Is that they walk away from the experience with the phrase notice without judgment, because we say that over and over and over again when we're doing EMDR.
If you've enjoyed our episode, or the content that we provide on the universe is your therapist, check out our signature program, the whole health lab, in the whole health lab. We walk you through healing from trauma, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. If you're wondering if you have trauma, go to many trauma.com/quiz. Take our quiz, and you'll be able to determine if trauma is affecting your life. If it is, and you find that you want to go further, we would love to be your guide as you recover from trauma. Hi, welcome back to another episode of the university's your therapist, we are so excited to really start off kind of our holiday season episodes. And all of the challenges and all of the wonderful things that happened during the holiday season. So today's episode is how to deal with a problematic family member. It's something I think everyone in the universe experiences.
Yep, I was thinking about that, Amy, when we were talking about it, and how so many of us came from having relational trauma in our childhood, not all of us did, but so many of us did. And that if we think about how the dynamics of a family can contribute to trauma for children, and we recognize that those dynamics can be really difficult to navigate and break when we're on our own healing journey. I think that this episode is just a great one to help people and guide them through the idea of both and like I can, I can love my family members. And I can also have limited exposure when it's disturbing, or I can live my family members and appreciate them, and I can have boundaries with them. That sort of thing. That's hard to do. Yeah,
I love that the both and, and, you know, full disclosure. Of course, we've had problematic family members. And Lena and I define that differently. And our relationship with people in our family is different. And so one person who may be very hard for me is not hard for her. And that's the both the beauty and the challenge of the family dynamics. So we come to this episode really humbly, with our own experiences, and our own ways that we have navigated through this. And as well as our expertise on the subject. So I'm excited to dive in.
Me too. And I think that's a great explanation. The other thing that can happen, and it's pretty universal, is that when we've had relationship, trauma in our childhood, or when there's been chaos in our childhood, because of mental illness, or addiction, or raging, then what tends to happen is that coalition's form in the family. And so then you have, as adults, you have, you go to lunch with your sister, and your sister wants to talk about the past from her lens. And it's not the way you see it. Or you have a very different perception of what happened with your parents, and your sister or brother doesn't. And so that's where the past, the unresolved trauma comes in and interferes with our current relationships. And our goal in our program is always to help people with what's happening currently, so that they can continue to move forward and heal and find peace and joy.
Yeah, and I think the other issue that comes up is not simply different perspectives of the events. But also there are people who have chosen not to move forward and progress and change. And so they haven't addressed their problematic behavior. So you have someone in an active addiction, or you have someone who is actively raging. And so it's not simply the memories, and we can talk about memory and trauma in a minute because, you know, I just finished that book about memory and trauma and that's, oh, it's so interesting. But really, it's it's a whole range of problems. It can be different memories of what happened. It can be active problems. Yeah, I'm trying to think what other things constitute a problematic relationship? Would you say?
Well, I think one thing that can happen is that despite their best efforts, parents can treat children differently. And everybody knows that we're not supposed to have favorites. And I think if you have been on your own healing journey, that's easier to avoid as a parent, but each child gets treated slightly differently by the parents. And so then what one child experiences is totally different than another child. And, and then that dynamic can continue into adulthood. And so then you have a family member who is talking about how their parent is behaving now. And one of the siblings may not experience that at all, and the other sibling may totally experience it. And so then you have these different real life, real accurate experiences that don't match up. And then that's hard when you're trying to figure out how to get along in the present.
Oh, that's such a great point. I wanted to address trauma and memory super quick in this conversation, because it's so fresh on my mind, and a lot of our adult issues are from earlier traumas. And the thing that really keeps sticking out in my mind about the book I just read trauma and memory by Peter Levine is that each time you retell the story, the the memory actually shifts in the brain. And so there is no such thing as 100% accurate memory, because the act of remembering actually shifts the memory. Isn't that interesting? Fascinating. So that it's not an argument saying that what you think happened didn't happen at all. It's it's a research that shows that what happens in the brain is as our memory changes over time, and details come into our mind that may not have earlier, or we forget things that we remembered earlier. And that when we are only relying on our memory that can be I don't want to say problematic, because it's really important. But I guess what I guess what I want our listeners to understand is each person comes to a relationship with their own memory consolidation. And the memory consolidation is always shifting and changing. Each time you retell the story or each time you go back to the memory
that is so valuable, because that's where a lot of family conflict occurs, is that you will, you will be in a family constellation of some type in your current life. And we can start arguing about what really happened. And if we understand that the memory consolidation has so much to do with how things shift, we don't need, we don't need everybody to have the same memory. What we need to be able to talk about is, I experienced it this way, and it left me feeling like this.
Exactly. And I think what I really want to drive home in this particular conversation is two things. One, none of our memories are 100% accurate. And to every memory is valid in some way. Because even though it's not 100% accurate, it still affects us. And so if we can approach our current family relationships or the problematic family member, knowing that we're we're going to have completely different perspectives about the exact same event, but that does not discount the weight of the event. And that does not discount how it affects us currently. For me, it helps me validate another person's perspective more easily because that is literally how they remember it. It's not that they're disagreeing with me. It's not that they are in denial. It's that they have a different memory consolidation process. So every memory can be real enough. It can be okay. We don't have to judge it. We don't have to determine if it's valid or not, because it's ours.
Yeah, I love the word. I love how you use we don't have to judge it. Because that is present in a lot of problems. attic family relationships. I mean, people don't even realize that its present. But, but when relationships have been chaotic, the brain uses a lot of judgment to try to keep ourselves safe physically and emotionally. And so one of the things that I've seen recently in some of the coaching clients that I've done EMDR with is that they walk away from the experience with the phrase notice without judgment, because we say that over and over and over again, when we're doing EMDR, and the end up using it in their regular life with their familial relationships. And one of my clients a few months ago said to me, it's totally changed my relationship with my family. In fact, one of my family members said, You seem so much calmer? And he said, It's because he explained to her, he said, it's because I'm noticing without judgment,
that's so awesome. So let's, let's dive into that particular part of the conversation, which is, how do you in real life real time right now? How do you deal with the problematic family members? So you notice without judgment? So are you noticing your thoughts without judgment? Or are you noticing their behavior without judgment? Or both?
Yep. And then I think a lot about families, our own family and then families that I work with in the past. And what what can happen is that we end up using labels when we're talking about the past or our relationships with family members. And the labels end up being very, very triggering for people. So if I say to you, Suzie Q was always mean. Okay. And your experience of Suzie Q was that once in a while they were crabby, then you and I are going to argue about whether or not Suzie Q was mean, instead of saying, instead of me saying, Oh, that's interesting, my experience was more about her being crabby sometimes. So we both are allowed to have our own experience.
Okay, so when dealing with a problematic family member, it's important to just allow for the possibility that their experience is simply as valid as yours.
Yes, as different as it is.
And so here's a question. Let's say the problematic family member is in conversation with you. So let's say you and I have a really problematic relationship. And your behavior currently is either passive aggressive, or it's abusive, or how do I deal with that? So we're not talking about past tense we're talking about this person has not changed their behavior, because that's really more than norm.
That's true. Yeah, that's accurate. I think the way I think about it visually, is that when you're dealing with somebody who is still struggling in their own journey, because they haven't gone as far in their healing, I think about it, like they're trying to hand you a load of poop. Poop. And it's up to me whether or not I take the load of poop.
So how do you not wait to load the soup? The best
way I know is, is a couple of productive verbal responses. So and you have to be genuine in this, it doesn't work if you're being sarcastic, or if you're being dismissive. But one thing that's very helpful is to say to somebody who's really activated and behaving in a way that's unpleasant or even harmful, is to say, Well, you might be right. And that's it.
So if they're, like, abusive to you, like, your, this dinner is terrible. You just say you might be right. No, that takes a lot of humility, and oh, my goodness, there's everything in my body is like Do not say that. Yeah, because it's not protective. And let us know.
And, and in our perception, it may be completely false. But if the goal is to have more pleasant interactions, if the goal is not to win, then we have to engage verbally differently. And so that's one really effective or verbal tool to use. Another one is an I think people are going get a laugh out of this. I was somewhere a few years ago, and I was with a friend. And then another friend came up and started talking. And this friend was talking about the so let's say friend, a is Susie and Kay. And so Susie was talking about some of the health problems they had and friends C, was trying to be really helpful to Susie. And so was saying to Susie, well, have you tried this? Have you tried this? Have you tried this? And I know and love both of these people. And I could tell that Susie was not really enjoying it. And so finally, Susie said, You really want me to feel better, don't you? Instead of saying to a friend, see, look, I've tried all this stuff, mind your own business. Susie was able to say, Oh, you're really interested in what the things that I've tried to feel better. And that's it. That's all she said. And then, and then Francie kind of was taken aback not because it was rude. But because she was like, oh, yeah, I am. And then Susie said to the friend, I really appreciate that. And it's, it's not super helpful for me to go over it right now. But I really appreciate your concern. That is
lovely. Because that is the true motivation when people are trying to fix us. Yes. Right. That they it's either control or they love us. Yeah. And, or both? Yes. Oftentimes, you know, there are plenty of people who are controlling who also love us. So that is that is really interesting. You said something a few minutes ago that I wanted to circle back to real quick. You said, if the goal is pleasant conversation, and something else instead of winning. Yeah. And I want to circle back to that. What what it made me realize is that a lot of times in my conversations with family members, the goal has been the truth. Yes. Right. And there is something in my brain that just loves loves loves the truth. Yeah. And I'm not saying there's no such thing as true. Yeah, I particularly like my version of the truth. Right? Horse. So I've never thought of it in terms of winning, or something like that. But when you're trying to get to truth capital T in a relationship, I'm not talking about science. I'm not talking about the news I'm talking about in a relationship dynamic. Capital T truth can be fuzzy at times. Yes. Yes. It does come across as trying to win. Yes. And that
will never ever, ever work. You walk away from connection. Yep. Yeah. Walk away from the interchange, more damaged and more distressed.
Yeah. Okay, so we've talked about problematic memories. We've talked about problematic current situations, you've named a few phrases. Can you repeat the phrases for our listeners? So they kind of have it fresh in their mind?
Sure. Yeah. So when one phrase and again, this has to be done, genuinely, it can't be done snarky or passive aggressive, or dismissively. So one phrase is you could be right. Or you might be right. It's really effective with bullies of any age, because it totally takes them aback and, and their brain like pauses. And so that can be very effective. You just don't say anything else except that, and then you wait for the other person to respond. And one thing that we do is we, we use some tools, and then we keep going on and on and on. And that is not going to work because we keep arguing the same points for decades. And nothing gets done except for harm to the relationship. So that's a super important and effective tool.
And what's another phrase,
the other phrase is, Wow, you are really interested in having me be in charge of the PTA brunch on Tuesday. So I'm saying no to the brunch, and the person's like, but you've got to do it because no one else is doing it. Oh, wow. You really want me to be in charge of it. That's it. Let's say you have a sibling who asks for a lot of favors or help and doesn't like to hear no for an answer. So let's say my sibling Joe, Bob is always wanting to borrow money. Oh, actually, we haven't.
We do have a sibling named Joe named Joe. Not not Joe, Bob, not Joe, Bob, a lot of siblings.
And actually got asked to borrow money. Ever something I hear all the time when I work with families, so Joe, Bob is pretty consistently asking me to borrow money. And, and so he says to me, but I only need it, I only need 100 bucks. Now the tendency is for me to say, but you never pay me back. That's not helpful in establishing boundaries. So instead, I'm going to say, I can see that you're really stressed. And you really need the $100. And right now, I'm not able to do that. But why not? I'm really desperate, you really need to help me out you always have before. I know I have always helped you out before and I wish I could now but I can't do it. And they'll keep pushing. One of my clients said to me a few months ago, the thing about being a people pleaser is when you stop pleasing people they get really pissed. Through, yeah, for that. So being able to I call it repetition, like a broken record repetition, but you have to do it calmly and kindly. And they also call it not over talking about what you're setting the boundary for. So those things can be helpful to love that.
I love it. Thank you. Okay, and what we've seen in our program, the whole health lab, is that we have, of course, as we know, trauma often happens in childhood, but it can also happen in adulthood. But the majority of trauma that we see, I would say is from younger years. Actually, it's probably about half and half. But what we see in our clients is that the past trauma is still affecting their relationships. And that's where we see conflict in relationships. And so one of the things that we've done in the program is, of course, EMDR, which we've had, we have an episode on EMDR to help people with the past trauma, so that then their their brain can heal a little bit. And that obviously changes everything, including your relationship dynamics. What are some other things we do in the program for people with conflict and relationships?
I think one thing that we do is we we provide a community where there's a lot of validation. And people can get really mixed up about validation. validation, isn't that I agree with you. Validation is I understand where you're coming from.
We don't need to argue with people's version of things. And what the community does in our program is it really helps people to feel heard, and listened to and see you're talking about validation. And I think we don't need agreement to validate. And I love that we do that in the whole health lab. We get together once a week for community connection. And sometimes we talk about what's going on in the past, but almost never it's almost what's going on right now. Because trauma, unresolved trauma deeply affects the relationships that we have right now. Because it actually alters our perspectives on the world. And you cannot have an altered perspective of the world from trauma and not have it affect your current relationships. It's impossibly
Yeah. Last night's community connection was really fun. We talked about Halloween, and we talked about people, like we have a couple school teachers and what they were going to wear for their class. And yeah, it's just a really great place to be. Yeah.
Yeah, that's awesome. So anyways, we are really what that's what we deal with right now in our program is helping people with their current issues or symptoms. We like to call them symptoms because they are symptoms of unresolved trauma. But one of the biggest symptoms of unresolved trauma is conflict and relationships. And so for our listeners, we really want to have you set up well for the holiday season, so that you have these key phrases so that you have some tools in your tool belt so that as you go into the holiday season, you're able to navigate those relationships.
Well sense.
Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you, Sister. We'll see you next week. Thank you for listening to the universe's your therapist this week. If you have any questions or looking for more information, you can find us at mending trauma on Instagram, as well as mending trauma.com On our website, and if you're enjoying our content, we'd love it if you could rate review and subscribe to the show. We'll see you all next week.
