We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - 130. Breaking Cycles & Reparenting Yourself with Dr. Becky Kennedy

Episode Date: September 13, 2022

1. The 3 most important things to say to your kids and partners every day. 2. Why our kids trigger us – and a fail-proof strategy to use when you’re triggered. 3. Why “poorly-behaved kids” can be a sign of good parenting. 4. How to break family cycles by rewiring the way we were raised. 5. How to use Internal Family Systems to heal ourselves. About Dr. Becky: Dr. Becky Kennedy is a clinical psychologist and mom of three, named “The Millennial Parenting Whisperer” by TIME Magazine. She’s rethinking the way we raise our children – empowering parents to feel sturdier and more equipped to manage the challenges of parenting. Dr. Becky is founder of the Good Inside Membership platform, a hub with Dr. Becky’s complete parenting content collection all in one place; author of Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be, which is out this month. And her podcast “Good Inside with Dr. Becky” – was one of Apple Podcasts “Best Shows of 2021.” TW: @goodinside IG: @drbeckyatgoodinside

They've stopped asking directions. Some places they've never been. Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things. It's our favorite time of the week when we get to just sit and talk to you. I just love it. I love it. I love it. I love this podcast.

Hi, babe. Hey. You're feeling good? I'm feeling really good. You've changed in the last like three seconds because she's been whispering all morning. Well, okay, here's why I whisper because Abby went to work out today. And when Abby works out, she comes home from the gym and she thinks that she should still talk at the decibels that they talk at the gym. So she screams at me for half-hirt.

She just screams. Dr. Becky will know what I have. I've got adrenaline running through my veins and it just makes people talk louder. So we're just standing in the bathroom and she's like, hey, babe! So I'm whispering to be a role model. All right. I'm super intrigued already. by what this conversation will be because I got to tell you.

So a lot of people in my life have been like, you must talk to Dr. Becky. You must talk to Dr. Becky. You must learn about Dr. Becky. Dr. Becky is presented to the world, and I'll explain why I'm saying this, as a parenting expert, okay? So I avoided Dr. Becky like the plague

because my children are baked, and I don't want to know how I fuck them up. Right? It's too late. I just avoided, avoided. All right. I started reading Dr. Becky's new book. And I think that Dr. Recky is a Trojan horse.

Yeah. Okay. I think she's a Trojan horse. I've been reading nonstop for the last week. You know this. I mean, the highlighting and I didn't stop. The highlighting and the underlining of this rock. The highlighting, the underlining, the sitting the people down, the making them listen, all the things.

Okay. So here's the deal. Here's what I think. So untamed, all the work we do on this podcast. and specifically untamed is about how to recover, not just from addiction, but from the world. How do you recover from the world? How do you figure out and reclaim who you were before the world told you who you had to be?

Ficked you up. Before the world fucked you up, right? I'm trying. Dad said maybe we should avoid like six fucks in the first 30 seconds. I was trying to, okay. Okay. Once again, the world bossing me. Hi, Bubba.

So if we're going to do that, if we're going to recover, who we were before the world told us who to be, then it feels like step one, the first brick in the yellow brick road to that to living your one wild and precious life is to begin to trust yourself, your emotions, your dreams, your body, your instincts, your imagination. But in order to do that, in order to take that first step or to experiment with it even, there's something you have to believe first. And that is that you are not bad, all right, that you are not crazy, that you can trust yourself because yourself is good and will not steer you wrong. Now, that is the entire premise of untamed. That's why I said over and over again,

you are not crazy. You are a goddamn cheetah, right? Yes. So this is why Dr. Becky's work and book blows my mind and why I'm deeply intrigued by her because the touch tree of her teachings is that we are all good inside. Our parents, our friends, our partners, our children, good inside, which, by the way, might sound soft and simplistic at first, but is actually completely countercultural and revolutionary and against everything we're taught. And so what I feel about her book is that it is not just about parenting children. It's about reparenting ourselves and, in fact, presenting us a new way to be human. To be in relationship with ourselves and others.

That is really awesome from like the woo-woo higher perspective. But I also feel like this. this very logical thread throughout all of her work, which is like you act like you do, even though it's inexplicable to you why you keep doing what you keep doing for a very good reason. Yes. And all of your parenting stems from your childhood. And so the way that you can identify that and understand yourself and have compassion

for yourself the way you act is the first step to allowing yourself to, start down a different way of doing things for your kids. Exactly. Or the people. You don't have to have freaking kids. Yeah. True. True. A bunch of stuff helped me with Abby. Yeah. Okay. Anyway, let's let her talk because she's actually here. And she's looking at us right now. We've just said a little. So that has been our podcast. Book report. Go get. Thank you for coming. We actually have the author. We have the expert. Dr. Becky is a clinical psychologist and mom of three named the millennial parenting whisperer by Time Magazine. Dr. Becky is founder of the Good Inside member membership platform, author of Good Inside, a guide to becoming the parent you want to be,

which is out this month and the one I just read on vacation, so freaking good. And her podcast, Good Inside with Dr. Becky, was one of Apple Podcast's best shows of 2021. We love Dr. Becky's practical wisdom, how it centers on reparenting ourselves and how she admits that she follows her own professional advice only about a third of the time in her own granting. That is why we trust you. That is exactly why we trust you. Hi, Dr. Becky. Hi.

I don't even know what else I have to say. I think you guys just summarize it. That might be the whole podcast. That was such an amazingly thoughtful introduction. And truly, I'm really honored to be talking to the three of you. So thank you. Oh, absolutely. So we're all trying to figure out, especially the pod squad.

How to stop pleasing and start living, how to live from the inside out and not the outside in, how to stop abandoning ourselves and start believing in ourselves. And you say that the origin of pleasing and self-doubt can be found in our first years. So tell us about circuitry and how the reason we're a little fucked up right now all stemmed back to those first years. Yes. When I think about everything coming from the early years, I, I feel very like apocalyptic about things and just like, okay, well, like, who cares anyway? And as much as it's true that our body wires early, it's just equally true that our body is always looking to

rewire the things that are no longer working for us. So those two are equally true. So if we think about how a baby comes into the world, like this has always amazed me. There's no, not one baby in the world who at four weeks or two months is like, am I home? Is it too much? Like, is it too much? Like, would that baby be hungry? Should I ask them? I should be waking up earlier. I'm wasting my life. Right. Like, what am I doing? Or I should sleep late because my parents, like, really do sleep. A baby is just a ball of desire and totally unencumbered in how they let that out. Like, that's just how babies are. It's why they're so inconvenient to adults, right? Because they just have everything coming out. And if we all start that

way. We all start that way. How do we get to where so many of us are at some point in adulthood, which is the place where somebody asking me, what do you want? What do you want is the scariest question if somebody could ever ask me? Like, that's a really big shift. And so when you think about circuitry, what does that even mean? How I think about it is we learn a lot in our earliest years. We just know biologically, this is not research I've done. But the numbers are big that by about age three, they say, there's like 75% of our earliest circuitry or wiring is in place, always amenable to rewiring. Okay.

But 75% is a lot of percent for years that you can never verbally remember. And these are the years that people will classically say, well, they're not going to remember those years anyway, right? the first three years you remember with your body, which as adults we know is a much more powerful form of memory than the things that we can recall in storytelling, because our body memories dictate our triggers and our reactivity and our automatic assumptions and our knee-jerk reactions. So I've always found it interesting when someone's in my practice essentially saying, yeah, like I triggered whenever my kid is a tantrum, but like I just don't remember

how my parents reacted to me. And I'm always like, really? Like, we're watching it. Like, I'm watching it happen. Like we just watch the memory. Right. We have no data. Exactly. We have no data, right? But the things we remember with our words are the things that really were coherently

explained to us, right? At a time also that we could really encode verbal memory. So number one, that's not until like after the age of three. And number two, a lot of us adults, you know, probably know that our hardest experiences were never put into words for us. That's actually why they were our hard. artist experiences is because we were left alone. They were incoherent. They were unformulated experiences, right? So then what do we left with? Well, you talked about trusting your body. Like,

it's a very simple idea, but I always think my body today is the same body as when I was one. I have not changed my body. And my body has absorbed everything I've learned. And kids are very, very crafty. They are built for survival. They are so smart. They are more perceptive. than we are because their body depends on it. And they have to figure out a way to adapt to the environment they're in. There's no option as a two-year-old to say, my parents not very attentive to my needs. So I am going to, I don't know what, go get another parent. Like, I'm going to leave my house and find someone who notices my emotions.

Like, no, you just have to figure it out and survive with those caregivers because those caregivers are key because you're so dependent. So what happens as you're wiring your body, something called procedural knowledge? Like, how does the world work? What parts of me get smiles and hugs and attention and nice looks? And what parts of me get dart eyes and sent to my room and distance? So really, kids are measuring what parts of me truly, physically get closeness and what parts of me bring a gap, bring distance. And then they take it a step further. I better bring out. I better bring. out those parts of me that get smiles and that get pats on the back and that get love and that get questions. I like getting questions. That's interest, that's connection. And those parts of me that have led to yelling, to being sent to my room, to punishment, to physical abuse, to any of those really attachment threatening moments. Well, I better put those parts of me so far away. And I better develop systems to keep those parts of me far away, because as long as I can, I can survive in this

world. And so our body actually wires, develop circuits around those lessons of safety versus danger. Wow. So I'm going to offer a very personal example and ask you to tell me if this is what you're talking about. So I have spent most of my life trying to figure out how to change my thing. about food and body and all of that. That's not a surprise to anyone listening. So when you talked about in the book about we hide things about ourselves that don't get the reaction that we want, that threaten our connection because we desperately need connection for survival. So we sense, especially like a highly sensitive kid, could sense what parts of herself are making her parents uncomfortable and stop doing that thing. So for me, one of the things I love about your work is how

we can openly think about how we parented and like not judge ourselves for it. Just understand it was different times. We were doing the best we can. But in my family, body stuff and food stuff is a hot topic. Okay? Like my parents as a young child were for sure uncomfortable with my appetite. So is it possible, based on your theory, that a child whose parents were worried that they had a little girl who was chubby and who was going to keep getting chubbier, so would send her signals at dinner and around food to shut that part of herself down might develop what could be an eating disorder because if I'm having to shut down hunger because that threatens my connection, then wouldn't I perhaps find bulimia where I can in a hidden place indulge that part of

myself that threatens my connection in the light? Such a good example of how we can like jump into this. So thank you for sharing that. I know you talk about it. So everybody always appreciates how open you are. So here's what I would say. first of all, for everyone listening, I really don't think when a kid is struggling with something. My perspective is never like, oh, hey, parents, like you caused that.

That's never my perspective. My perspective is more nuanced. It's, okay, a kid is struggling. And a parent is a leader of a system. And so it's just always the leader's responsibility to figure out how they can shift something in the environment to help other people in the system thrive and change. So I just think it's not our fault as parents. It's our responsibility. So I think like you caused that in your kid, even for your parents.

I'm sure your parents were doing the best they could with the resources they had available, right, at the time. That's still weren't good enough, right? Still true. So when you talk about even like the size you were as a kid or your hunger, and I know you know this anyway, like to me, I don't think about food when I think about eating disorders. I think about like you're talking about the size of your wants and how much you're allowed to want, right?

That's what like, that's what everything always goes back to. I feel like desire. What am I allowed to want? And what I hear you saying is what I wanted was uncomfortable for my parents. My parents wanted me to want less. And my parents didn't want me to want so big. They feared that if I kept wanting so big, I'd be bigger and bigger and bigger. And we can think about that in like so many meetings of big and space and taking up space. And so then one of the attachment lessons I learned, and again, for everyone listening, not at like one meal. Like this is not like a single entity. One of the lessons I learned is that the more I allow my wants to come out, the less safe

my family life is going to feel for me. And temperament comes into play here because then it comes out as an eating disorder. But I always think that's just a manifestation of like a much bigger, more nuanced story is either. And so much of this is temperament and other factors, like, okay, I'm just going to not want. I'm going to not want, right? I've been open too. Like I struggled with anorexia as a kid.

That was my solution to how much I was allowed to want. I'm just going to not want. I'm going to develop a part of me that so cuts my desires off from ever surfacing. And if I could just not want, that's my solution. Other people with different temperaments, bulimia is more of a, no, no, no, like I'm going to want or my wants are winning. So I'm just, I'm not going to not want, but I have to want in a way that only kind of I know. I'm going to keep my want separate. And then after I've let those wants come to the surface, my attachment fears are so great.

There's a part of me that's like you're going to fuck up your whole life. What the fuck did you do? I better get those wants out of my body. And there's like right back and forth. Because in a family, if a family is commenting and really concerned with let's say their daughter eating too much, if I was working with that family, I'd be like, okay, that's happening. I have to imagine that's coming out in other ways. I have to imagine that there are all.

also be a problem. Let's say if that kid's in the, I don't know, in a toy store and having a meltdown because we're here, yes, to buy a present for my cousin for her birthday. But actually, I really, really want that train set too. And not to say, you need to buy the kid the train set, but what happens in terms of how that kid is taught to relate to their underlying desire? My guess is that would be as shamed as, quote, wanting too much food. Interesting. It's funny. I think you all know My Leak Teal. My leak and I always talk about wanting our kids when they get older, especially our daughters. We talk about preservation of their access to desire. We want them to still be able to access it. And it's so easy, it's so easy to

turn that off for kids. And it's also pressure from culture too. It's like our parents are doing the best they can because they think they're trying to prepare their girls for a culture that hates women who desire. They're a little bit right. It's like the, the, The world doesn't allow ambition and anger and desire and hunger and appetite and sexuality. When I was reading your thing I thought about sexuality, too, I mean, in our family, sexuality was not discussed and it was tamped down and it made me think, okay, it makes sense that I wouldn't have explored sexuality. Like, what do we do for kids when we send them signals that their desire, their natural good, sexual desire, is a threat to their connection because we can't handle it. Yeah.

Desire, pleasure. There's so many ways that that comes out. And yes, especially for young girls. Yeah, it's really shut down. This time of year, I am always looking for my sweaters. Luckily, Quince has all of the staple sweaters covered from soft Mongolian cashmere sweaters that feel like designer pieces without the markup to 100% silk tops and skirts for easy dressing up to perfectly cut denim for everyday wear. I can't tell you how much I'm loving my quince

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when they sign up today at www. IxL.com slash we can. Visit Ixel.com slash we can to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. I love your whole approach of curiosity to me is so accessible to people who don't have a lot. I'm speaking for myself, like significant amount of tools in this area is just like curiosity being the opposite of shame. So when we're reacting a certain way, knowing that every response started as a childhood adaptation. And so being curious, like, what was I adapting to? I keep doing this thing that's not working for me. Why? And I was listening to you talk about that. You were advising someone who had a very complicated relationship with exercise. And they were like, it makes me feel better. Why don't I do it? Why don't I do what I know makes me feel better? And you were talking about how when you're dreading doing something that you know is good for you, that means that that started as an adaptation, which means that that some part of you is protecting you because of your circuitry. You were wired that way to

protect yourself. And so now asking, is that still necessary? And actually thanking that part of you, thank you for your years of service of protecting me. And you can stop leading now. This other part can step forward. And it made me think like what you were just saying, G, about our parents are doing this to protect us. Yeah. It is possible to create children that because you're being like fully authoritative who function the way we want them to function. That is very, very possible. Like they can get the A's. They can act right in front of people. They can be polite. They can never have wants. And those parents sometimes look like they're doing quote unquote the best, right? Because their kids are the best performers. They're like little soldiers walking around doing everything they should. But if every

if every response is a childhood adaptation, you have to assume that under that, all of those adaptations are going to be the very ones that once those kids grow up are totally fucked. That was me. It was so happy to me. Yes. To be like, oh, my God, the parents that seem most out of control now are maybe the ones developing the most healthy adaptation.

Shout out. Maybe they're paying for it early. But later, those adaptations are actually going to take them into. life and help them function. So what I hear Dr. Becky saying is that if your kids are assholes, well done. But like, can you talk? Is that? What do you think about that? Yeah. So look, I think when our kids are young, the qualities that we praise in them or that society praises in us as if there are a reflection, our compliance, our subservience are like total pliability. Right. Like you take a kid to a gymnastics class or something at a place they've never been to. And it's the kid who is like,

okay, I guess I'll go with that person. And I guess I'll sit because they say me. Everyone's like, wow, Becky, if that was my kid, which it's definitely not like, you are an amazing parent. Now, I don't know any parent who's like, do you know what I hope for my 30 year old? I hope they blindly follow people's directions. I like really hope they do. No one actually thinks that. And yeah, how we, again, how we interact with our kids and what we show them is important. we in that situation almost like behavior shape them toward. Yes. That's not just going to be released from them when they're 30.

And then, yes, like you have a kid who's older and you're thinking, why doesn't my kid stand up for themselves? Like they were in this situation. They should have no better. They should have said no. It's like, well, that's not different at age 30 than making sure your kid blindly follows the gymnastics teacher's instructions, right? Versus a kid at, let's say, five who's standing next to me.

Right? And this would be like, I don't know. Like, I'm just not ready to join the party. And this can be like intense shame for a parent. It's wrong with my kids. Although, again, like at 30, you want your kid. Or you know, to be like, oh, what's going on here? Let me assess before I jump in. Let me do what I'm comfortable with. Not necessarily what my peers are comfortable with. We call kind of shyness early on what we call confidence later on. And then we call confidence early on what we call blindly following the crowd later on. Right. So this. There's a lot in between total compliance and total assholesness. I think we don't have to choose between those two buckets. I really don't think so. Right. But certainly, like helping kids develop into adults who have a sense of themselves, who trust themselves, who know themselves, who, what we're saying,

I always think, who gaze in before they gaze out. Yes. Right? Gazing in first is hugely protective to our mental health. What do I want? What am I comfortable with? What do I know in this situation? Well, they are just going to be more inconvenient.

Yes. In childhood. Yes. It's going to be more inconvenient. I mean, I just keep thinking about the time that we took the girls to a swimming lesson. Like right now, I'm just going through all the moments where I think I've royally fucked them up. I said, Glennon, they're going to want to get out of the pool. And we're not going to, they have to finish this workout.

I was like, like hell they do. We'll see. And halfway through their. workout, you know, Tish gets out of the pool, Emma stays in the pool at the edge, hoping that her big sister could talk me into letting them out of the pool. And I just said, you got to get back in the pool and finish. You're going to be okay. You're not going to die. You got to get back into the pool and finish. And here's what's really interesting, I think, about the two of them. Tish is the one that got out of the pool, and she actually has, at this point in their lives,

more voice to vocalize what she wants. And Emma didn't get out of the pool because she was hoping her big sister would do it for her. And I think that I really fucked them up. Abby, you did not returnally fuck up. And also, here's where I think we give parents language for the in-between. Because, like, there might be something like, so my six-year-old never wants to do something. I just never let them do something. Like, what's in between never making them do something and always making them do something?

Here's where I think is this in-between thing that we forget about, this like, I call two things are true. Like you can say to a kid, let's say it's in that situation, you really don't want to finish your swim lesson. I believe you. First of all, that's like the three most important words to say to a kid. I believe you really don't, whatever it is. I believe the water is cold. I believe you're really tired. I believe this is zero fun. And here's this. It could be a million things. We paid for this lesson and I know it's hard and I know you can finish it. I really believe we can finish this lesson and then reassess lessons going forward, whatever it is. But we can hold at one. holding a decision that feels pretty right as a parent, as a leader, and still seeing and naming and validating a kid's experience as real, right? It's the difference between saying, we're here to get a present for your cousin. What's wrong with you? You're so spoiled. You don't appreciate anything versus it's really hard to be in a toy store and see toys and not be able to get them. I believe you, you want this one so big. You know, I'm going to actually take a picture of it. And we're going to remember this later on. My answer is still no. I know this is so hard.

I'm going to hold you as we're leaving the store because, you know, you seem not to be able to get off the floor by yourself. Like, I'm honoring my kid as a real person and I'm validating their desire. Yes. Even as I hold my no decision. Yes. Because you said, and I feel like this is one of the most groundbreaking things that we've been trying to talk about over and over on this podcast. And you said it so freaking succinctly and beautifully. we have a job and our job is to draw the boundary.

Yes. And they have a job and their job is to be able to react however the hell they want, right? But can you say it in your very better way? Yes. Family jobs is really like a grounding idea for me because I always think like if you went to a job in an office and you were starting your job and your boss was like do your job well. See you at the end of the day. How did you feel at the end? And you didn't know what your job was. You would be like, how am I going to feel good at my job?

Like, I just don't know what my lane is. The most amazing person couldn't succeed there. So we have to know what our job is. Yes. In a family system, which is the same as any system, we have job descriptions. So a parent's job in my mind is like three interrelated things. Boundaries, validation and empathy. Boundaries answer a kid's question.

Am I safe? And boundaries are decisions we make. Boundaries are also sometimes physical boundaries. It might be holding a kid's wrist and saying, I'm not going to let you hit your brother. I know you really want those blocks. I'm putting space in between the two of you. We're going to figure this out. But I'm actually physically holding that boundary.

In that example, I also did validation and empathy. Like I wasn't making my kid a bad kid. I understood they want blocks. That's hard. And so those often go together. So boundaries answer, am I safe? Validation and empathy, I could cry as I think about this. I think answer a kid's question, am I real?

Am I real? Do the things that I feel inside me? that have no markers, I'm going to like in the outside world, are they real? And when we say to a kid, you really want that toy. When we say, I'm not comfortable having you go to that kid's house, even though all the other seniors your year are going there, my answer still no. I know that this is probably the worst thing for an 18 year old to hear. And you just are counting down the moments till you're out of my house.

And I get that. And my answer is no. And I love you. And I know you're so mad, but we're going to get through this. You're saying to them, like, you are really. real. Why are you crying? And so that's our job. I just, I mean, I've cried three times during this. Just so you know, Dr. Becky Abby keeps crying. And so I just want to talk about what's going on. Well, it's just so emotional to hear all the different ways that could have been for me and all the

different ways that I can be different for our kids. Because I think every family has, and every person, like, no matter what, even if you had the most beautiful childhood, like we all, need something to like overcome and there is so much there's so much stuff in my family dynamic that I know all of my brothers and sisters go through. It's just so important to hear this stuff to be able to unlearn or rewire or recircuit ourselves as adults. Like we don't have to be those little kids. Like we can change things. I don't know. And it's such a different way of looking at it because isn't it true, Dr. Becky, that we're all, for some reason, we do the opposite. So our kid is upset.

And we tell them, okay, so the swim lesson, we tell them, this is not scary. Like, they're like, I'm scared. This is not scary. I'm, it's hard. It's not hard. Like, we just, we're taught that gaslighting is a parenting strategy. Yeah. That we can just distract.

And so what we're saying to them then is you cannot trust your instincts and this is not real. And you're crazy. And I don't understand you. Yeah. And I'll never understand you. And so therefore, you're going to have to hide the part of you. that continues to assert itself when I continue to say that isn't true. I believe you.

You know, there's this phrase I always think about like it's not mine, but especially for kids, I think for adults too, I am as I am seen. So I can't understand you really is I am ununderstandable. Like I can't be with this part of you. This part of me cannot be, you know, met with presence, right? And that realness factor. Like when a kid is like, I'm scared and you get back, this is not scary. It really is an existential threat to not feel real in a moment.

And then if you wonder why saying to a kid, what do you talk about? This isn't scary. Elicit such an intense reaction. Well, it's the same reaction we have when we tell someone as an adult how we're feeling. And they're basically like, no, you're not. And it is an existential threat to realness in that moment. And there are some kids. And Glenn, you talk about being a deeply feeling person.

Like deeply feeling kids is like a passion project of mine. Those kids have the biggest existential threat to their realness of any subset of kids. I think deeply feeling people are very porous. So they feel more things and they feel things more intensely. And therefore, their expressions are even more intense, which almost pull for a not so empathically inclined adult to meet them with like, you're overreacting. You're such a drama queen, right? Which leads to further escalations, not to be dramatic. but to prove their realness, to prove their existence.

And there's these like nasty spirals that that happen in family systems, you know, around that for years and years. And then it usually does, it can take to adulthood. I'd be like, wait, I'm reclaiming the fact that I'm like a real adult, right? And before we're able to say to our kids, oh, wait, this swim lesson is scary. We have to find ourselves in a situation where I don't know, like, could be anything. Like, I'm going to the store to get an everything bagel and they're out of everything. bagels and I'm really upset. I have to say to myself, you know what, Becky, like, I am disappointed about that. That is real. I'm allowed to feel that way. You know, if I want to say to my kid,

oh, you're like, it's okay to be scared. Like, take your time. You'll know when you're ready. Well, I'm not going to be able to do that to them unless I'm truly actively practicing doing that with myself. We can't give out what we haven't practiced giving it. No, because otherwise, and this is what's so important about what you say, otherwise, we're just controlling our behavior. like we're trying to get their behavior controlled. Like when you think about how do I parent differently and honestly why I never read parenting books is because it always feels like a bunch of behaviors I'm supposed to do to elicit behaviors from them. When what is true is I actually have to work out my own shit.

So I'm different. For example, a deeply feeling kid is at a dinner table and wanting to be hungry. a parent doesn't have to say anything. A deeply feeling kid can notice their parents' internal discomfort with their hunger from a look, from a noise, from a quietness. And so that parent can't change that unless they're working on their own shit that came from their parents. Yeah. Which is why going back to the circuitry, it's such a gift to ourselves. I felt that reading your book, like, oh, I'm figuring out why I am this.

way. Yes. Because hunger was a threat to my connection. Exactly. Exactly. And a kid's job just to finish that. And then we could get back to internal family systems, which is my obsession, is I really believe a kid's job in their earliest years is to feel and experience their entire range of emotions. Like, that's actually their job. And knowing that is really grounding, especially when you do have those three-year-olds who are having a tantrum where we've been told like, oh, it's a sign like, as if they don't respect me or they're a bad kid. We've these stories. versus they're actually doing their job because in my private practice for the years I saw so many adults, I always think, I never met an adult who told me my parents successfully got rid of all

my jealousy and all my frustration. Like never, right? Like we know it's laughable because as adults, you're like, you feel it just the same as a two-year-old except arguably the stakes are higher, right? So either when you're 18 and 40 and 60, either you're prepared with skills to manage the hardest feelings of life or you have the same feelings as everyone else. You're just as prepared as you were when you were two. And you can't learn to regulate feelings you don't allow yourselves to have. It's just impossible. If you want to manage a feeling in your body, it has to be allowed to live in your body. And so kids are trying to figure out how to manage these feelings. And we often come at them with a like, don't have those feelings approach versus, wow, right now your feelings are just outpacing

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get our free business guide, demystifying AI at netsuite.com slash hard things. The guide is free to you at net suite.com slash hard things. NetSuite.com slash hard things. Precisely on that issue of the things that we won't let ourselves feel relating to our circuitry, when you say that like we all think our kids are going to heal us, but really our kids just provoke us, it's because I was like, ding, ding, ding. It's precisely those areas where our kids express the things that we weren't allowed to express, and we respond to them, not responding to them, we respond to them in the circuit that we were responded to.

So we're basically yelling at ourselves in those places. Can you talk about that? And not just with our kids, with our partners, with our friends, with our partners, with everyone. With anyone who really evokes our earliest attachment system. So ironically, it's like the people we really have the most love for in ways, right? Like the more intense our attachment with someone, the more intensely they're going to trigger the same circuits from our earliest love, you know, attachment relationships. So, yeah, so triggers are like my obsession.

And so thank you for teeing me up. Appreciate that. So my son, my oldest of three, so I have three kids. My oldest is almost 11, which is crazy. He has such freedom to his desire and asking. And there have been times, of course, where I. get so triggered by him. I end up having things spew out of me. Like, can you ever just accept no for an answer? Can you ever make my life easier? That's actually my favorite one, right? Can't you just make

my life easier one time? You know? And he's just like so unflop, he's like, chill, you know? But that's so triggering for me. And going back to my good girl, you know, kind of upbringing, which I feel like I've taken a 180 from very proudly. So I learned early on, let me look out. essentially for what people want of me, right, rather than let me look in first for what I might want for myself. My son looks in. And I'll do the whole, you know, no, you can't have a sleep over tonight or no, we're done with screen time, whatever it is. And then he asks again and again again, that triggers me, right? We look to shut down in others, what we had to shut down in ourselves. That's the trigger moment. We look to kind of close the gap because our body essentially like

takes inventory. So my son ass and ass and ass. And my body's like, what do I know about this? What do I know about asking and asking and asking for what you want? And then there's a protector part of me in an IFS language, right? There's true protector parts who's like, oh, desire, desire, I'll help the system, right? I know what to do. And then they end up saying things that maybe, I don't even know if my parents ever said to me, why can't you make our life easier? I think I probably learned my lessons before those words had to even be said, right? But actually what we do in our body is when we learn that something is dangerous, that part of us. is non-conduasive with attachment, we develop our own parts to talk to those parts to front-end that kind of attachment threat. Essentially, if I was a kid being like, you know what, I do want that sleepover. I'm going to ask again. I'm going to ask again. I would develop a part of me that probably wouldn't even let me leave my room to ask. I'd be like, Becky, what is wrong with you? You're so selfish. Your parents do so much for you. Can you make their life easier for one moment, right? Okay. And then that successfully shuts it down. So now my son, 30 years later,

asks that part of me, like puts her finger up. And she's like, I know how to handle this. Right. But like you said, Amanda, like my son is a total pawn in my game. He's an object and not a subject. And I think there's so many things I could say about how we can work on our triggers. But I think the biggest, like, kind of shift and framework is what we're triggered by in our kids is usually a sign of a part of us. We need to grow in ourselves. We usually need to be inspired by our kid. Right? And so it's funny when I was like really finding this triggering with my son when he was especially younger, like I do random things to work on this. What would he do if he was in a store and the manager told me, oh, you're on day 31. You can't return this thing that doesn't work anymore. I don't think he would say, oh, okay, sorry for asking. You know, he'd probably be like, I want to talk to, you know, someone else. Like I'm pretty sure. I've been a customer for a long time and I really want to get my money back. Like, he'd probably say that. I don't know what would happen, but he'd speak up. And when his friend said, oh, we need to change dinner locations.

Can you come closer to me instead? He'd probably say, no, no, no, I went downtown last time and I love uptown. So I really would like to stick to that uptown location, right? And the interesting thing I really found was like the more I worked totally outside of parenting on that part of myself, which comes from, like you said, reminding my own protectors, hey, it's not 1990 anymore. Like, I know it's dark in there. I would say that like, I know you don't know.

No, but I'm now an adult and I'm going to show you over time that I have more freedom to experiment. And you're still going to protest because that's your job. You're a part of me. You're not the CEO of me. So you can stay at the board table, but maybe sit down. I can make this decision for us. And coming at that from a place of like respect.

And yes, that's like my favorite line you said it earlier. Like thank you for your years of service. We have to thank the parts of us that were put in place to. protect us before those parts are willing to kind of step back. And then, then we can show up differently to our kids. But then we can also show up differently because we're like, that's a lot of work. And I'm like, well, yes and no. Like, it's a lot of work to feel guilty and spiraling about what a shitty parent you are.

Like that's also work. But the work, this work, not only does it benefit your kid. First of all, it's just going to benefit you. Like so many people, right, are like, I asked for a raise for the first time. Like, cool. That actually impacts your life. That's amazing. It's such network effects.

It's not about the kids. It's not about the kids. It's exactly. It's both hard. It's the right kind of hard. So example, a line in the book that was whenever you're triggered by somebody, don't try to shrink the thing in the other person. Try to grow the thing in yourself. I was writing in the margins, not about my kids.

I was writing about my marriage. So when Abby is laying on the couch, God forbid. I mean, in the middle of the effing day, okay? There's stuff to do. For God's sakes, Dr. Becky. But, like, honestly, you know, hustle culture and our family and sister, you know, like, our hustle culture was serious. If my dad was out of the house and I was sitting on the couch, when I heard the car come,

like the little, the gravel driveway, I would stand up and just start. Grab a dust rag. Yeah. Grab a dust drag. Just start to look freaking busy. Internal family systems would say that a part of me developed that said, you stay busy, Glenn, in order to stay connected, in order to stay safe, you stay busy. And so when I see Abby relaxing, I have to say to myself, not try to say, oh, really?

Like, is another vampire movie at two? No, Dr. Beckett. It's a vampire movie. Well, it's always a zombie or something. Anyway, the point is, it's upsetting. It's a siesta. But the reason it's upsetting. is not that I'm supposed to shrink her self permission.

I'm supposed to grow the part of myself that actually wants to rest. So I say, thank you, self, for taking care of me in my childhood home by making sure I stayed busy. But the rules are different now. I don't need you. And I think there's such amazing opportunities in marriage, like given or partnership in any way that we can't exactly do with our kid because the dynamic is different. where I have that same thing with my husband, right? And for years, I'd be like, but there's like the dishwasher and the laundry. There's so much stuff to do.

Like I didn't even understand. Like, how could you be sitting on the couch? And then in my family, I feel like it was more like value and morality messages around like where people who get up early and like, you know, like there was this, you know, like stuff like that. So I was absorbed that way. It was almost maybe a little less obvious. But the way you're a good person is by doing, doing, doing as much as you can.

And so a couple things. I think, first of all, yes, saying to yourself, like, okay, this thing is triggering to me. Let me almost like reverse the story. Also, for Abby to know when you do snap, I'm like, come on, get off the couch. What are you doing or whatever you'd say? It's not her responsibility to think this. But to know, Abby, like, that is actually Glennon's way of, like, trying to love you and help you in that moment. Yeah, she's trying to keep you from getting in trouble.

You're going to get in trouble. Dad is going to appear in like 30 seconds. Exactly. Right. Exactly. And then being able to say, like, I've said to my husband, and it was so hard to say the first time. I, like, hated it. I was like, I need your help sitting on the couch. I need your help. I remember having this thought, and it was the opposite of my thought, the like, because you can be in your own room, like, kind of just like cycling, like, what's wrong with my husband? What's wrong with my wife? She's so lazy, you know? And then, like, thank goodness,

I have a partner who helps me honor, rest and relaxation. Thank goodness. I married the right person. And then even to bring it to your relationship, it's a really big shift for that partner to hear, like, I need your help sitting. Like, this is important. It actually is important to pause in the middle of the day. And just realizing after that, like, the house doesn't fall apart, nothing horrible happens. And it will be distressing because anytime we're rewiring something in our body, our body really resists that with good reason because it is confused.

It would be the equivalent of you saying to your dad, fuck the desk rags. I'm just relaxing. I'm guessing you're like, you would never have said that. No, I'm scared. You just said it. I'm scared. Right. So talking to that distress is so important.

Yes, this is a new moment. New circuits are deeply uncomfortable to build. It's like the starting of paving a road. Like that's not the same as driving down a road. You've been down a billion times. And in some ways, that distress I think is, or it feels like anxiety. really is the best evidence we have of like, oh, wait, I'm changing right now. If I can tolerate this 10 more seconds on the couch, that is like 10 seconds toward change. Almost being grateful for that

feeling. Your body's giving you a signal that you're doing something like so right from you. So the anxiety is not a signal that you should stop doing it, but that you should stay with it. Can we get back to explaining internal family systems? Because I really, yeah, I really think we have to like dig into this because this is super interesting to us. Yes. So internal family systems wasn't something I learned in grad school, but kind of came to. And Dick Schwartz, who's the founder of the whole theory, like, I just feel like he understands the mind in a way that, like, I've never heard it explained. So first of all, the foundation of IFS is like our mind is multiple. Like we all have parts. And the idea of parts of us has been kind of relegated to like multiple

personality disorder, but we all have parts. In multiple personality disorder, those parts have very little connection or awareness of each other, which proves to be problematic. But we all have parts. And as we grow up, what happens is we learn these attachment lessons, right? Parts of us get met with love. And when we even think someone would be like, well, I don't know about what parts, but definitely being angry wasn't allowed. Okay, well, the part of you that feels angry, we could say, was like a no-go. So what do you do then? Well, then our body develops these protector parts. And protector parts, and Glenn, you would be obsessed with this one, how it applies to bulimia, but have two functions. There's the manager level,

which is just the day-to-day stuff we do to kind of keep things at bay. So that might be intellectualizing. That might be staying really busy. That might be doing, doing, doing is a great manager for anger or for what my real desires are. Okay, but at some point, our manager parts like stop working, kind of we break through. Then we have firefighter parts. Those are the parts that quickly, and like those might be the vomiting. Those are the drug use. Those are the, okay, the management system didn't exactly work. So I just got to put out this fire to get me back to safety as soon as possible. And IFS therapy is really a way of working of looking at the things you struggle with through this language of parts and understanding the roles that each

of these parts play from a place of compassion and really deep appreciation. for the way this kind of system helped you developed. And then the belief really is these parts are kind of extreme, like managing things all the time or firefighting. These parts don't want to do their jobs in such an extreme way. And so through this process of kind of unburdening, these lessons we've learned about ourselves, the way that we feel bad inside through a process.

And, you know, an IFS therapy, our parts remain, but they become much more moderate. and much more in line with continuing to serve our needs in adulthood, rather than kind of a manifestation of what we had to do in childhood. This show is sponsored by Middy Health. Parymenopause and menopause aren't personality flaws or phases. They're medical transitions. And yet nearly three out of four women who actively seek help are sent home with nothing.

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You're good. You're good. Since I had a rough start of life with all the addiction and ruining everyone's lives, I'm always trying to figure out, okay, was I a good person acting bad the first half of my life? And now I'm a bad person acting good. Like, which, where am I going to land? Like, what am I? Right.

What's the verdict? What's the verdict? So you talk about all of your work, starting with the belief that we're good inside. And I think it's revolutionary. It goes against everything we're taught about original sin. It goes against misogyny. It goes against racism. Can you talk to us about good inside and how it changes how we see ourselves and partners

and kids and even strangers? Yes. So when I was in private practice and wanting to do more parenting work, I was like, okay, I'm going to go get like extra training for how to work with parents. And so I went to this like very evidence-based gold standard parenting program. And it was all about timeouts and sticker charts and punishments and rewards and words and ignoring. And what we were talking about before, I didn't realize it at the time. Honestly, at the time, the logical part of my brain was just like lit up and was like,

this is amazing. This is so linear and like, so perfect, you know. Solved it. Solved parenting. Yeah, more of the good, extinguished the bad. And that's how you raised children. I really did at first. I was like eating it up. But it really struck me like, this is just a system of shaping behavior. This is a system of behavioral control. I've always thought of control and trust as just opposites. So we only control that or who we can't trust. And so I was like, well, this is a system of like not trusting kids. Like I don't have to shape their behavior and give them stickers and punish them.

And if I, like, didn't kind of trust that there was something inherently good that we could bring out. When I was in that program, it wasn't like, we believe kids are bad inside. Like, nobody said that, right? But it's kind of pernicious that they don't because I do think that's the operating assumption. And there really was a time in my private practice. Truly, I was sharing with parents how to give their kids a time out. I was like doing this thing. I'd learn truly in the middle of session, I stopped myself.

I was like, I don't believe what I'm going to do. Like, truly. They looked at me like horrified. And they were like, okay. Yeah, they were like great. And I'm just like, I'm going to give you your money back. I was just going to say. That's like the least of our concerns right now.

Yeah. Can you just please keep telling us? I don't care if you believe that. Yeah. Yeah, just finish it. We just need something. But one of the things I realize is no parent feels good doing any of those things. No parent likes getting time out.

No parent likes saying no TV for a week. No parent likes threatening their kids or giving sticker charts even. But we feel really bad feeling confused. And we really need clarity. You need feeling confused with your kids is such a bad feeling. And so I remember thinking after that session, like, well, how do I work with adults? And what do I know what helps adults? And I do believe adult symptoms were all adaptations as kids.

And so I believe adults are good. They're good people struggling. And I really do believe, and this is, I think, one of the biggest things. Like, when kids are acting out, I really believe that kids feel whether they're being looked at as a good kid having a hard time or a bad kid doing bad things, period. And that, how they feel that. And also as a parent, which perspective we have determines everything that we do. Because if we're a bad kid, if we see our kids a bad kid doing bad things, and we punish them, we do all the things. So I was like, kids are good inside. Yes, they don't have

skills. Yes, they need help. Yes, they need much firmer, more active boundaries from us so they don't keep doing the things that make them act out, that also make them feel out of control. But everything really came from there. And so if kids are good inside, I realized we have this gap. And when I have a gap, I think all of us, if we have a gap in knowledge, we can be curious. And being able to activate curiosity is, I think, the single most important thing in human relationships. So I'm like, okay, well, why is my kid who's good inside hitting her brother? Why is my kid who's good inside lying to my face? Why is my kid who's good inside staying out till 2 a.m.? Even though I said they have to be back at midnight, whatever it is. Now I don't know. Now I have a gap between their behavior and their identity. And I think the reason we insert such badness into our kids is because we end up intervening as if their behavior is a sign of who they are, rather than assuming that who they are is a good person and that their behavior is a sign of something they're struggling with. or a set of skills they don't yet have. Yeah.

So you use example, a lot of kids hitting their sister because they want their mom's attention or they feel left out or they feel lonely or they're struggling with that thing. I, when I read that part, was thinking so much about, okay, if kids are good inside and we are good inside, then it helps me to think, okay, also my parents were good inside. So you say, you're curious. Okay, then why were they worried about the food thing? And why were they? Because they were trying to prepare me the best they could for what the culture.

It just helped me so much to think backwards to everybody being good inside. Can you talk about lying? Because I was a big freaking liar, my whole childhood, my whole lie, lie, lie, lies all the time. Lies, lies, lies, lies. And I'm always been like, why was I such a liar? But you helped me, understand. So talk to us about lying and why liars are great. Perfect. I will walk down that street. Here's why liars are great. Okay. Well, kids truly, I mean,

and adults, right, if we're oriented by attachment, that really is the primary evolutionary system to keep us alive. How do I stay in relationship with my parents? How do I literally in a proximity way stay close to them? Then let's say, I don't know, you failed your test and you don't want to tell them or you stole money from them to go to a concert. And they're like, do you steal money from me? And maybe they like saw you steal money. They literally saw it. They have a video. They're like, I saw this.

And you're like, I didn't do it. Like lies can get really aggressive. Yes. Compared to reality. Well, again, if I go to, okay, why would my kid who's a good kid? Why would my kid who's a good kid lie to my face? Why? Why would someone who's good lie to someone's face?

Again, now I can get curious. And I think kids in those situations lie for a couple of reasons. Number one is to preserve attachment. Yes. In a moment, if I believe I'm going to say something, that's going to get me punishment or distance or even that look of you're a bad kid, you're a bad kid. Some parents, it was punishment. For some parents, it's the disappointment look that also just communicated you're a bad kid.

You don't meet my expectations in life. If I know it's going to be met with judgment and distance, my body, every single time, is going to protect my attachment through. having longer and longer and longer until maybe that truth actually comes out. I'm just maximizing survival at every moment. And we can't beat our body's evolutionary systems. Like we wouldn't want to. And in that moment, that's what someone is doing.

So I think a lot of times parents will say to me then, oh, so it's okay that my kid just lied to my face. And I often think, again, it's just this black and white thinking we can have. There has to be something between, tell me the truth or go to your room. You're grounded for a week. And, oh, it's totally fine. No big deal. Like, those are not the only two buckets.

The biggest thing with lying is if your kid is lying to you in a consistent way, I think the hard mirror of that is something's really off in our relationship. My child feels like there's a lot of things that are off limits to tell me because they're scared of my reaction. And now they live in my house. but if I want to have a relationship with my kid when they're older, guess what, they're still going to do things that are tricky and hard. That's actually where they need my help the most. That's literally where they need my help the most. And I haven't made myself a part of their life in that way.

And you can understand because that's literally why I lie. Exactly. I lie to preserve attachment. I don't want people to think different of me. I don't want them to reassess our relationship on the basis of this inconvenient truth. Exactly. And that's also weirdly. why sometimes I'm most afraid to tell the truth, i.e. set boundaries with my kids. I'm trying to preserve the attachment with them. And I'm afraid of the risk of doing that. So you can have empathy for why they do that. Talk about that, Dr. Becky, because I just want to be clear when you said our job is to hold the boundary, but we also get to allow our children to have feelings about that boundary. This is the important thing because basically we're all used to being like, I have boundaries,

here are my boundaries. And then the other person's upset and we're like, no worries if not, right? We like change. We change. But you make it very clear that our kids should not dictate our boundaries. but then we should not dictate their feelings. Yes. Yes.

And you use embody your authority, which I love. Can you say that? Because it felt like so different than I've understood it before. And when Dr. Beck is talking about this pod squad, think about it in terms of your friends and your partners and people at work and all the people. Yes. I think that's a big thing is that we, and I think it is what's resonating with people. Like, oh, there's a way to like honor my kids' feelings and embody my authority.

honoring their feelings doesn't mean I become this permissive anything goes parent. And also embodying my authority doesn't mean I'm authoritarian parent who doesn't give a shit about my kid's feelings. Like, again, whenever we're in two buckets, we're asking the wrong question. Like, there has to be something else. And so this goes back to that idea of family jobs. And family jobs really, they have this like nice dance with each other that usually happens. So, you know, let's say what's a boundary I might set with a kid?

Let's say it's not going on to sleepover or something like that or saying no to something they want to do socially, right? So a boundary, which again should come from my sense of like this is the right decision for my family or this is like the safe decision. Right? Maybe I'm saying no because I think it's not safe. Maybe I'm saying no because I know we're leaving at five in the morning for a trip and it just like doesn't make sense to go pick up my kid at one in the morning somewhere. It doesn't matter. But embodying our authority sounds something like this. And let's say it's a situation where I think it's not safe. Look, part of my job as your parent is to make decisions that I think are safe and that are good for our family, even when you're not happy about it. This is one of those times. I know this is a huge bummer. I know you're probably saying this is not a huge bummer. This is worse than that. And this feels awful. I both care about all of those feelings. I really, really do. And I'm holding my no. So you're

allowed to be mad. Actually, if I own your shoes, I'd be mad too. And I know our relationships. relationship is strong enough to get through that together. I know it is. And in that way, then, yeah, I'm letting my kid get mad. Now, let's say my kid starts hitting me. I'm not going to let them hit me just because they're bad. If they're like, well, start cursing at me and say, look, I'm going to step in the other room. I know there's so many ways you could tell me how mad you are at me. And that is not one I'm going to tolerate over and over. So when you're ready to tell me in a different way, I will be here to talk to you. Again, there's a difference between feelings and behaviors. But embodying our authority is something I think isn't talked about enough in any parenting

approach where we're also validating feelings. Because it's the other part that makes it safe. Because what's really terrifying for a kid, I think, beyond not feeling real and not feeling like their feelings are being noticed is the opposite. Is when, let's say, my five-year-old is like, my parent just said no more TV. And then I had a tantrum. And then they let me watch another one. That's weird. Well, that feeling felt really overwhelming to me.

My frustration was really overwhelming me. That's why it exploded out of my body. But wow, like that feeling really is as bad poisonous as I experienced it. Because look, it just scared my parent. Like it just let them to change their decision. Wow. That's really scary. And so holding a boundary and embodying your authority as a decision maker is actually a key part of helping kids learn to manage and feel safe with their feelings.

I've never heard it describe that way. Whoa. So when you change your mind after because your kid freaked out, what you're saying to that kid is that was so out of bounds that I can't even be the boss anymore. I think what you're saying is I'm as scared of that feeling in you as you are. And that's not to say we can't change decisions. And of course, sometimes I see my kid of a meltdown. I can't deal with this fun on another show. Like these are general patterns.

Not like every day. Or maybe I change my mind because I say, you know what? Hold on a second. First, let's take some deep breaths. Let's calm down. I'd probably put a little space around that. You know what? I actually do usually let you watch that many shows.

I don't know why I said something different. I'm changing from a place of reconsidering my decision versus changing from a place of being scared of my kids' emotions. Our kids know the difference. I always think, here's a good, like, if you had a pilot of a plane, right? To me, this is the best metaphor. And it was really turbulent. And everybody was screaming in the background. I feel like there's three pilots that could come on. One pilot is, stop screaming. It's no big deal. Nothing's going on. You're making a big deal out of nothing. Like, if that's my pilot,

I'd be like, are you not aware of how turbulent it is? I don't feel great. Number one, that you're yelling as a pilot. It's not so sturdy. But number two, like, it actually is turbulent. And so you're not recognizing that doesn't feel good. The number two pilot is like, I'm going to open the pilot door. And if anybody wants to fly this plane, like, you know, and knows what to do, like, just come because I'm not feeling so sure. Any one of us would be like, it's not the turbulence that's scaring me. This pilot that's scaring me.

Like, that's really a lot of absorption and lack of boundaries, right? The third pilot would be like, hey, you guys are screaming back there. It is really, really turbulent. Yes, it is. I believe you that it feels as bad. And I know what I'm doing. I've done this before. We're still landing in Los Angeles at the same time.

I'm going to go off the loudspeaker so I can do my thing. If screaming continues to be your thing, do it. And I'll see you when you're on the ground. Like, boom, I want that pilot every time. And our kids want that pilot. And embodying your authority while also validating their experience is what makes that pilot feel so sturdy and safe. Sturdy and safe.

Amen. Sturdy and safe. And it works with partners. works with everybody, worked with your work people. Your job is to dictate your boundaries, but not their feelings about your boundary. All right. So we're going to wrap now, but we have a whole other episode coming with Dr. Becky next. So everyone who's panicking, don't worry.

And we're going to talk more about that consequences and punishment because that that Dr. Becky just hit on is very fascinating. Yeah. And Dr. Becky, what's one thing that's a very little thing that they can do not to parent their kids better. All right? I don't know how much I can over-emphasize. That's not what we're doing here.

I know that's what you're doing, Dr. Becky. But I care about the Pod Squatters, not their kids, their little hearts, okay? I care about you. And so what can the grown-up people listening to this Pod Squad do? That's a little thing that will help them reparent themselves. So I think right now, if you think about something that you have, hold like a lot of shame, right? Like, it's something you did today. It's something you did years ago. It's some moment or behavior you remember and you're like, it just feels that awful shame feeling.

And then form like this fill in the blank sentence with it. I'm a good person who. So mine might be, I'm a good person who yelled at my kids this morning. And it's that formula I find is like the simple. fullest way to remind your body that like who I am as a person inside is separate from this thing or this decision or this behavior that I really don't feel proud of. So it's our behavior, not our identity. Beautiful. Pod Squad, you are a good person who probably did a bunch of shitty things. We love you more for it, not less.

We believe you. We believe you. Oh my gosh. Yeah. We believe you. We will be back here with Dr. Becky next time. We love you. Bye.

See you soon. We Can Do Hard Things is produced in partnership with Cadence 13 Studios. Be sure to rate, review, and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Odyssey, or wherever you get your podcasts. Especially be sure to rate and review the podcast if you really liked it. If you didn't, don't worry about it. It's fine.