The Stuck Stops Here - TSSH 28 - Heal in Place. Fill your Still. (topic: Family Systems)

TSSH 28 - Heal in Place. Fill your Still. (topic: Family Systems)

04/05/20 • 14 min

Part of my healing journey is fulfilling a recently discovered life purpose by reaching out to those in need of healing from emotional abuse by toxic parents and transgenerational dysfunction. If you are sheltering in place, perhaps some of you would like to use this time of no distractions to acquire new healing strategies. If you are like how I used to be...a chaotic emotional fire fighter addicted to busyness and outcomes...this quiet time may feel like torture. If you are craving an emotionally healthier life and experiencing a spiritual awakening y...I truly hope these mini-podcasts resonate. I try to cover a lot of ground in a direct way so you can heal in place and fill your still. Today I want to talk about Toxic Family Systems. A family system is like a game of pool. When you shoot the cue ball into the balls it scatters them in different directions but they all don’t scatter the same way. Think about your ancestors and your family history. What kind of environment were your parents raised in? Are you able to see why they developed unhealthy behaviors and perhaps personality disorders? Does recognizing toxic family patterns help you to have compassion for them and for you? I didn’t say forgive. I said compassion...meaning empathize with them in order to reduce your own anger. If you have more awareness, that may lead to less hostility – towards yourself and them.

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Previous Episode

TSSH 27 - Heal in Place. Fill your Still. (topic: Respond vs React)

Heal in Place. Fill your Still. Respond vs React. When you react, your emotions are in control, with no thought of consequences. Feelings are not facts and so your amygdala is running the show. I deluded myself for years believing that when I was screaming and throwing temper tantrums that I was taking control of a situation that I didn’t like. Looking back with this newly acquired wisdom – I now know the polar opposite was true. Because I was not in control of the storms raging inside me I would over react to everything going on outside me. My reactions were automatic and survival oriented and often elicited behaviors that I regretted later. An over-reaction stresses us physically too. We clench our fists and our jaw. We feel our stomach turn. Our face turns red and our defenses are on high alert. When you respond, your brain is fully engaged, and your self-awareness is high. Your pre-frontal cortex has the long-term consequences in mind. Your amygdala is not in charge. To respond to an explosive situation take a deep breath, a pause, or a brief moment to keep yourself together. That moment can mean the difference between navigating the situation with dignity and maturity or crashing hard into a pit of blame and shame.

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Next Episode

TSSH 29 - Heal in Place. Fill your Still. (topic: emotional neglect)

Emotional neglect is different from emotional abuse because it is often unintentional. Parents, due to their own misery and preoccupation with unhealed wounds from their childhood, may have emotionally neglected you. This omission played a huge part in shaping you into the adult you are today and may dictate how much emotional regulation and relational intelligence you may or may not have. Children rely on their parents to meet their physical AND emotional needs. Invisible damage is done when parents fail to teach coping strategies and emotional regulation.Your parents may have been emotionally neglected by their own parents, and because they didn’t have good role models, they passed this invisible poison on to you. It is a vicious never ending cycle because no one decides to wake up and break the toxic patterns. Financial challenges, abandonment, addictions, divorce, toxic greed and behavior disorders can all lead to emotional neglect because parents are unable to cope with themselves or life in general and therefore chronically unavailable for their children. My family, going back over 100 years, on both sides, was raised children to believe that their feelings don’t matter, you are all an inconvenience, and even though you are an emotionally starved toddler...you, as a person, don’t matter. Toxic family patterns like mine breed emotional starvation and low self-worth. As a consequence, we desperately search the outside world for an escape from this pain and shame.

https://www.instagram.com/2traumaqueens/