Dr Peter Levine – Inspired New Horizons

Better Out Than In

We have often heard the lament “hurting people hurt people”. That simple phrase resonates for many of us who have experienced being hurt deeply by the people we were trying to love; or whom we believed should unconditionally love us.

Where we become stymied is that we are not sure who to attend to — the hurting people or the hurt people. As a result, we haven’t effectively helped either. The problem just keeps perpetuating.

A few months ago, I wrote a Daily Gummy of Wisdom putting a twist on that old lament. It was “healing people heal people.” This insight came from personal experience as well as from stories I heard shared in my book club, with family and friends and most recently from strangers in a poetry writing class I am taking.

I do marvel at the healing that begins to take place when just one person makes space to listen to another’s story without judgement and most especially when they listen carefully enough to discover a knowing connection. This is precisely why support groups can have such a profound helping impact. There is a foundational promise that we can speak without interruption, that we can pour it all out — and that others will listen with all their human instincts. Everyone that is under that tent has had a similar life event that brought them in. The event is the catalyst for connection; for it is connection that heals.

Our stories and our hurts are better out than in.

I offered the metaphor of a splinter in my last post entitled Feeling Our Way Forward. If we ignore a splinter embedded in our skin, it never stops hurting. It can even fester and get infected as our body wants to eject this foreign object. We can go about our normal days, but every time we bump it, it is painful and serves as a reminder that we need to attend to it. It is the anticipatory pain of extraction that becomes an obstacle; and for some outrageous reason we think it will magically go away if we ignore it. We will not have to experience that brief extraction pain. But day in and day out, we come to discover that this is not true. And if someone else bumps our tender, painful finger, we blame them for their carelessness. That embedded splinter is also taking away our joy — even our ability to feel the softness of a consoling pet.

Eventually we face the truth — that splinter is indeed better out than in. Yes, the extraction does hurt. We may even feel some residual discomfort as though it is still embedded in our skin, but the healing is already starting. Our body is busy attending to the healing process and relieved that it is no longer doing a daily triage on something we refused to address.

A piercing splinter is an apt metaphor for our emotional wounds. Our emotions are better out than in.

In his book, Permission to Feel, emotional scientist Marc Brackett, makes this incredibly clear:

“The irony, though, is that when we ignore our feelings, or suppress them, they only become stronger. The really powerful emotions build up inside us, like a dark force that inevitably poisons everything we do, whether we like it or not. Hurt feelings don’t vanish on their own. They don’t heal themselves. If we don’t express our emotions, they pile up like a debt that will eventually come due.” – excepted from Permission to Feel, pg.13, Author – Marc Brackett, Ph.D.

Every single book I have read in recent months about emotional health, parenting, longevity and health span cites this one compelling factor: We got emotions all wrong and we only started to understand this in the 1980’s.

Just think about that — up until a few decades ago, we just kept ignoring and dismissing emotions all together. And even now, with more research, we are too slow to respond and integrate.

So let’s circle back to the lament that “hurting people hurt people” and take action to attend to both the hurting and the hurt. The escalating emotional and mental health crisis is proof positive that we can no longer ignore our emotional splinters. Everyone deserves to be attended with compassion, non-judgment and assistance to pull the hurting out.

We cannot address what we do not not know, yet there is growing evidence that not integrating our emotions was a huge mistake — a catacylsmic snowball rolling down debris-covered hill.

Remember when you were a kid and there was just a small dusting of snow on the ground, but you just had to make a snowman. You’d start with a tiny snowball and begin rolling it around the yard. As the fresh snow clung to that baseball sized snowball, it grew in size. It left behind a little swath cleared of snow, revealing green grass, brown decaying leaves and broken twigs. And that growing snowball — well it was mostly snow but it also had a lot of those decaying leaves and broken twigs projecting from it. That is what has been happening from one generation to the next with all our unprocessed emotions — they were the decaying leaves and broken twigs that got passed along with eye and skin color. The snowball full of emotional projectiles.

Unprocessed and unexpressed emotions have piled up; we are still carrying and paying the overdue debts of our ancestors.

I recently published a blog post “Learning What We Need to Teach.” That post was inspired by the work of Dr. Dan Siegel who wrote The Power of Showing Up, Whole Brain Parenting and No Drama Discipline. One of the fastest ways that we can implement real change is to teach our children that emotions are an integral part of who they are and how they learn about life. We need to teach them a vast and nuanced emotional vocabulary. We are the training wheels for this integration of big unwieldy and at times, scary, emotions for our children and their developing brains. But we cannot teach what we ourselves don’t know. It would be like us suddenly trying to teach our kids to speak a foreign language fluently. We might only know a few familiar phrases in Spanish or French. We are hardly skillful.

Can you imagine what it feels like for a small child to have big emotions wash all over her, out of the blue? My young granddaughter was standing in the bathtub, trembling with crocodile tears running down her cheeks. She was so angry at her brother and was yelling at him. She also had enough self awareness to recognize that her voice had changed and that scared her – what was happening? Her changing voice took precedence over her anger. In that moment, my granddaughter was feeling a natural and normal chain reaction that happens when emotions hit us.

That present moment is a teaching opportunity.

Her anger was simply an emotion that told her something wasn’t right. Her brother had not been respectful about her bathtub toys. Her anger was legitimate. Her anger caused her body and developing brain to react. Her heart was racing, the tears were flowing, her voice was amplified. All that happened in a split second. She was caught in an emotional vortex — angry at her brother and she was scaring herself with her own voice; one she didn’t recognize or like. “What is happening to me?” she asked me. “Why is my voice changing?”

Being the training wheels for these moments is a game-changer for everyone. It is how we integrate emotional awareness.

Step 1 of being the training wheels is to remain calm. We co-regulate each other and if we can show up calmly for our kids when they are overcome with emotions, it is soothing. Their heart rate will slow, their labored breathing will return to baseline, the tension in their tiny bodies will release. When we are initially learning how to be the “training wheels” this first step will seem like it takes an eternity. That’s just an illusion however. It actually takes much less time than we realize.

It is when we respond to our child’s normal and right-sized “out of control” emotional chain reaction with our abnormal, outsized adult emotional reaction that things escalate and can become unwieldy. Step one — stay calm. You are a first responder.

Step 2 is naming the emotions that our child is feeling. Name them to tame them. This is how we organically build our child’s emotional vocabulary. It not only helps them to have this valuable reference point for self-identification of their own emotions, it builds connection and empathy with others. If a sibling expresses “I am so angry right now” a child instinctively knows what anger feels like to them. They can relate.

At the risk of losing the flow of this lesson in “training wheels”, I will pull a strong thread from what we know is so helpful in support groups. It is empathy. It is being able to listen to someone’s story and have a basic human understanding of what they must feel like, using our experiences as the connector.

So when we help our children label their emotions, we are giving them context from their own emotional experience to be able to relate to others. They will intuitively know what anger or envy feels like. We are building their emotional vocabulary and cultivating their ability to help themselves and others in emotional discomfort.

I’m guessing that it is beginning to feel pretty obvious right now that if we had been raised this way, with a deep appreciation for our emotions and tools to help us express and manage them, our own lives would have been greatly improved. Stick with me — there’s more.

Back to training wheels – Step 3. Normalizing the emotions is powerful. Emotions are neither right nor wrong. They are simply a form of information. Anger is nothing more than a newsflash that something is important to us.

Even if that something important is just a few bathtub toys, it matters. It matters to my granddaughter who was very clear about what was important to her in advance. Anger was just a normal and appropriate reaction.

As for her voice changing, she just needed to be reassured that this too was natural. That our voice does change when we are angry and it won’t last. You should have seen the look of relief that washed over her precious face at that breaking news. Did you know that it feels very scary to small children when emotions are coursing through their little bodies. Of course they are worried that they are changing and just like imagining a monster under the bed, they are fearful that it is for real and forever.

Step 4 of being emotional integration training wheels for our children is helping them become aware that emotions often come packaged with other feelings. Anger can be accompanied by disappointment, confusion, envy, a sense of unfairness. Just as we would double check that there are no little fragments remaining from a splinter we removed, we should do the same for our emotions. Invite some exploration of the accompanying emotions. We are often deeply touched by what we learn when we really listen to our distressed child.

For the record, this is even more amplified for our teenagers. It is only when we become more skillful listeners that our adolescences open up to share what is under the surface. Be patient, don’t lecture or fix — just listen.

The bottom line is that so many of us grew up without an understanding of the integral role our emotions play in helping us build lives that are strong, healthy, supportive, connected, resilient and meaningful. We blamed emotions for getting in the way of our living a good life. If we could just ignore them, turn them off, shut them down, then we would be happy.

If we had only known that our emotions were the very first and most integral part of our human experience, we would not be awash in shame, blame, loneliness, judgment, dissatisfaction, addictions and estrangements. Emotions didn’t cause these issues — in fact, they are both the prevention and the cure.

I watch my grandchildren today – who are being raised with integration of their emotions into their developing brains and I marvel at their self-awareness, their growing confidence and resilience and most impressively their emotional navigational skills. They are so attuned to their emotions that they can anticipate when a situation might arise where they feel their “jealousy rising”. Rather than ignore it, they name and come up with a plan to address it. From birthday celebrations, to board game competitions, they can hold both their own feelings of envy and a stronger desire to pour joy on each other.

Just the other day, my granddaughter told me that sometimes she really prefers to stay in her mood for a while. She is not afraid to be with her strong emotions and to really feel how they show up in her body, and how long it takes for them to fade. Can you imagine having that much enlightened engagement with your feelings when you were a kid? She is processing her moods, her feelings in real time – without self criticism or parental judgment.

Can you imagine having an inner voice that was trained in curiosity, non-judgment and self compassion? That is precisely what is happening for my granddaughter when she sits with her feelings; she is training her inner voice to be a supportive internal best friend.

Hurting people hurt people – and usually this is unintentional. We simply were not taught and shown by example how to use our emotions in the positive ways they were intended. Our emotional health impacts our quality of life, our physical and cognitive health and our ability to care for ourselves and others in vastly beneficial ways.

We literally pushed away what we needed the most — emotional awareness and emotional intelligence.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES:

LISTEN TO DOUG BOPST’S INCREDIBE PODCAST EPISODE WITH NEDRA GLVOER TAWWAB ABOUT PARENTING, FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS AND BOUNDARIES
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-adversity-advantage/id1496406333?i=1000613941394

LISTEN TO THE MAY 22, 2023, EPISODE OF THE HAPPINESS LAB WITH DR. LAURIE SANTOS & THE TEAM FROM SESAME STREET –INCLUDING ELMO — TO LEARN ABOUT HOW WE CAN HELP CHILDREN IDENTIFY & COPE WITH THEIR BIG EMOTIONS https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-happiness-lab-with-dr-laurie-santos/id1474245040?i=1000613543742

Emotional Fitness

I admit it — I stole the title of this blog post from Simon Sinek. He believes that we should change the nomenclature from “mental health” to “emotional fitness” and I couldn’t agree more.

We have been using the phrasing “mental health” mostly as a catch-all for anything and everything that offers a shoulder shrug explanation for someone’s problems or society’s crisis. There is such a debilitating stigma that is associated with the label of mental health that it less uncomfortable to just ignore it. It reminds me a lot of the stigma we had around breast cancer just a few decades ago. There is a correlation from what we have learned about breast cancer and what we are now learning about mental health. Early detection and preventative measures are game-changers.

The solid truth is our mental health is of integral importance to our quality of life and to our physical and cognitive health. It is time we normalize that. It just might start with a more acceptable and accurate descriptor — emotional fitness.

As we are coming to realize, many of us struggle more than we should with attending to our emotional fitness because we were not taught how to integrate our emotions with our developing brains when we were kids. As a result, we can have a very confusing and unskillful relationship with our emotions.

And it is not only our own emotions that we wrestle with, it is the emotions of all those we are in relationship with as well — most significantly our family members.

Here are some compelling reasons why we need to push emotional fitness to the top of our list for achieving our best overall health:

Poor emotional health contributes to inflammation, increased anxiety, depression, suppressed immune systems, cardiac and cognitive problems (just to name a few)
Poor emotional health negatively impacts our quality of sleep; sleep is one of the most beneficial factors for our overall brain and body health.
Poor emotional regulation negatively impacts the quality and deep connectedness of our most treasured personal relationships (i.e. secure attachment styles)
Poor emotional health taxes our energy, our ability to be clear-headed, and limits our capacity for resilience, problem solving and empathy
Poor emotional health is a carrier — we simply perpetuate dysfunctional patterns of behavior and hand them down to our children.

In other words, emotional fitness is the giant umbrella that arches over every other aspect of our quality of life. We can be incredibly physically fit and be emotionally miserable. We can be sleepwalking through our present moments causing collateral damage left and right and be oblivious to the harm we are causing to others with our unchecked emotional reactions. We may be prone to frequent colds and viruses, have chronic asthma, insomnia, indigestion, aching backs and migraines. We can numb our pain and simultaneously numb our joy.

The reality of how our emotional fitness impacts our daily lives and our families is undeniable. Take stock of how each member in your family handles their daily mood swings. If you created a graph and plotted each family member’s emotional highs and lows throughout the day, what correlations might you find?

There is no standardized way that we human beings respond to our emotions and experiences. Even shared family experiences will land slightly differently on each member. We each respond in a variety of different ways to very similar circumstances — and here’s the plot twist: how we respond changes in direct correlation to our emotional tides.

Our emotional states play a huge role in how we respond to unfolding events in our daily lives. One day we are resilient and can let things roll off our back; the next we are unmoored and have no bandwidth to handle even minor skirmishes.

Lots of things contribute to our mood swings. Some of those are external factors. Many are our own internal factors such as coping strategies, flexibility or rigidity, self compassion or harsh inner criticism, emotional triggers and personal preferences.

What is often invisible to us is that we are all contributing in some way to the emotional well being and level of emotional fitness for those we love the most. Yes, we know that our lives are inextricably connected but we are often not consciously aware that our nervous systems and emotions are equally intertwined. We get plugged in to each other’s emotional energies and it happens incredibly fast.

Just witness for yourself how the energy shifts and emotions rise or fall when one member of your family loses their cool, or breaks into spontaneous laughter, or sulks out of the room.

Have you ever held your breath as an emotionally intense situation unfolds and your mind immediately conjures up what the most probable reaction will be? You brace yourself for the worst, your body tenses and you get ready for the impact of strong harsh emotions. And then the unexpected happens, there is no anger — there is laughter. It takes more than a hot minute for your body to register this phenomenon and slowly you begin to feel the tension leaving your body. Now think about all those emotional gyrations you just experienced in under a minute. Not to mention the chemicals and hormones that were released and are still being processed in your body and brain.

In the above scenario, when you found yourself bracing for a bad outcome fueled by anger, that is what “conditioning” feels like in your body and brain. If you had a lot of those types of anger fueled, high intensity emotional events in your childhood, you are “conditioned” to prepare for the worst. Your body and brain braces for a negative emotional impact.

Think about how many times that conditioning is reinforced over our lifetime. Not only are we well-practiced in a reflective response intended to protect us, we get taught at the very same time that it is normal for adults to react this way. And the next thing we know, we are in fact mimicking that reactive behavioral pattern in our marriages and in our parenting. The childhood conditioned response and the adult unchecked behavioral pattern go hand in hand.

When we lack the ability to ground ourselves before we respond to present day situations, we only reinforce bad emotional fitness habits. Those unhealthy emotional fitness habits are costly; to ourselves and to our family members.

We have a lot of devices these days that help us monitor our physical activity, our heart rates, how much and the quality of our sleep, keep track of our caloric intake and remind us to hydrate or move our bodies. But we have not devoted as much time, awareness and discipline to our emotional fitness.

Dr. Peter Attia often uses the image of a pyramid with a broad, solid base at the bottom to stress the importance of a core foundation for our physical strength. The top of that pyramid is the peak, where we can really distinguish ourselves often in short bursts or for competitive events. Perhaps we can use that same pyramid image to help us develop healthy emotional fitness.

That broad solid base at the bottom of our emotional fitness pyramid constitutes how we ground ourselves, in the present moment, in alignment with our core values, our family values and our goals for our emotional health. It only takes one or two deep cleansing breaths to anchor ourselves there in that foundation. It is that pause between stimulus and response that serves as a potent reminder of the goal for our emotional fitness. Choose responsibly.

The more we commit to building a strong emotional fitness base, the easier it will become to implement better responses on a daily basis. We will smooth out a lot of emotional bumps and turbulence for ourselves and our family members. An added bonus is that we will be much more emotionally skillful in those “peak” moments too — those times when something really adverse occurs and we are emotionally challenged in a very big way. We can become the rock that our family needs in those highly intense emotional adversities.

Just like any physical fitness regimen we have, it is the practice that brings results. We have to stay committed to attending to our emotional fitness. Yes, we do skip the gym from time to time and we do overindulge in comfort food occasionally.

We are going to slip up and we will show up with some unhealthy emotional fitness — that’s life. Let’s turn to Dr. Peter Attia once more for some advice on damage control. Dr. Attia has become one of the biggest advocates for emotional fitness and he stresses the importance of “repair”. Let’s be honest, we know when we haven’t shown up as our best selves; we know when we have lashed out too harshly or lost our patience without forewarning. Owning it and apologizing swiftly is the key. That’s emotional damage control.

Dr. Dan Siegel, author of Whole Brain Parenting, reinforces the value embedded in those times of emotional “rupture and repair”. It becomes the superglue of trust and respect for our most valued relationships. It is how we demonstrate a true commitment to our emotional fitness to ourselves and our family members.

The Wrap Up:

There is no doubt that our emotional health and emotional fitness is fast becoming a mainstream subject. One that is long overdue. We are witnessing a coalescence of neuroscience, psychology, epigenetics, modern medicine; along with mindfulness, meditation, self compassion, gratitude and self-awareness.

The tap roots for so many of the mental and emotional health issues we face today are integration and connection. We need to integrate our emotions with our amazing, complex brains and we need to attend to our hard-wired basic need for human connection.

For far too long, we humans have been operating without that emotional integration. As a result, we became disconnected from some of the most integral parts of our core operating system. However our emotions did not relegate themselves to the back seat no matter how much we tried to ignore or override them.

Our emotions hopped right into the driver’s seat and took us off on a wild ride, sometimes going full throttle and other times slamming on the brakes. Our emotions can barely see through the windshield and occasionally love the chaotic slapping of the wipers on high. They play tug of war with the steering wheel, beep the horn wildly and push all the knobs and buttons on the console.

How is that working out?

The answer is — not well. Our emotions have a vital role to play but they are not skillful drivers and seasoned life navigators. They are invaluable warning lights and the occasional alarm system.

We can take back control, put ourselves in the driver’s seat for our quality of life and the direction and places we wish to go. Rather than ignore, dismiss and override our emotional signals, we can pay attention and address important operating issues with preventive maintenance and early detection.

Let’s turn this whole well being concept on its head. Let’s start with our emotional health and ramp up our emotional fitness.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES:

THE IMPACT OF STRESS ON PHYSICAL & EMOTIONAL HEALTH with ROBERT SAPOLSKY, Ph.D – This conversation is rich with insights from birth to old age…a very worthwhile listen
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-peter-attia-drive/id1400828889?i=1000610372028

CHECK OUT THE EPISODE WITH GRETCHEN RUBIN AND HER NEW BOOK ON THE 5 SENSES TO REDUCE ANXIETY, INCREASE CREATIVITY AND IMPROVE YOUR RELATIONSHIPS https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ten-percent-happier-with-dan-harris/id1087147821?i=1000608994488

LISTEN TO THE LATEST EPISODE WITH DR. SUE JOHNSON ON EMOTIONALLY FOCUSED THERAPY & ATTACHMENT THEORY
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/being-well-with-forrest-hanson-and-dr-rick-hanson/id1120885936?i=1000613051052

Pop a Daily Gummy of Wisdom Supplement

I am so excited to announce the launch of a brand new initiative to support our emotional health and overall wellbeing. My Daily Gummy of Wisdom is intended to be an awareness supplement to help us all maintain our emotional fitness.

We take vitamins and supplements to support our physical and cognitive health, so why not have a little daily boost for our emotional health and overall quality of life?

If you are a regular follower of my blog, Inspired New Horizons, then you might really enjoy getting these small, and potent, daily supplements to help you stay in shape as you develop better life skills and emotional regulation.

My Daily Gummies of Wisdom incorporate my love of photography with my passion for sharing information about personal growth, awareness, parenting, life skills and emotional health.

Here’s a sample of today’s Daily Gummy of Wisdom:

Daily Gummy of Wisdom – Monday, May 8, 2023

Create a little buffer zone between you and your different roles and varied experiences throughout your day. It is a simple little practice that can make a big difference.

Think about all the hats your wear in a day – parent, spouse, child, co-worker, friend, customer, neighbor — the list is endless.

We often just jump from one role to the other without a reset or refresh. When this happens, we drag some residue from each role or experience into the new one. That residue might be sticky — like a strong unsettling emotion that adheres to everyone and everything we touch.

We wouldn’t let our child run around the house, into the car or out into the neighborhood with sticky hands. We’d take a minute or two to wash those little hands that are capable of leaving gooey fingerprints all over the place.

This is what a brief buffer zone can do for you — it’s a little hand washing for your emotional and experiential residue as you transition from one role to another, or from one task to a new one.

It doesn’t take much time to do this — and the benefits are enormous.

Before you leave the house in the morning, as you close the front door, take a deep breath and let go. You’ve done as much as you could and how you are off to work, taking the kids to school, or heading to an appointment. Let go and look forward. Howe do you want to enter the new experience and greet those you meet there?

When you return home, as you close your car door and make your way to the front door, repeat that process. Let go. You’ve done all you could out and about today. You are home now. You may have pressing things you want to share with your family, but pause before barging in. You have no idea how their own day unfolded. Mentally wash your sticky residue so can listen with good intention and focus when you are reunited with your family.

If your emotional or experiential residue hacks some of your attention, you. may miss the smallest yet most rewarding moments of your day. That absolute delight on your child’s face to see you, that “there’s no place like home” feeling that washes over you.

When we give ourselves a little transition “hand washing”, we are more attentive and less reactionary. We treat ourselves to being more fully present and organically take in more of the good we often miss in life.

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We read a lot of worthless brain junk food in our social media feeds throughout the day. Why not trade a little of that mindless scrolling for one high quality daily supplement for your emotional fitness and overall wellbeing?

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Pivot Points

Dr. Dan Siegel invites us to go back and revisit our childhood memories to liberate ourselves from old narratives. I have found this process to be incredibly cathartic. Today, I pull the curtain back to learn what happened in a poignant scene written and produced by the much younger version of me. And then, I pivot….and discover the transforming benefits of accepting Dr. Seigel’s invitation.

The Bully in the Sandbox:

When I was just four years old, I attended a pre-school that was across the street from the second floor apartment my mom, dad and I lived in. I loved pre-school with a colorful round rug for story time or show and tell, the long table full of textured arts and crafts supplies, white school paste and fat waxy crayons. I especially loved the sandbox full of sand pails and assorted plastic scoops. I’d skip the swings and the merry go round at recess and head straight for that sandbox. I had an affinity for scoops (and I still do today).

There was a rough and tumble boy in our class, who was bigger in size than most of us and he didn’t mind letting us know he had the power to take whatever he wanted. For some reason, what he wanted most nearly every day for two weeks was the one colorful plastic scoop that I had chosen. He didn’t want to play with it; he simply wanted to disrupt my fun. Day in and day out, he’d grab my scoop and run away with it, laughing at my tears I was trying so hard to stop. (I never understood why the teacher did not put a stop to this, but I will assume she had her hands full blowing noses, pushing kids on swings and catching the the dizzy ones as they dismounted the merry go round).

One day, I could not longer tolerate the bullying or the volcanic eruption of my big emotions that had been pushed down for far too long. As that boy grabbed my bright red scoop, I jumped up from the sandbox, trembling and sobbing uncontrollably. I ran across the street and up the stairs to our apartment.

I did not find the refuge I was seeking at home or the comfort I needed from my mother. My mom was outraged that I had run away from school and she punished me. She made me sit alone on the stairs in the dark attic, the place in our house that scared me the most. Afraid, afraid to cry, silenced but needing to tell my full story — and all occurring in the dark — all by myself.

At the tender age of 4, the story I told myself was fairly complex which I will credit in part to my wild, creative imagination: keep your strong emotions to yourself, things can most definitely get worse, don’t ask for help, don’t rat out the bullies, take care of yourself, keep your needs and feelings in the dark.

This scenario is not at all unusual with the old parenting model in vogue at that time. As I revisit this childhood memory, now more informed and educated about a vastly improved parenting model, I am able to witness this scenario with compassion for both me — and my mom.

I never expected to discover that compassion would take the place of the anger and confusion I once had; an anger and confusion that lingered like a heavy fog between me and my mother for most of my life. That’s the reality of unhealthy attachment styles from childhood — they become a lifelong tug of war, longing for our needs to be met and afraid to express them.

This revelation became a profound pivot from a broken childhood narrative, to a place of deeper understanding, with more context, awareness and compassion. It is precisely why Dr. Dan Siegel wants us to do this work.

The healing, transformational value in this Pivot Point cannot be underestimated. I wish I had done it decades ago.

This storyline I created from the infamous “bully in a sandbox vignette” played out time and time again in my childhood and family dynamics; even more so when my two younger brothers came along. This how I became a shy but responsible “helper”, a fixer of other’s problems, stubborn (the popular nomenclature for the independent, never-ask for help type) and an enabler in a multi-layered, codependent family dynamic.

As Dr. Rick Hanson espouses “what helped us get through childhood often gets in the way in adulthood.” Those adaptive childhood patterns often looked like worthwhile attributes: reliable and dependable, independent and not needy, capable and hardworking, a resourceful problem solver. The problem was they came with side effects: resentment, feeling unappreciated or devalued, confused over a lack of reciprocity of all my efforts, frequent bouts of exhaustion and anxiety, distrustfulness.

A little sidenote here: the one I distrusted the most was me because I didn’t believe that my needs were important; in fact, most of the time I didn’t even know what my needs were. So I disregarded warning signs and many times blindly trusted others who were not looking out for my best interests. No wonder internally I felt so jumpy and uneasy. I just didn’t understand what those valid feelings were trying to tell me.

Ian Morgan Cron, a well-known expert on the enneagram wrote his book, The Story of You; An Enneagram Journey to Becoming the Real You inspired by his own real life transformation that came from examining his childhood. His pivot point for doing this work came when he was in the 12-step program and had just finished sharing his life story during an AA meeting. A recovered and wise elder pulled him aside afterward and asked him if it was possible that he was “living in the wrong story.” This became the impetus for Ian to fully examine his childhood experiences and learn what was holding him back; even getting in the way of what he truly wanted out of life. Not only did Ian craft a better story for himself, he became a best-selling author, psychotherapist, enneagram teacher and host of the wildly successful Typology podcast series.

Many people who are now renowned experts in their fields have similar stories. Peter Levine, Ph.D, says that research is “me-search”. Dr. Levine is the developer of Somatic Experiencing, a naturalistic and neurobiological approach to healing trauma, which he has developed over the last 50 years. Brene Brown has had a 20+ year career studying shame, vulnerability, authenticity and connection. She originally published her book, The Gifts of Imperfection in August 2010 and in 2020 she re-published it as the 10th anniversary edition. The sub-title of The Gifts of Imperfection is yet another invitation to liberate ourselves from childhood narratives: “Let Go of Who You Think You are Supposed To Be And Embrace Who You Are”

The reason we have a $13 billion self help industry today is rooted in that old dysfunctional parenting model. It stunted our personal growth. We became rootbound by unconscious limitations.

Pivot Point – Overlaying the Better Parenting Template on that childhood memory:

I found that a valuable step in this revisiting exercise is to overlay the whole brain parenting template over the same “bully in the sandbox” scene and reimagine it. This step really opened my eyes and heart. It is precisely what led me to feeling genuine compassion for both me and my mom. I had a much greater understanding of the dysfunctional dynamics and how we got so derailed.

I imagined my 4 year old self being comforted by my mother, my big emotions validated, and resting in the comforting safety of her warm lap til I was calm. I pictured us walking hand in hand back to my pre-school to discuss the bullying incident with my teacher and having a meaningful discussion; possibly even getting an apology from the boy and to learning why he might be behaving poorly. Is it possible that he needed attention and lacked the skills to play nicely with others? Was his home life also stunting his personal growth?

I imagined my mother reflecting at day’s end on the whole experience, feeling really good about herself and how she showed up – for me, herself, my classmate and our teacher.

Here are a few relevant takeaways from overlaying this new parenting template on old childhood memories:

One: This is how we can “reparent” ourselves and unhook from the emotional baggage of our past. Terry Real, founder of Relational Life Therapy, uses this effective “reparenting” skill when he is working with his clients to help release their painful past so they can effectively work on their present relationships with a marital partner and their own children. It is a remarkable experience to release old painful, fossilized emotions from childhood memories that we’ve held onto for far too long; and that often prevent us from seeing what’s right in front of us today.

Two: We readily recognize how much more skillful and grounded we would have been had we been “pre-loaded and practiced” in what healthy attachment styles look and feel like. This is a bit like having a crystal ball that allows us to see how these better relationship skills and tools would have positive impacts on our friendships, our work colleagues, our marriages and our own parenting. Most importantly, we would know ourselves well, and have strong core values to guide us.

Three: We become acutely aware of the valid role our emotions play in our lives. That old parenting model bypassed one of our most vital human operational systems — and the very one we needed most as young children. Our emotional operating system is the foundational component for our developing, complex brains. Being fully integrated with our emotions – being able to name them, to know how they feel in our bodies, to understand their relationship to meeting our core needs, to get the support we needed to be with our emotions — would be a lifetime game-changer.

Four: We can apply some reverse engineering to reconnecting with our most authentic self. While finding our “authentic self” seems like a cliche, the reality is that if our childhood needs for attachment were imperiled by our authenticity (our connection to what we truly feel), then naturally we “closed off” parts of our most genuine self. Perfectionism, rigid role identification, hyper vigilance, people pleasing, harmonizing, defensiveness — they all come from the tension between our need for attachment and our true authenticity. How many times have you wrestled with mixed emotions trying to determine which one was truly your inner GPS? Did you chose the path of least resistance (harmonizing or going along with something) even though inside you did not want to participate? When we gain greater clarity about our true and most authentic self, we become more at ease with ourselves and have greater emotional regulation dexterity and discernment.

The enneagram can be a valuable resource to help us reconnect to our authentic self and rediscover our unique gifts in healthy and productive ways. That tension between attachment and authenticity moved us to the unhealthy end of our enneagram spectrum. The uniquely best parts of ourself contorted into armor and obstacles, often taking us farther away from what we need and want the most. We can reclaim our natural born gifts and begin to use them as they were intended — to enrich our lives, to give us meaning and purpose.

The Launchpad for More Pivots:

Once I pulled the curtain back on that “origin” story of many of my adaptive behavioral patterns, I was curious about other parts of my adult history that might have played out quite differently with the whole brain parenting model. There were many.

I know that it is a familiar refrain to say that “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” or to say that “we wouldn’t be who we are today without all the choices and events that got us here” but I’d like to offer a different frame for those old platitudes.

What would our world would look and feel like today if so many of us had not been hiding our gifts and authenticity? If we had been skillful enough to use our emotional navigation to stand up for ourselves and others, one sandbox incident at a time. What if our emotions had been accepted as basic human programming and nurtured rather than labeled good or bad, right or wrong, male or female.

You know that familiar refrain that sends us straight to the self help section of our local bookstore: “hurting people hurt people” ? We hurt each other and ourselves all the time because we are so disconnected from our authentic self and we lack the awareness to see that we project our hurt onto others. We could stop this cycle in its tracks if we took the time to go back and reevaluate our childhood experiences and reclaim our authenticity.

Instead of “projecting” our pain, we can learn to “reflect” our similitaries and realities of being flawed, messy, deeply feeling, remarkable, amazing, complex human beings. No more judging or comparing; simply reflecting and sharing.

This pivot would be a game-changer.

Would we have less anxiety, pain and suffering, addictions, physical and mental health issues?

Would we be using our gifts, our time and energy in ways that give us great satisfaction, energize us, foster our resilience and help us see possibilities where we once saw only problems?

Here is an observation so noteworthy I don’t know how we have missed it: Have you noticed the vastly improved energy level of people who have freed themselves from their old stories? People who once were mired in their pain, sadness, limiting beliefs and even addiction are now some of our most dynamic motivational speakers. They energize us! They make us laugh, raise our spirits, help us see our potential, they listen to learn, empathize, normalize and encourage.

That is the tangible transformational magic of all this work.

Pay attention and you will discover that the people who have done this inner work are now using all their authenticity and natural born gifts in empowering, energetic and life enriching ways. Not just for themselves….but for everyone with whom they interact.

If you lean in a little closer, you will also discover that the continual learning and discovery process is amplified — both the teacher and the student sharing insights, experiences and emotions that perpetuate even deeper wisdoms.

Learning from a Master:

One of my most delightful experiences is to discover someone who has integrated all this practical, pragmatic data into a well-lived, well-loved, inspiring story of their own life. Not a psychologist or neuroscientist, not a trauma expert or shame researcher. It is in the magic of someone full of creativity, who followed their bliss and found success doing what they love.

Without further ado, I share with you someone who epitomizes the magic of living life most authentically — the legendary music producer, Rick Rubin, a savant of creativity. How remarkable is it that Rick Rubin let his love of magic tricks as a young boy infused his life journey with the endless wonders of possibility? He believes in that magic.

Rick Rubin has helped generations of musical artists discover their own unique gifts because he was patient, deeply sensitive and keenly attentive to being open to possibilities. He confesses to being somewhat exhaustive about endless possibilities.) His extensive list of clients include Johnny Cash, Tom Petty, Adele, Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Dixie Chicks and the Beastie Boys.

Rick recently published his first book entitled The Creative Act: A Way of Being. Here is a successful man, in his 60’s, who spent the past 7 to 8 years reflecting on his life, experiences, clients and creativity to write this book. He sums it all up this way:

“I set out to write a book about what to do to make a great work of art. Instead, it revealed itself to be a book on how to be.”

I’ve curated a few of Rick’s profound wisdoms from three podcasts where he was a recent guest. The fact that Rick was interviewed on three very diverse podcast platforms is a testimony to the fact that there is more integration in our lives than we realize. Rick was a guest of Andrew Huberman on The Huberman Lab (the neuroscience of creativity), of Malcolm Gladwell on Revisionist History (generating creative authenticity and finding your voice) and of Krista Tippet’s on the OnBeing Podcast (conversations on what it means to be human and finding meaning in life).

What I love about Rick’s insights is what he says he learned from writing his book — he declares he didn’t know all of this, he noticed it. He noticed the very things that are now being actively taught to us by neuroscience, social science, behavioral science and psychology — the whole ball of wax of self help modalities.

See if you can relate to what Rick noticed:

“We come into our lives as a blank slate. What we take in over the course of our lives is all that we are filled with. Our memories, emotions and subconscious are acting at all times. We never know where it is coming from (our reaction) and it doesn’t always make sense.”

“We need to get out of our own heads, what we were told, what we were taught — being free to experiment, to have fun and experiment and find a new way of doing something. Embrace it instead of thinking we are doing it the wrong way.”

“The fact is that man’s own baggage of beliefs — of thinking we know best — is what was holding man back. There is so much that we think we know that we don’t know. We need to remove the distracting information that we hold true – that is stopping us.”

“I think when you really listen to someone, they act differently. Most people are not used to being heard.”

“Music lets out our inner emotional life. Music has an emotional base to it – even without the words. We feel this energy. You can channel the energy and emotion you have.”

His insights on meditation: “Your life off the cushion changes — because you are building a new reality within yourself — an emotional musculature. You are more in tune with the present as you are experiencing it in this moment — and not the distractions that the world is bombarding us with….but a wider more open, and generous curation — we see more and take in more.”

What’s Ahead:

There’s so much overlap and integration happening in diverse fields and modalities for supporting our overall health, well being and authenticity. My upcoming blog posts will focus on connecting the dots on this ever evolving frontier.

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