma specialist and therapist, and she talks heavily about inner child work. And we talk about just so many different ways to kind of get into it, how to utilize the inner child work for your healing. I'm just so fucking excited. This is just a special episode to me because of the content of what we're speaking about because I know how life-changing this can be, and I'm just so excited for you guys to

learn more. So as always, guys, thank you for everything. Please don't forget to rate the show. Am I a broken record? Yes. Are there more ratings? No. So I'm going to keep being a broken record. Go to us, but do not leave a comment on Spotify. I don't see them. I don't know where they go. You just at the top of the page on Spotify, there's three little dots. You click that and press rate show or on Apple. You go to the bottom on Amazon, Google. I hear it radio D's or wherever you can please. please, please, wherever you can leave a review or rate it, please fucking do. That's how I grow. That's how I can get more people on the show. That's how we can go higher. Thank you guys for supporting our sponsors. That is also how we can keep the show free for you guys. We have the new

bonus content coming out in March where it's going to be just so much more. But for now, this is what we got. And guys, as always, if you need anything, link in show notes, if you want to ask me a question, dating up audits, work with me in any way. I'm here for you guys. There's free guides. Everything is in the link in show notes. And it's soon going to be my web. website, which I'm so fucking excited about. But for now, guys, let's get right the fuck on into it. And I am just so excited for another amazing week. This episode is brought to you by software. That's right. That's my clothing line, babes. And software is my baby. And I started it in 2017 after my mom went to the doctor with a headache and they found six brain aneurysms that grew to the top

half of her vessel. So software is sustainably made. It's 100% made right here in Los Angeles. Our fabric, our cut and sew, our hang tags, literally every aspect comes from right here in our backyard and it is the coziest thing. It's very fitted. It's more tailored. It's not as street style, but it literally feels like a cloud. It's almost like somebody's hugging you. And so guys, you get 20% off your first order. So if you go to do the do the work.com, that's not it. We go to wear software.com and use the code do the work. You get 20% off your order. So W-E-A-R, soft W-W-E-A-R, so WaresoftW-Soft.com. And the code is do the work. And you guys get to support a very small business and something that's very local that is actually trying to impact people

and help people. So guys again, we're software.com and the code is do the work. Hi, Sarah. Welcome to Do the Work podcast. I'm so excited to have you on. I'm so excited. Thanks for having me. Of course. Now, guys, this is an episode that's very near and dear to my heart because I think for a lot of people that have followed along with me on the journey, they know inner child work is a huge, huge, huge area for me of like, honestly, I'll tell you single-handedly, I believe that inner child work and reparenting and doing all that is where I got to where I'm at right now. And so I'm so, so excited, Sarah, for you to be on because I wanted somebody clinical that works with this, that deals with this, that is with people all the time to explain. Because, of course, my personal experience is great, but clinically, how this actually helps you.

And, you know, we have so many questions and you guys wrote in some amazing things on Instagram. So I'm super excited to dive in on this episode. But before we do that, Sarah, can you just introduce yourself and share with my audience and everybody who may or may not know you, kind of who you are, what you do, and how you got into this. Sure. So I'm Sarah Lafleur. I'm a licensed therapist who specializes in attachment trauma, addictions, and relationships. I write about and share education about trauma and the healing journey on Instagram and my

blog and just a little bit of my personal background and info. I am person in recovery, and that's actually how I got introduced into a lot of different somatic modalities like yoga. EMDR, somatic experiencing, et cetera, and really where I began my healing journey, almost 14 years ago. So it's been a long time, but that's something that informs my clinical work, in addition to coming from an addicted family with a lot of multi-stress conditions and factors that affected how we functioned as a unit in my childhood.

I say what I love so much about this podcast is how many people I've talked to that, they start with, I had my own experience or I. hit this because it's like I find it so much more relatable. Like I can understand even when I was seeing some of your content, it's like I could see that you're not just somebody who went to school and learned about it highbrow on paper. And then it's like, hey, I'm trying to implement this into your life. It's very, I have my own experience with this. And here is the knowledge that I want to share with you. And so I'm, and I'm actually excited. I didn't realize also that you have addiction as a background. I have some questions for you. So we'll kind of get there. But I wanted to start kind

of just overarching. I think a lot of people don't understand what is interchial. What do you mean by that? What do you mean I have to talk to little me? It's like, I think it's, it's been hijacked by the woo world. It's the same with like manifestation and certain things that I'm like, on paper, these aren't bad things. But when a, when somebody takes it kind of hijacks it over and makes it manifestation is like shaming you for not having positive thoughts, it's like, well, then we've

strayed away from how beneficial this actually is and now we're shaming people. And I think a lot of people think, I'm not going to talk to this stupid. I don't want to go back to the past. So I'd love to know just like from a psychological standpoint, like what is inner child work? And like, yeah, what does this mean? Oh, I love this question so much because I think first of all, I can relate to those people. Because when I first heard that term inner child and even when I was getting into parts work, the concept for me sounded so abstract.

And I'm someone who I do, even though I am a yoga teacher and there are wooey parts of my personality, I really care about research. I care about outcomes. I care about measurable data. And to my knowledge, there isn't a brain test or a blood test you can take that will reveal to you your inner child. So it is slightly an abstract concept, but I think giving the listeners this information can be helpful

as it relates to trauma in the inner child. So one way to think about the inner child is it's really just an ego state. It's a state of consciousness that we all move through in development. Now, if there have been experiences of significant stress and significant trauma, particularly in attachment trauma events, one's consciousness is going to somewhat be stuck at that point. It may evolve in other ways, but these memories from that stressful and traumatizing time, essentially they get frozen in time and stuck there. and they fragment and they don't get processed out.

And the ways that they show up might be in flashbacks. That's more in kind of a PTSD presentation, but more so in the case of attachment and complex trauma, you have these events show up in these intense distressing emotions, relational triggers, if there's a lot of attachment or anxious attachment patternings or avoidant attachment, disorganized attachment patternings,

that usually is going to point, to there's some sort of early childhood experience that was never fully felt, held, supported, and processed out. So I look at it as it's more so an ego state and the remnants of that ego state would show up as trapped emotion that the nervous system is still holding. I actually really love that you put it like that because I think wow, yeah, hearing it as the ego state, I'm like, oh shit, that actually does kind of make sense when we really start to like strip it back. I remember for me inner child work, it's what bums me out is like I actually had never heard of even the order in her child. Like for what, I'm 33 now. So for 20, almost 28 years of my life,

never had heard it. And it's like, because it's like, because it's a double edge sort of the internet. I'm grateful for it because we've been able to learn and grow and experience. And wow, oh my God, like I talked to my mom and she's like, do you think 50 years ago anyone was talking about narcissism? She's like, when I met your father 40 years ago, do you think anyone said, oh, your husband's treating you because he's a narcissist? She's like, no, what it was was you're not being, you're not treating your husband right. What are you doing wrong? So it's like, I love all of these awareness is, but I remember for my journey, like, I, for what I kind of, I'm curious to hear, like, what your first, like, kind of experience with it was. I had a therapist and we were

doing tapping a lot and she was a, she would do meditation with me. And I loved she had different modalities. And that's what really drew me to her. And she was more CBT. So we were talking a lot. And I remember she kept, we got into meditation. And I was really, really like, I really enjoyed it because I wanted to get better at visualization. And every time I would do this one meditation, it was just music. And it would just, every time it was the same vision. Like I'd close my eyes and I would see myself on a boat going out and then I'd see my ex at the time. This was when we broke up. And I would always, I remember calling my therapist being like, okay, really weird.

I was like 13 and so was he. We were kids and we were kids and we were crying and his mom kept saying, come over here. Get it. We're leaving. And he kept saying, but I don't want to leave her. I don't want to leave her. And she said, we're done. And I kept saying, you have to go.

You have to go. And I remember the first time when I told my therapist and she laughed and she's like, that's your inner child. And I was like, what does that mean? And she was like, you and your ex connected as kids. you didn't connect as adults. And I didn't understand. And I was like, oh, my God. We connected over trauma.

We connected over, we acted like two children. We weren't adults. And whenever we got triggered, he went into his avoided narcissistic phase of gaslighting and deflecting, walking out. I went into my anxious state of act like a child cry, scream, protest, go on the floor. And it was almost the clockwork. But that was my kind of first inclination into inner child work, which then led me to be like, I want to explore this. but what was like your first entryway into this?

I always think it's so interesting to hear people's first experience going, oh my God, that's me. Right, right. So I think for me, the term really crystallized and came into focus when I began doing more serious inner work in internal family systems. So I had done therapy on and off throughout my early recovery. I worked, I did some EMDR, CBT therapy, motivational interviewing, these kind of basic interventions and some trauma work prior to this. But it wasn't until I experienced

the IFS model that I felt like I was able to actually see and embody these younger states and then link the states I was seeing to experiences I was having in the present moment. And the more that I also learned about and was trained in the model is the more that I could kind of identify and name the states, name the parts, name, because it's not just one inner child. It's we all, there's different ego states inside of us. We have teenage parts, adolescent parts, infant parts. So that's, that's really, for me, it was working with IFS and then also, which started as me wanting to work on my trauma.

And the model is so rich that it revealed a lot to me. So I don't know if there was one specific moment, but I think IFS showed me that I have a lot of young parts that really needed tending to. And often, we don't always see the young parts. For example, like you were talking about your ex and he had these like narcissistic defense mechanisms essentially. So when you have protected mechanisms like that,

they're often blocking and covering extreme vulnerability, which usually comes about in childhood. when we're most vulnerable. So for me, I have like, because of my family history and things I've been through, I have a lot of parentified parts, if you will, parts that grew up really quick and we're used to having to be adult-like in certain ways.

And so it was really hard to connect with my younger parts. But once I moved through that IFS model, which involves a lot of getting to know the protector parts, working with the protective system, and you gain their trust, it's almost like they soften, they step back and you can get to the root

of the attack attachment issue, the vulnerability, which for me is like a legion of young parts. I love that you brought that up too because I love IFS. Oh, to me, out of all, like DBT, I love certain practices. Like I love extracting, but I love IFS overall for what it like stands for. And that's internal family systems for anyone. We had Matthias Barker on and we were talking about that with Masha. So it's like there's definitely been some peeps on the podcast and we've expressed that we love IFS.

But I'm with you. I remember my sister and I had a fight like a month or two ago. And she was like, she gets like a feral cat when she gets disreg. and then all of a sudden I'm like, I know that's like 12 year old my sister. I'm like, there's Jamie at 15 and I can see. And same with my brother. It's like you can see when they get dysregulated. They go right back.

Same with me. Mine is, I'm the youngest. Scream louder. Somebody will, nobody ever listens to you. So just yell. And she started acting out and I kept saying, Jane, can I ask you? Do you feel like this anger towards me is coming from you right now? And she's like, I don't have any issues with you from childhood, Sabrina.

I don't have anything. Let's stop going back in the past. I'm so fucking tired of this. I said, okay. And then I, a few minutes, I let her kind of. to calm down and she was like just having a moment. And I said, James, do you remember ever acting like this before? And she's like, I feel like I'm fucking 15 again. And I was like, that's exactly what I wanted to ask you. I was like, that's my point. You're the angry teenager. And she just bald. And I was like,

I get it. It's scary to go there. But once you do, it's like, I was going to ask you for people that are like fucking terrified. They just don't know where to start. What do you recommend for people? Because for me, it was like meditation and da and ketamine treatments. I had my own journey. But I would say for anybody listening that's like, I don't even know where to begin. What do you advise? Advise as far as getting in touch with the inner child or beginning this work. Both. Let's go both. Okay. So I think, first of all, creative and somatic practices are necessary to really build up our internal resources so that we can do this deeper work. And that really is stage one,

step one of any trauma focused intervention or modality is we want to develop a healing container and a positive resource that's bigger than the distress that's going to come up when we access these young vulnerable states of consciousness and being. So there's that, even if you're not involved in inner work or personal therapy, just developing some sort of somatic practice like yoga because trauma lives in the tissues and it's going to be accessed and processed and processed out that way. And then once that's been developed sufficiently or alongside pursuing some type of parts work focus modalities such as internal family systems interfocusing by anne fernel is another one i love um i recently learned of another modality called dare by dr diane heller believe it stands for

dynamic attachment repatterning or something like that um but it's focused on actually developing secure attachment within yourself and your internal experience which is really cool so i don't have advice so much as far as like how do you do this inner work on your own on your own because for me personally, I've always had mentors, therapists, healers, if you will, not to throw out a wooie word, but I've always had guides and supports alongside me as I do that work because if you're really doing that work and I feel like this is important to say the states that you're going to be accessing, they need extra support and holding. And your consciousness as the adult that's venturing into that states, into that

state may not be developed enough to support what comes up and then process it out and integrate it. So it's really crucial to have a community of people or just helpers along the way to support this work. Totally. Yeah, I think that's kind of what bums me. I was like, I get a lot of like, how can I just fix this? How can I get rid of it? It's like, well, there's nothing to fix. You're broken. And I think what we all need to understand is like, okay, however old you are right now. So the first day you decided to do this, that's how many years of conditioning and programming and reaffirming core beliefs you've had. So for me, at 28, when I started doing this, I had 28 years of your piece of shit, you're

not good enough. Who the fuck are you? You're not worthy. I grew up in a household my brother, a drug problem. And so I grew up watching my parents always having to put his fires back having to go and bail him out of jail when I was nine, having to watch him get his fucking ass kicked on the floor, like having him sent off. My sister, like I had so many things.

and now here was my biggest issue. When I was, the reason I think that you do also need to work with somebody is because we normalize our experiences. For so long, my dad did the, you're such an ungrateful fucking person. I did all this to help you. I was always out of the house because I needed to make money for you kids. And it's like, listen, asshole, you are always out of the house because you had two girlfriends that mom didn't know about that you were cheating on her.

And because you're such a fucking narcissist, you can't take accountability and come back to me. But I, but without some, without a therapist working or a coach or somebody saying, hey, by the way, that's not normal. No, your father beating up your brother and you crying in the corner, hiding in your app, that's not normal behavior that everyone experiences. And I think that's such an important aspect because I hear this every day. I had a perfect childhood. Nothing went wrong. And then it's like, okay, so let's start to peel back the layers here a little bit. You start to feel anxious. You start to have something. Oh, they didn't text me. Okay, so tell in a handbasket.

your nervous system is all dysregulated and now all of a sudden your hell in a handbasket. If you just want to take it as he didn't text me, well, his low effort and I don't like it, it's like, okay, but if we're not actually getting to the root of it, because if every single time a guy doesn't fucking text you, you go and lose your marbles, that's because your nervous system is perceiving that you're in danger now and that you're not safe. And if we can't stop to say, whoa, speed bump, what's going on first? Somebody asked, how can I access this when I'm disregulated? And I'm like, you can't. When you're dysregulated, it's going to be really tough to access. logic because you're not in the logical brain. So I always have to regulate my nervous system first and then start to assess what's the trigger, where is it into my body, what is the narrative? And then I start to bridge the gap of when have I felt this before in my life? When have I thought these things before? What happened? And how can I go to her, reparent her and kind of save her? That's my personal process.

But I would actually love to know like what reparenting. Can we talk a little bit about what that actually means and looks like? Because I think a lot of people like we said, they think, what do you mean? Talk to little me. I can't change what happened in the past. And it's like, we're not talking about changing what happened. We're talking about reparenting. And I'd love to hear kind of your thoughts on that. Right. So I just want to highlight something you shared in one of your examples from your own work and personal history where you talked about the value of a therapist saying, hey, that's not normal. So when we, the gift of inviting other people into our process and allowing them to even guide our internal process and support it is that in some ways they're giving us this corrective

experience that we lacked. They're almost showing up as the adults that we needed and the loving protective parents that we lacked many of us. So there's value in that and that eventually gets conditioned in where we learn how to regard ourselves in the same way. So as far as inter-parenting work or reparenting work, it doesn't inner dialoguing. So, you know, pausing, closing your eyes, taking a deep breath, saying out loud or privately, internally in your mind, some words of affirmation for your inner child, like, I love you, I hear that you're struggling with this, et cetera. That's just one practice. And it's a very conceptual, abstract practice that may not work for a lot of people, especially people who tend to be more linear thinkers. And that's

totally welcome and okay. Interparenting can be anything that any practice or any action that helps you show up for the younger you with the love, the care, the support, and the understanding and the safety that they needed. Interparenting looks like saying no when you mean no, saying yes when you mean yes, honoring your boundaries, using assertive communication, honoring and meeting your needs, standing up for yourself. It's not just this like inner dialoguing thing. Yeah. It's funny because whenever I'll work with clients, like I love inner child work. And I don't take them like super deep because I'm like, but even just to question like when they get super anxious, I'm like, right, let's sit with this. Like what's happened? We try to connect some synapses.

Every single time when I'll like, where do you feel this in your body? And they'll be like, yes, I felt this before. Okay, I feel like I'm seven again and you're like, okay, cool. And if that little you were here, what do you think you need to hear from you? And every time I kind of get this, you're fine. You're going to be okay. Everything's fine. Relax. And then I'm like, okay, so let's now remove yourself. Now, if you're a child, if you're seven and somebody each just tells, you're going to be fine. Can you relax? Let me ask you as an adult does that work for you? No. Then when I say, well, don't you think that little you? I'm like, okay, so little you, you didn't get a text back so you feel like you're going to be abandoned. Little you, that memory that's

being triggered, like this was my personal thing, I would see myself hiding in this attic. And when I started to do inner child work, I found myself in this attic where I used to hide. That's where I was stuck. And I would go every day. And I kind of equated it to like the really sad dog videos when when you see them like sad and scared in the kennels. And every day you have to show up every day to make them trust you and then they let you in kind of like you said about the protector parts. And that's what I would do. Every day I would show up and sit with her and say, I'm here. You know, I'm not going to leave you until one day she looked at me and she's like, you fucking abandoned me.

And that's when I realized like, oh my God. And the way that I reparent her is like in those moments when I'm like, okay, so if I'm, I don't think this guy's text me because he hates me and all these things. That brings me back to being a kid saying dad's going to leave me. So if I have that little here, that child, me telling it, I love you and I'm choosing you. I'm never going to abandon you. I'm never going to leave you because I value who you. are and I accept you for you are. For me, I never had a parent that did that. I would get bullied in

school, come home crying hysterically and no one was there. Or it was my brother saying, well, because you're ugly and you're just like, okay, you're an older brother making fun of me, but at seven, that left a mark on me. And so I'm, I'm happy that we can talk now. Do you have any other ways, like I know some people can write a letter to their inner child, hold a photo, like, if people struggled to like visualize or connect, do you have any other tips on ways that they can even just show up for themselves? Sure. So I think, I don't know if this exactly answers the question, but I think any creative or experiential modality, such as you talked about writing a letter, could be just stream of consciousness writing in a journal. Processing events that way can be really helpful. Psychodrama is also really interesting with inner child work. I've done a little bit of personal work with this, but it's an evidence-based like therapy intervention or therapy modality that involves essentially, acting out scenes from your past or scenes from your history.

You can do this on your own with like an inner, well, not an inner, but it's just a monologue. Or you can do it with other people. So any type of modality that's going to externalize these states and these memories can be really helpful. And there was one piece of what you said that I wanted to speak to. What's funny is like kind of what you're mentioning is like when I was a kid, I just wanted to be saved.

And I kept saying, I just want somebody, come get me. Come get me. I'm in the attic, right? Literally come get me. And it wasn't until I had to stop and say, wait a minute, I need to save myself. And I was doing that. Like, I remember there was a memory. And I literally was like, the house was crazy.

And I went in and I was like, I looked and I said, what do you need? And I saw the suitcase. When I was a kid, every time there'd be an issue, I'd pack my suitcase. I just, that's all I knew was, go, leave, get out of here. And I couldn't. Of course, you're fucking six. Who's taking you? And I finally looked at her and I was like, oh my God, you're stuck here.

let's go. And I just took her. And I was like, we're done. What do we need to? I took my therapist and she was like, take the flame to the house. And I threw it on the house. And I realized, and I remember every time I'd go back, she'd be there and she'd be walking around. And it took me time after time to be like, hey, you can come back with me. You're not, we don't need to live here. Like, it's okay. You can come with me. Right. And that way, this is, that's what I was, what I wanted to say is the way that you're describing how you learn to work with your inner child, that is actually like how you heal it or how you access the healing is it's a twofold experience, right? Where on one hand, you're giving the inner child, the validation that they lacked, the sense of self-worth,

understanding, et cetera. But then there's also this secondary process that happens, which is that in doing that, you're growing your own capacity and your adult awareness, your ability to be with that younger you. And so it becomes not just this destination that you're trying to reach of like, let me heal my abandonment wound. It's actually about the practice of attending to that wound. Because most likely, I mean, just from my training and what I believe is that these parts don't ever go away. Because your history doesn't go away. You're going to carry these ego states and these experiences and these versions of yourselves with you. But the more that we can attend to them with mindfulness and care and protection is the more that we can kind of grow them up and integrate

them. And also you can access these untapped gifts and strengths from these different states that often got suppressed in the service of survival. So little you that's packing a suitcase and is kind of in this like flight response, there's something that was that there's something that they missed expressing. There's something that they missed having understood by those around them in the act of doing that. And what was that gift? What was that strength? And you can recover that now as an adult.

Totally. And it's like, and by doing that, how, because somebody asked, like, I don't understand how is this going to help? And it's like, how it's going to help is instead of seeking somebody else to come save me, I saved myself. Instead of waiting for someone else to validate me, to say, Sabrina, you're right. I validated myself. That way, I was able to, one, go back to the parts of myself that I wasn't proud of,

the parts that I was shaming and looking away from, oh, my God, how could I? and I had to look at her and say, well, I love you for who you are and I accept you because you're part of me. Do I look back at 20-year-old Sabrina and say, I'm so proud of you. Look how much you fucked up living in New York? No, but do I have compassion for her

that she did the best she could with the information that she knew and she was just a hurt soul trying to get through things? Yeah, because I know it wasn't out of malice, but I also can hold space for both of those things. And I think that's such a big aspect as well

of like shame and blame is never going to get us anywhere. But if we can hold some space and compassion for ourselves, We can actually heal those parts so that when we're dating, it's no longer, oh, my God, are you going to choose me? You have to choose me because if you don't, I'm going to feel abandoned. And if I feel abandoned, then we start to work up. Instead, it's, well, hi.

Okay, well, I've chosen myself. I'm not here for, you're in addition to my life, not instead of. That comes from a place of security. Like you said, does that mean my anxiety goes away? Fuck no. What that does mean is I learn tools to handle it. I learn tools to stop, drop, and roll, to stop, assess what's going on and figure. Is this a trigger or is there a real threat?

But that comes with, like you said, trusting yourself, exploring, like getting back into it. And that's why I love inner child work so much. But I do have another question for you. Sure. You made a video today that was about this. So I wanted to go in deeper about your family being immature still. How so like when I did this, I again, had my own personal experiences. I was the black sheep of the family.

I was the first one to. Exactly. Yeah. The first one to say, hey, something's not right. We need therapy. I'm done with this. Dad's not speaking to us appropriately. moms of people, please, this isn't working.

Now my sister's in therapy, my mom's in therapy, my dad and my brother, narcissistic, like, of course they're not going to be. But nonetheless, how do you handle that or what advice do you have for people to handle that? Like, how do you work through issues with your family when your family is either still telling you you're making it up or you're being too sensitive or I took care of everything for you? You know, like they're still emotionally immature. Oh, it's so tough.

And this question, feeling into it, it feels really dear to my own personal experience, but also what I really care about professionally and working with populations that have struggled with addiction and live with a lot of multi-stressed conditions. Because oftentimes, oftentimes family systems that, if you come from a family that feels dysfunctional or narcissistic or you can identify, my parents are definitely emotionally immature,

most likely there is an element of intergenerational trauma that has happened and is happening. So in order for the family to have survived or a person in that family to have survived, at some point they had to adopt a certain adaptive response that may have been defensiveness. It may have been emotional suppression. It may have been a lot of narcissistic tendencies

like judging, shaming, and blaming to some degree. And so the family, the unhaled family is deeply invested in its own sickness because it seems, its sickness as survival and it sees wellness in a lot of ways as a threat to that. And this isn't necessarily a conscious thought that I think like parents or siblings who are still kind of in that mentality of the toxic family you may have grown up with or necessarily having or articulating, but it's very much felt in the body and it's communicated through words and by how boundaries are shaped. So I just want to acknowledge that it's really tough to navigate that,

the healing really is in being the same way you do you do a lot of work with you know um maintaining secure attachment while you're dating doing inner work doing the work while you're in this process of discovering love and building intimacy etc it's the same thing with the family where you're doing your inner work regardless of if and when anybody changes and oftentimes they're not going to change they're not so then navigating that system becomes about well how do i want to respond respond to them. Do I want to revert to my 15-year-old self and throw a temper tantrum? Do I want to shame them back? Do I want to hold onto their negative projections and judgments of me as the black sheet because I'm the one challenging the narrative and the script that I was given? Or do I want to

empower myself and give my younger parts the validation that they need and lead with courage and strength in how I have relationships with them. Totally. No, I love that because it's, I had to learn that as well, like having a narcissistic father, like not, not me just, you know, like a lot of people throw that fucking term around. And it's like, no, no, no. Once you meet this man, you're like, whole, even my partner, tech guy, he went to school for psychology. So like got the, he's got all that. He worked in it. The minute he met my dad, he was like, oh, no, like this guy is textbook. And what I learned was, well, I can't change him, right? I can't change him. I can't change my brother. I can't

change my mom. I can't change my guy. I can't change anybody. but what I can do is control how I respond, right? I don't want to react. I don't want to always go back to here. Because then what happens is I get the here she is again. There she is. Sabrina screamed again because she hasn't done any work on herself. And so I had to stop and say, okay, well, I don't need to prove anything to these people, right?

Like, fuck you. You know, who would me? When I started, my life changed, I was so scared of my dad leaving me all of my life financially. He had invested in my business when I started my whole time. Everything was dysregulation. I was coming at everything with fear of, I'm going to, lose everything and he's going to leave me. So dating was doing that relationship or business I was doing that everywhere. And when I finally had to tell myself and go back to little me and say, by the

way, yeah, you are still speaking to dad, but you're not six anymore. You're a grown-ass adult who can set boundaries. And if he doesn't like them, that's okay, I'm here for you. And when I set a boundary, my dad told me to go fuck myself. He did the whole thing that he always does. And for the first time, I said, you know what, fine, Yuri. No need to ever call me again. And I hung up the phone. And I was scared. And I remember sitting there being like, did I just tell my dad to fuck off pretty much. I was like, oh my God, I stood up to the bully. I changed everything that I did from then on because I had to support myself to let her know it's okay. It's okay because you said boundaries, he didn't respect them. You said boundaries, he didn't respect them. So what's the only option?

You what, self-sabandoned me and say, okay, well, my dad's calling you an idiot. So I guess I'll take it or box them into a boundary and say, I'm either going to walk away from this conversation unless we can talk like this or talk to me with respect and I'm here to listen. Right. And we got to a point where like, once I stood up to the big bad wolf, the biggest, the scariest thing was my parents leaving me. Well, then when you date, you're like, what am I so scared of? Even when people say, I'm just terrified of him leaving, it's like, what do you say scared? What abandonment? You're so scared of this person leaving. You already experienced the abandonment. You know what that exactly. Exactly. And I actually wanted to ask you, addiction. I know that I've been told,

and not even necessarily about like, obviously we know, like a lot of addiction is like escapism and people are going through things and there's like, you know, I know my brother specifically, like he had a drug problem, not because of the addiction. He was escaping. You know, he couldn't handle things. But just in sense of, I know that they say the same parts of our brain get activated that are like same with drugs and addiction that they do when you like look at your ex-social media or things like that. And I was curious to learn between an addiction that we can have in other aspects that might not be deemed as unhealthy. It's not drugs. It's not alcohol. It's not sex. It's stalking someone's Instagram and constantly checking your phone. How does that?

impact you? And like, does that impact in the same way? It's a little bit different. But my understanding is there are a lot of similarities even just we we call those addictions you're describing process addictions. And so you're seeing a lot of the same behaviors as someone who's using substances, but you're not getting the mood shift due to a chemical that you're introducing into your body. But the same kind of chemical reactions can technically happen. I like to think of addiction as it's a cycle of obsessive thinking and then compulsive behavior. And so we can have these cycles play out in so many different avenues such as shopping, such as compulsively texting your hinge inbox or something. So there definitely is a parallel.

Yeah. And I think even like what you even asked earlier, like when I think when people get so scared, oh, I'm scared they're going to leave. I'm scared of abandonment. Like, because the first thing I asked is, okay, you know, when I'm, oh, he hasn't texted me and I'm freaking out. What are you scared of? Oh, he's going to leave me. Okay. What's the scary about that? You know, like, I think even that is something because somebody had asked ways to heal through it. And it's like sometimes even calling it out, even just saying it, I know we we spark on the prefrontal cortex. When we add logic, when we say, hey, I'm identifying it. Oh, okay, I'm coming from logic. And I think that's like such an important aspect of all of these things

that we're doing. And when it comes to addiction, I do get a lot of people that do apps dating somebody who is an addiction, you know, whether they're in recovery or they're not, you know, because obviously it's like there's enabling, there's so many things. But if there's a way that we can touch on it, do you have any advice for somebody that either is dating somebody who has an addiction or is in recovery? Maybe those are two separate things. Any advice or tips or things that you can give to those people because I'm I myself know obviously like my personal experiences with addiction that when they open their mouth they're lying and I've experienced all these things with my brother but that's projections for me. I don't date people with addictions because of what I went through but I'd love to

know if somebody doesn't have that same experience how you know is it abandoning if they walk away from something like that or is there a way that this can be healthy or you know because of recovery obviously is so important. Right. Yeah. And it's interesting fielding this question because I'm thinking about it from so many different angles. I'm thinking about it from my own experience in addiction. I'm thinking about it growing up in that kind of family. I've also worked with couples in the clinical setting where one of one member, one partner has an addiction. And what I will say is it's one thing to, it's a very different thing to date someone in active addiction who is displaying these classic defense mechanisms of people with addiction, such as defensiveness, minimization,

blaming, denying. And a very different thing to date someone who has some insight and realizes they have a problem and is trying to get help or is in the process of earlier long-term recovery. They're two completely different things. And for someone who's truly in the throes and grips of addiction, you're never having like a person-to-person, I don't want to say normal and pathologize it, but you're not having like a person-to-person relationship with them because there's a third person, a third entity in the room, and that's the drug. That's the alcohol. It's not just a diatic relationship. There's a triangle here because that person, the addict, is getting a lot of their intimacy needs met and dealing with a lot of their emotions through the substance, not through you.

You are the outside party who often is distracting them from what they want to do or getting in their way. So it's very hard to develop intimacy or work on that kind of relationship because someone who's physically, chemically addicted to substances, they don't have emotional connection to give. And if you can get okay with that, you know, I've worked with couples where maybe alcoholism didn't hit until 10 years into marriage. And now they're neat and the lies and the cheating and the escapades. And it's like, how did this even happen? But having, I've worked with spouses in that instance and helping them develop better boundaries, stronger communication skills.

What's your safety plan? Yeah. And literally, it sounds in some ways like juvenile to the way that you might have to deal with someone who's in the grips of addiction and doesn't want to get help. But it's things like, okay, if you come home drunk, I'm going to call a lease. Right. If you come home high, I'm going to, or I'm just going to change the locks, for example. I recognize you.

I watch a lot of intervention. Okay. And it's true. It's all you're saying is 100% accurate of like. you can't enable it. Like if you're with some, it's the same thing of bad behavior in general, whether it's an addiction or just not.

Enable, allowing it is where then people are going to keep doing it. But I do get this question a lot of like, my person's in recovery and they say they don't have time. And I'm like, but they're not lying to you. I'm like, recovery is someone's priority. They are, if they can't pour from their cup, they cannot take care of yours.

And if someone is going through like their program or in it, I'm like, they're not lying to you. Have some compassion and empathy for this person. They're fighting some fucking demons. And it is not your place to be like, oh, I'll help them through it. It's like you can support, but you can't do it for them. You know, like you got to be able to, you can be there. I'm listening and I'm here, but I can't, hey, you need to go to your meeting today.

Hey, have you done that? No, because then you're in a parent role, a caretaker role. And that's not fun. And there are going to be times where we caretake our partners parts, our partners, like younger parts of them, et cetera. And that is part of healthy intimacy and attachment. But when you make that your sole role in their life and there isn't, this deeper intimacy, you're not going to have that intimacy.

100%. Like I even know, because people ask all the time, like, should I tell my partner, like, I'm an anxious attacher, like the guy I'm dating or should we talk about this? And I'm like, okay, you don't need to self-identify with that shit. Like when I first met my partner? I asked him, I was like, when did I tell you about my anxiety, my dad and everything? He was like, I think five or six months in. And I was like, oh, shit.

I, when we first met, he was like, oh, I could tell you were anxious. He's like, oh, you're kidding me, you fucking talking. I can see your anxiety. I'm fidgety. I'm all over. And I'm like, because that's me working through. stuff just in life. But when it came to relationships, I wasn't as anxious in the relationship. And even when I was, it took me time to open up and say, hey, I want to share with you what I actually

experience as a kid. And now even being able to support our literal selves, like, when I see, like, he'll get controlling over certain things. And I'll have to stop and be like, hey, babe, what's going on for you? And he's like, I just, we don't have these plans. And I'm like, I get it. Now let's regulate. And let's talk about that from a regulated state. And that's when he'll stop and be like, yeah, when I was a kid, my dad. And then we will start talking. And I'm like, I totally understand. I'm like, but remember, I'm not your dad. It's okay that our plans didn't go according to plan. You're safe. I'm here with you and he'll just hug me. And I'm like, that's how we've learned to, I don't villainize him. I'm not looking at him being like a fucking pussy.

But I look at an understanding, my parts come out too. When I get triggered and I'll say, I feel like I'm six again right now because you told me to calm down and my dad used to do that. And it made me really triggered. Okay, thanks for letting me share that. And thanks for letting me support her and letting her know that you don't have to get yelled out for feeling this. Right. Right. And you also. give that younger part of you an opportunity to experience his presence, his compassion, his understanding, which is like this second layer of healing. You're creating this attachment base in a way with him with that young part. There's like two parts to this. The first part is the inner

child works for you to connect with yourself, for you to understand who am I? What do I want? What do I like? Like, do I enjoy this? How do we feel in my body? When I'm with this person, am I calm? Am I anxious? like things like that. Then we go into like part two of okay, I've done all this work. Now I met a partner who is not playing games with me, who's really calm, really secure. They're trying to give it to me. And now it's, oh, fuck, now I have to receive it. Now my nervous system has to believe I'm worthy. Now my nervous system has to say, this isn't dad and that's okay. We can be loved like this. It's a weird foreign way. And I think I'm glad you brought that up because there really are like two parts to this. But I wanted to ask

You kind of one last question about somebody asked, how do you not feel sorry for little you and go into kind of victim mode? And then how, like, someone she asked, how do I know it's mini me reacting? Like, how can I be able to tell the difference between like, is it that versus now? And then how do I not feel sorry for myself?

Hmm. I know my heart goes out. Like, I can feel that. Like, I just want to hug you. Yeah. Well, I don't know. Part of me wants to almost response to that question. Like, you can feel sorry.

for yourself. What's wrong with feeling sorry for yourself? But if the concern is that compassion, lending itself into self-pity and learned helplessness, that's very different. And so compassion is going to come from a space of connection to your body, connection to kind of like regulated nervous system energy. And essentially it's like you have to become bigger than the feeling that's coming up for the part. Yeah. Versus getting sucked into it. And so if you're finding yourself maybe feeling sorry or kind of in that victim state, that's not the bigger you. That's not the adult you. That's the part or like another exiled young part.

And so kind of taking a step back, pressing pause, taking some deep breaths, finding yourself again. You mentioned even using like a top down regulation strategy, like even reminding yourself, hey, I'm 32 years old sitting in an office with Sabrina. I'm not younger me who like literally couldn't go anywhere and was stuck with this feeling and had nobody who cared. It's very different. And I think the number one thing I really want to get across is like, this takes time. This work is not like, somebody asked me the other, she's like, you were anxious. And I'm like, okay, I know you see this now. Talk to me in 2018. When I was on the floor 40 pounds lighter crying suicidal ideulations because my ex had left me. When I was so sad, all it kept saying, I'm such a piece of shit. I've.

fucked everything up. I'm all of this. Talk to me then. That then me then would never have believed that I could have done this. But it takes time. And I think we all, so many people want that quick fix. And I don't want to feel this. And it's like, the more you avoid it, the more you're going to have to feel it. Right. So feel it. May as well, right. Sarah, this was awesome. Thank you so much for coming on, being vulnerable, sharing stories and really, I think, clarifying how this stuff really works and the importance of it. And I'm just so grateful. And where can people find you work with you?

I'll put it all in the show notes. But in general, where can people find you? So the best places on Instagram, my handle is at Sarah Ann Therapy and without the E. Awesome. Thanks, Sarah. I'm so excited and I can't wait for this episode to come out. Awesome.

Thanks for having me. It was a pleasure.