How Sibling Relationships Keep Us Stuck and How to Build Healthy Adult Relationships with Minaa B

You can command a boardroom, lead a team, and hold your own in the world — yet the moment you step back into your family home, something shifts. Old wounds resurface. You shrink. You react. You become a version of yourself you thought you'd outgrown. This regression is a sign that your internal conflicts are tethered to a hidden social architecture designed long ago.

And…you're not broken. You're responding to a blueprint that was written long before you had any say in it.

In this episode of Confessions of a Freebird, I sit down with therapist, author, and mental health advocate Minaa B. to unpack the hidden sibling relationship dynamics that quietly run our adult relationships. If you've ever wondered why sibling rivalry and parental favoritism  doesn't just disappear in adulthood — or why certain sibling conflicts still leave your nervous system dysregulated days later — this conversation is for you.

In this episode, we talk about:

• Why family systems are the primary containers that shape our lifelong attachment patterns.
• How to foster emotional attunement to understand your needs within difficult relationships.
• How parental favoritism and triangulation fuel chronic sibling conflict — and what to do about it
• The role of emotionally immature parents in fracturing sibling bonds and your sense of belonging
• How to decode your personal sibling blueprint and create relational safety — even with difficult family members
• The ways an emotionally immature parent can fuel sibling rivalry through triangulation.
• Improving your social skills by joining supportive community groups to practice active listening.
• The power of culture shifters who are willing to break generational dysfunction
• Why understanding the narcissistic spectrum can help you depersonalize a sibling's harmful behavior.
• How emotional reciprocity and horizontal relationships build the secure, balanced connections we all deserve

Whether you're healing from sibling parentification, working through emotional neglect, navigating blended family dynamics, or doing deeper generational trauma work — Minaa offers a compassionate, practical roadmap toward secure attachment in adulthood.

Much love,

Laurie

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DISCLAIMER: THE COMMENTARY AND OPINIONS AVAILABLE ON THIS PODCAST ARE FOR INFORMATIONAL AND ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY AND NOT FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROVIDING LEGAL, MEDICAL OR PROFESSIONAL ADVICE. YOU SHOULD CONTACT A LICENSED THERAPIST IF YOU ARE EXPERIENCING SUICIDAL THOUGHTS. YOU SHOULD CONTACT AN ATTORNEY IN YOUR STATE TO OBTAIN LEGAL ADVICE. YOU SHOULD CONTACT A LICENSED MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL WITH RESPECT TO ANY MEDICAL ISSUE OR PROBLEM.

Transcript

Laurie James: Hey, there. It's Laurie. So many people talk about that parent-child relationship that affects us, but few talk about the role our sibling relationships play in adulthood. So if you've ever wondered about your early sibling relationships and the role they play in our adult relationships, stay tuned. This episode will give you that insight, help you better understand how your sibling relationships have impacted you, what role they play in adulthood, and steps that you can take today to improve all of your relationships. Enjoy this conversation, and don't forget to share it with someone who comes to mind while listening.

Laurie James: Welcome to Confessions of a Free Bird podcast. I'm your host, Laurie James, a mother, divorcee, recovering caregiver, the author of Sandwiched: A Memoir of Holding On and Letting Go, a therapy junkie, relationship coach, somatic healer, and now podcaster. I'm a free spirit and here to lift you up on this podcast. I'll share soulful confessions and empowering conversations with influential experts so you can learn to spread your wings and make the most of your second half. So pop in those earbuds, turn up the volume, and let's get inspired, because my mission is to help you create your most joyful, purpose-driven life, one confession at a time.

Laurie James: Hello, all you free birds. I am thrilled to be joined today by Mina B. Mina is a therapist, author of Owning Our Struggles, creator of the Siblinghood Theory, and host of the podcast, This Feels Familiar. Mina's work invites us to explore something many of us overlook: how our sibling and peer relationships quietly shape the way we show up in love, friendship, conflict, belonging, and even in how we see ourselves. She specializes in helping people understand their relational patterns, not with judgment, but with curiosity. Why do certain dynamics feel so familiar? Why do some connections feel safe when others activate us? Those are some of the topics we're going to explore today, in addition to others.

Laurie James: Mina's approach helps us connect the dots between our early relational experiences and our adult emotional wellness, so we begin to shift from automatic patterns into intentional, secure connections. So welcome, Mina, and thank you so much for being here.

Minaa B: Hi, Laurie. Thank you for having me. Yeah.

Laurie James: So can you start by sharing with our listeners a little bit about your story and how you became interested in becoming a therapist, writing your book, and hosting a podcast?

Minaa B: Yeah, so I pretty much grew up in a very large family system. I am the youngest of 13. I am our mother's second child and my father's 12th child, and when it comes to my father's children, we have about a 20 to 30-year age gap. And so I grew up feeling like an only child, just because when there is a large age gap, such as 20 to 30 years, technically you're not peers. There is a level of more of a vertical relationship, where it's a relationship where there's an inherent authority figure, versus a horizontal relationship, which is one where you have with your equals, which is our siblings and our peers. But when your sibling, as I said, has a significant age gap, they have a level of authority that maybe a sibling who's two years older than you may not have.

Minaa B: Yeah, so I felt like I grew up with a lot of parents, and because my siblings were significantly older than me, I felt like I was exposed to a lot of the family drama, a lot of the chaos, because we were managing so many people, so many personalities, and I was born into a family system where there was already a lot of conflicts in place. So it did impact my self-esteem, my own sense of self that ended up not having a close peer bond in the home, while also navigating all of these complex adult emotions and also navigating the different levels of authority that was in my house, because it was not just my parents, it was also my siblings. Yeah, they had a role in raising me, you know.

Minaa B: And so I feel like that was the starting point where I really started to recognize the impact that my siblings were having on me. But the other interesting part is that because I grew up feeling like an only child, I met my best friend when we were in first grade. We're still best friends till this day, so we've been friends for over 30 years, and in my adult work as a therapist, I started to have clients whose lives somewhat mirrored my own life, where they had siblings that they didn't feel close with, and so they learned a lot of their skills and social capabilities through their peers.

Minaa B: But then there are some that learn through their siblings, because there's some unresolved rivalry, there is some conflict, there's these struggles around boundary differentiation. You have the eldest daughter, but then you also have the other parentified children in the home that has this level of authority over you, but they're supposed to be your peer. How do you navigate that?

Laurie James: And that feels complicated when you're a child. I'm just thinking about my own relationships with my two brothers I'm the youngest and then also, you know, kind of looking at it from the lens of my four children too, exactly.

Minaa B: It can be very complicated, especially if there are no real guards in place, and if there is no conflict management in place. And so that shaped a lot of my work, because it shaped a lot of my identity. And as I said, once I became a therapist, I noticed a lot of my clients were having similar issues around their sibling and peer relationships.

Minaa B: And I think in my work, and I think a lot of therapists might agree with this, or mental health professionals, that the field really spends a lot of time researching and expLaurieng the parent-child relationship. Yeah, especially when you examine the nuclear family. It's about a two-parent household and a multitude of children, and we've spent so much time in society diving into the importance of attachment between parent and child family systems, but looking at it through the lens of the parent and the child. As a result of that, sibling relationships have been left under-explored and under-researched.

Minaa B: Yeah, and so I decided to comb through the little bit of research that we have, while also just taking my experience personally, but also professionally as a therapist, and really creating, I would say, a framework and a theory and some guidance around how people can learn to examine their sibling and peer relationships, but also see how their sibling and peer relationships have left a blueprint on their life. It's not just the relationship you have with your parents.

Laurie James: Yeah, and I love that you're doing this work, because our sibling relationships do affect us. But I guess my question, based off of your research and I want to get into the Siblinghood Theory in a minute but based off of the research you've done to date, does the parental-child relationship still affect us more than the sibling? Or are you finding that it's equal? Or is the jury still out?

Minaa B: The jury is still out. I think there's still much more to be done, but I will say from my research that we can somewhat see that there can be a significant influence that is equal between both parties, where the parent-child relationship can be just as significant as a sibling relationship. And the reason why is because there are certain dynamics that happen within sibling relationships that are actually influenced by the parent-child dynamic.

Minaa B: So what I mean by that is, when we think of sibling rivalry, yes, that can have an impact on a sibling's sense of conflict resolution, a sense of belonging. Was I excluded in my home by my sibling? We can also recognize the different ways siblings engage in boundary differentiation. Those are the different domains that I have explored in my work.

Minaa B: But for example, if you grew up in a home with an emotionally immature parent, that is also going to significantly impact the sibling relationship, because an emotionally immature parent is a parent who was not emotionally attuned, right, to their child's needs. That can influence and shape how they intervene when there is sibling rivalry and conflict. It can shape how they foster their children's self-esteem and self-development. That can also lead to scarcity dynamics if an emotionally immature parent favors one child more than the other, especially if they favor the child who they feel that they can manipulate or force, or they feel like that is a child who they can be enmeshed with.

Minaa B: Where, if you have a child that has a personality type that they are more autonomous, they lean more into their agency, they're very firm with their boundaries, the parent might have conflict with that child and now bring in the other sibling to engage in triangulation, to pit that child against the sibling that they favor. And so from my research, I do think that a parent who is more emotionally attuned, a parent who recognizes their own and has their own awareness to be able to see when it comes to one kid, I can admit I get a little anxious or I get a little agitated because my kid really provokes something in me, but they're insightful around that and they're making sure they're being attuned to how they show up to that child versus excluding that child.

Minaa B: Also, if you have a parent who is developing a secure attachment with their children, there is a stronger likelihood that the children in the home can foster more resilience, but also foster healthier bonds with each other. Yeah, yeah.

Laurie James: That's beautiful. And I'm just thinking about my own childhood as you're sharing that framework, because I had a father who was like another child for my mom. He was very emotionally immature, and he was always looking for approval, even from my brothers and me. "Do you like me?" Not, "Am I protecting you?" or "I'm attuning to you." If anything happened, he would stick his head in the sand and pretend like it didn't exist or didn't want to deal with it, and he would just shut down.

Laurie James: And that was really confusing to me because I had an abusive brother, and it's like, you know, and so I had to figure out how to protect myself and become very hyper-vigilant very early on to manage that dynamics. That's why I love this topic that we're discussing because, you know, when I really reflect back on my own personal childhood and maybe somebody who's listening can relate to this is I think that my interactions with my siblings was just as impactful as my relationships with my parents, in some ways, in my own personal situation.

Laurie James: Because I wasn't close with my two older brothers. You know, as I shared with you before, I'm adopted. My two older brothers were all adopted from different families, so that whole dynamic just out of the gate, for lack of a better word, almost feels like it pits us differently. And then you throw somebody who has my oldest brother now would probably be diagnosed with bipolar disorder. He had learning disabilities, dyslexia, ADHD; like he would have been diagnosed with all of those things in today's world. That's my personal assessment; it's not a professional assessment. And those brought a lot of challenges into our sibling relationship and, you know, my formative childhood years. Before we go in deeper, because I can totally go in deeper here, is there anything else you want to share about this Siblinghood Theory that you've created as it relates to the work and the research you're doing?

Minaa B: Yeah. So basically, the Siblinghood Theory is a research-based framework to help us understand how our sibling and earliest peer dynamics shape our sense of belonging, conflict, and connection throughout life. It is meant to complement attachment theory, as well as drawing from family systems, relational trauma, and Alfred Adler's work around individual psychology that really focuses on the importance of belonging in life, in our family, and in society.

Minaa B: And what I did was basically synthesize all the research that I did and I created this theory, because what I was able to draw from these things were recognizing the importance of one, belonging; the importance of recognizing that we are all wired for connection, but what happens when that gets fractured? What happens when we don't develop the secure attachments that we feel we need to survive in life?

Minaa B: And so with attachment theory, as we all know, or some people know, it's very focused on the parent-child dynamic, but we're also developing attachments with our peers, right? And that's the area that I think has been very under-explored. And so when we look at the research around belonging and how it's fundamental to the human experience, I also was able to compile these six different domains that help us understand what impacts our ability to achieve belonging, because the shadow side to belonging is exclusion. Yes, right.

Minaa B: And so in the midst of trying to achieve belonging in our home and in society, we also are wrestling with the feeling of being excluded. But what are those core things that can come up in our sibling and early peer dynamics that lead to that sense of exclusion and lead to this feeling of being othered or ostracized, and can eventually lead to emotional neglect? Yeah, right. Because in the family system, when you are being excluded, you're also experiencing emotional neglect at the same time. Yeah.

Minaa B: And so that is how I formulated the Siblinghood Theory. It really is a way for people to examine their sibling and peer dynamics and really see how that sense of belonging, their sense of connection, but also how they manage conflict. And the reason why I'm also including earliest peer dynamics is because, as I shared, even in my own story, you can have a sibling but not feel a connection to your sibling. Yeah, you can have a sibling and not be close to them.

Minaa B: And so there are certain relational skills you might be building outside of the home. And this is also applicable to only children, because in my line of work too, a lot of only children feel like because they didn't have siblings, they didn't develop any social skills. And I'm like, that's actually not true. You form those skills with your classmates, with the kids on your sports teams, with your cousins, with your god-cousins, with different children. It's just that it happened outside of the home, yeah, yeah, right.

Minaa B: And then we have not been consistent; it was a little more fragmented, because you were learning it in different social groups, where people with siblings are learning it in this one container, yeah, and not just that one container, because you're also learning it outside of the home, right? Which is how there can be siblings who are exposed to trauma in the home, but then you have one sibling who functions very well in society. They have resilience, they're emotionally attuned, and then you have this other sibling who starts to mirror and engage in some of the dysfunction that you would say, "Well, we grew up with an alcoholic father. Why would you choose to drink?"

Minaa B: But it's also possible that when those siblings left the home environment, one, in the environment, the trauma shaped them differently, but also they were exposed to other peer dynamics that shaped who they were as people and influenced their ability to feel like they belong. It influenced how they navigate conflict, but it also influenced how they navigate connection.

Minaa B: And so one sibling might have joined the peers who bullied people, or they might have joined the groups that were more dominant and aggressive, because they were seeking power, right? And so they became the bullies in school, and they became the manipulators, and they became these things where there were other siblings who really clicked with other classmates who had different qualities like them, like they're both shy, or they like a certain subject. And so certain siblings learn to de-identify where it's like, if that's the lane you're going to go in, I'm going to go in a different lane.

Minaa B: Yeah, you know. And so I do want people to know like that is pretty much what fundamentally drives the Siblinghood Theory and recognizing how our sibling and peer dynamics shape a lot of who we are. But I find that those are the three core areas that I explore: belonging, conflict, and connection throughout life.

Laurie James: Belonging, conflict, and connection. I love that. So there's a lot of talk about belonging right now in our society and people don't feel like they belong. People feel lonely. I know that I've struggled with belonging for much of my life. I don't struggle with it as much because I feel like I've created, you know, a really wonderful friend group. I have distanced myself from family members who I've struggled with through most of my life, and I've worked on my own wounds and my own trauma through the years.

Laurie James: But what do you want to say to somebody who's listening, who based off of the society we live in, how we are so engaged in social media, maybe even still feeling the effects of being isolated from COVID about belonging? Like, what's something that we can do? A step we can take towards feeling like we belong a little bit more?

Minaa B: Yeah, I would say it's important to examine both the external and internal conflicts that exist around belonging. So when it comes to examining the external, the reality is there are certain scenarios or circumstances that can take place that influence how we view belonging and how we feel about belonging. There are people who are being excluded, right? And so that kind of shapes your narrative. It shapes your inner world a lack of confidence, a lack of self-doubt, because you might find that you are in certain workplaces or in certain universities, or just certain social circles where you're not seen, you're not recognized, you feel ostracized.

Minaa B: And the research points to interpersonal belonging as well as intergroup belonging. And what those two things mean, basically, is when it comes to intergroup belonging and exclusion, the exclusion side is when somebody is excluded based off a particular group they belong in. So that is like, kind of like the one woman in the meeting with 12 other men, and the other men are acting like she's invisible. That can be a form of intergroup exclusion, because it's a male-dominated space, and they're treating the one woman in a room literally as if she's not there. And we know that psychologically, a lot of that is influenced simply based off gender, all right?

Minaa B: And so that could be a form of intergroup exclusion. Another thing could be race, where we have that same dynamic. And now you take, not only are you a woman, the intersections of our identity let's say it's a Black woman, right? Let's say it's a Spanish woman, a Latin woman, let's say it's a Native American woman, right? We also know what the data shows us around discrimination and marginalized communities, where they do experience more levels of ostracism, especially at workplace. And so now not only do you recognize as a woman I'm being excluded, but when you think of the intersections of our identity, I'm also being excluded, not just because I'm a woman, but because I'm a woman of color.

Minaa B: Yeah, and that compounds over time, and so that's a way to look at intergroup exclusion. And I think it's important to name it, because there are places where we truly don't belong. There are places where people do not want us, where people do not want to be welcoming of us, and people do not want to make space for us.

Minaa B: But then we also have interpersonal belonging, and we find that qualities and characteristics of a person's personality can shape interpersonal exclusion. Think about the shy kid on the playground where it's kind of like, "Oh, you're the perfect target, because you're not going to hit me back, yeah, you're not going to tell the teacher." So you have certain qualities and characteristics that society has labeled as either soft or delicate or non-aggressive, and as a result of that, in your interpersonal relationships, there are some people who may target you because of those characteristics. "You're a very generous person. I wonder how much money..."

Laurie James: "...I can milk out of." Yeah, right.

Minaa B: Yeah, that I like you. It's just that I wonder how much I can take and take and take and harm and abuse, because I noticed that you're a very highly empathetic person. And research also shows that when people are highly empathetic, they're actually more prone to manipulation and abuse, because they look at everything through the lens of empathy versus rationality, right?

Minaa B: And so it's like this person keeps abusing me, but it might be because they're just having a hard time, right? And it's like, "Well, I just sent them a bunch of money," or "I just did all of these things, and they're being really cruel to me." But it might be because, right? And so we engage in empathy to the point where it can be a form of optimism bias, where we're trying to be so hopeful, we're blinded, yes, to some of the characteristics people have.

Laurie James: "If I do this, they will see what kind of person I am, and then they will like me, or they will change." Exactly, right? I mean, I fell into that at various times. It's like, no, no, no, I had to learn that. Right?

Minaa B: Exactly. It's something we all have to learn. And I bring this up in response to your question because, as I said, there are times where there are spaces that are being exclusionary, right? And so there are spaces that are not designed for us to feel like we belong.

Minaa B: But I also think it's really important to recognize the characteristics of people in our life, where we're trying to form these social groups with people who are actually treating us unwell, right, right? And so is that really the social group you want to belong to? Right, most likely not. And so I think it's important for you and for all of us to really understand what our values and our virtues are, so that that can influence the way we seek belonging, because there are times where we're seeking belonging in spaces that are actually harmful and abusive, or in spaces that aren't designed for us.

Minaa B: And so I think that's important. But then when it comes to the interpersonal belonging, this is where the cognitive distortions come in, where maybe because of our upbringing again, going back to our sibling and earliest peer dynamics "I was bullied." And so when I think of my interpersonal groups, I was the kid that was bullied, I was the kid that was made fun of, and so as a result, I hide. I don't allow myself to build healthy relationships, because I assume people are going to think I'm weak. People are...

Laurie James: ...going to, right? We adapt. We...

Minaa B: ...exactly. We adapt to that trauma and dysfunction, but we don't realize adapting to it keeps us separate from the goal, right? It keeps us distanced from it, which is, "I want belonging, but I'm actually playing a role in why it's not happening." Yeah, my self-esteem is very low, my confidence is very low. I need to do the work of rebuilding my social skills. I literally need to build a new relational architecture around how I approach relationships, because my earliest sibling and peer relationships made me feel like I was never good enough.

Minaa B: So why would I be good enough now as an adult, if my own brother treated me this way, or my own sister? And I think that's just the psychological damage, and it goes back into even that questioning, where I said I feel like it's equal with the parent and child, because some of us are still wrestling with, "How can my parent treat me so poorly?" But it's the same with your sibling, where it's like, "How could I have this peer in my home that we're supposed to bond with, be connected with, we were raised by the same parents, we have the shared history, and you treat me awful?" Right? That's really hard to reconcile.

Laurie James: Well, and then, and also the layer on top of that is, "And my parent allowed it." Allowed it, right? So then it gets coupled or layered with that as well. So then, so then you have more anger, more upset, more resentment, or whatever emotion that is associated for, for the listener, the individual around that.

Minaa B: Exactly, and more confusion, right? Because the home environment in itself is a container. The whole container is unsafe. Yes, sometimes you don't know if it's you or if it's them, right, right? And I think a lot of people grow up with the perception it's them, because if my whole family has treated me in such a way, and as you said, it was allowed, it was permissible, yeah, right? "How? Nobody protected me," right?

Minaa B: And so, "Did I deserve it? Is it because something's wrong with me? Am I not good enough?" Especially if my parent protected the abusive sibling, that sibling that was more favored. How could the abusive sibling be more favored than the child who's being harmed? "So am I not deserving of protection?" Right? All of these questions we ask ourselves that actually influence how we pursue belonging in society.

Laurie James: Yes, yes, absolutely. 

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Laurie James: So if somebody listening has a sibling that they have struggled with one or more siblings in their family dynamics that they have struggled with and it has caused them to maybe not feel like they belong in their family, what are some maybe reframes or things that they can do to start finding groups that they can belong to, even if it feels scary?

Minaa B: Even if it feels scary, my first response would be: I do think that when you experience significant relational trauma because I think it's important to name what that is, it's trauma and trying to repair trauma on your own can feel difficult, and so I do think that this is where support comes in, such as going to therapy, but also joining a family support group. Maybe siblings who were abused, or, you know, we have a bunch of them, right? Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, all of these different groups that cater to certain traumas we've endured, or just circumstances that impacted our lives negatively.

Minaa B: So I do think that when you've experienced different layers of trauma that has impacted your sense of self, your self-esteem, your ability to feel safe in relationships, you might need some additional guidance, and you might need someone to kind of be in the driver's seat guiding you on that pathway toward healing. And that's why I believe therapy is extremely important, but I think we also sometimes disregard the importance of support groups.

Minaa B: They tend to be cheaper than going to therapy. But also, what I love about it is that one, it allows a space for you to kind of challenge some of those norms that you would normally do in individual therapy, which is, "I feel like I don't belong anywhere. I struggle to maintain relationships." But in a support group, you're actually building not just your self-esteem, you're also building your relational skills. Yes, right.

Minaa B: Can you be an active listener in that room when people bring up conversations that are uncomfortable? Can you regulate yourself in that moment? Yeah, right. So that's why I believe support groups can be very beautiful, especially when you've experienced relational trauma. And doing both can be important, because we also have to do that self-work, yes. But that self-work can't just stop at us; it has to bridge toward relational work, yes. So I do believe that therapy and support groups combined can be very, very beneficial.

Minaa B: I think other things that we can be doing is, one, reframing how we see ourselves by first examining the facts of the situation. And what I mean by that is there are times where I'll hear sibling stories where a sibling was abused, or a sibling was just always in chronic conflict with the sibling, was maybe jealous of them, and there's a lot of unresolved rivalry, and the perception is "I must have done something wrong," because the feeling that's associated with conflict is so uncomfortable that we're trying to examine, "Why does this feeling exist? What happened?"

Minaa B: And it's easier to blame yourself for it versus looking at the facts and the evidence, which is, "My sibling maybe has an untreated mental illness, and this is why it's led to so much conflict. My sibling is very entitled. Maybe my sibling actually has a personality disorder. Maybe they exist on a narcissistic spectrum. Maybe they have borderline personality disorder. Maybe they're a sociopath." Like, these are real issues that I've had to deal with for clients, right?

Minaa B: And so sometimes I think really taking a step back and examining the dynamic for what it is helps you to see that there's evidence to support that your sibling is the perpetrator of harm here, and it takes away the blame and the personalization that often comes up for siblings, where they blame themselves, or they feel like it was something they must have done, right, that has led to this particular scenario playing out when really, when I take a step back, I can examine and see all the different ways that maybe when we were 12, or when we were 15, or when we were 21, I noticed these patterns that continue to persist that show me that my sibling has been unwell for a very long time. It's not just me.

Minaa B: So I think that's a part of the dynamic. And this is going to be something that might sound a little controversial to some people, but I do think a lot of people believe that if you have a sibling, you're supposed to be close to them.

Laurie James: Yes, yes, and it's so true, because that's something that I wanted, you know, when I look back at my own life. But that's something I wanted with my siblings, and I actually encourage that with my own daughters too. And so I'd love for you to speak of this, because when you think about the sibling relationship, it is the longest relationship we have in our life. It's longer than you're going to have with a partner. It's longer relationship than you're going to have with your parents, and in most cases, even longer than you're going to have with a best friend, unless you happen to meet somebody, you know, very early, within the first year or two of your life. So can you speak to that? Because I've encouraged my kids to unfortunately, my girls are pretty close and they have a good relationship, but that's not always the right or healthy thing to do. So can you speak to that?

Minaa B: Yes, and I think you're hitting those keywords. Your sibling relationship is simply a relationship, which means that it can be an unhealthy relationship. And so I think there are times where we fall into the myth and the belief that if it's my sibling, I'm supposed to be close to them, which also means I just have to keep tolerating the abuse and the dysfunction, because I have no other option. Right?

Laurie James: Blood is thicker than water. Exactly.

Minaa B: Exactly, and that's what we've been sold, even again, going back to parent-child relationships, which is why, as I said earlier, there are a lot of parallels between the research, because the same way we've been taught the importance of attachment to our primary caregiver, our primary caregiver then teaches the importance of attachment to the siblings in the home.

Minaa B: So when you break that norm, it can bring up feelings of guilt. It can bring up feelings related to morality, the sense of moral failure "I did something wrong, therefore I'm a bad person. I'm going to be judged for it." And when it is a very toxic and dysfunctional sibling relationship, and you believe that you have to continue to maintain closeness with this, a lot of people don't realize that it is really hard to heal trauma if you keep being exposed to the trauma source.

Minaa B: And so if your sibling...

Laurie James: Can you say that one more time? Yeah, is that really important? Yes, and I have been guilty.

Minaa B: I think so many people have. It is so hard to heal trauma if you continue to expose yourself to the trauma source. Yes, right. It's something I tell my clients all the time. If you want to have a relationship with this person, you also have to acknowledge how much they trigger you, yeah. And you also have to acknowledge how they are a deep source of your pain. Yes.

Minaa B: And I know we engage in dialectical thinking, which allows two opposing truths to be true, but there are times where there are some opposing truths that can't coexist, right? Where it's like, "I love this sibling and I want closeness, and they're also traumatic." It's like those two things are hard to coexist then, yes, because they're abusive or they're harmful in some sort of way, and they're triggering your nervous system to a point where now you're unwell, you're anxious, you're always afraid, but you're also telling yourself, "But I should be close to them. I have to show up for them. I have to be there for everything that they do."

Minaa B: And so I do think a big part of this work is us learning to rewire how we perceive family, but most importantly, rewire how we see relationships, because whether it's your family or not, your relationships have a huge indicator on the quality of your mental health and even your physical health, because those things don't exist in separate silos. Your mental health will impact your physical health.

Minaa B: Yes, so the amount of times I see people exposed to dysfunctional sibling relationships, they're feeling anxious, and as a result of feeling anxious, they're now dealing with chronic illness, or they're dealing with inflammation because of high levels of cortisol in their body, which is stress the stress hormone, right, right? And so those two things coexist with each other, and it's often a sign that this relationship is actually more detrimental to my well-being.

Minaa B: And so yes, I need to figure out how to navigate it. I'm not saying that that means you have to go completely no-contact with the sibling; some people find they have to, but low-contact and distance is an option, right? You don't have to be the sibling who goes to brunch every weekend with your brother, right? Just because it's your sister's birthday doesn't mean you have to be a part of her festivities. You can literally text her "Happy Birthday," send her a card, but say, "I'm going to opt out, because every time you get together for your birthday, you embarrass me in front of your friends." Yeah, why would I expose myself to that? Right, right?

Minaa B: And so there are ways you can navigate the relationship without feeling obligated to have deep intimacy with someone just because they're your siblings.

Laurie James: So I love that framework, and I love those examples and suggestions. But how do you navigate because there's a lot of families and a lot of cultures that put so much emphasis on the family unit so if somebody's listening, you know, the "big family, family first," and you know, and there are all these relational dynamics, and maybe some of them are unhealthy for somebody. What do you want to say to the person like maybe the parents or another sibling is ostracizing you for not showing up at that big family function? How does somebody navigate that when that's the you know, you're trying to do the right thing by distancing yourself a little bit, maybe not completely cutting off contact, but distancing yourself and like, "Oh, that's not good for me," but then you keep getting ostracized by a parent or a sibling.

Minaa B: Yeah, that's a real thing. So the first thing that I am going to say is something I always share with my clients, and it can be really hard for people to consume this, but being a culture-shifter also means that you might have to get comfortable in your family system being a disruptor of dysfunction and understanding the risks involved in that. Because often I hear people say, "In my culture, this is how we navigate family," right?

Minaa B: Even for my own self, I am a Black woman, I'm a child of immigrants, I am a Black Hispanic woman. There are different intersections, yeah, to my culture. And one of the things that I've learned through my own experience, but also working with my clients, but just doing this work and doing the research, is that if you want things to change in your family system, you have to be willing, right, to deal with the discomfort that comes with being the disruptor.

Minaa B: And almost every time, this is this is it's very rare for a particular issue in a family to stay between just those members; it interrupts the whole family system. So if you have conflict with the parent, it's going to impact the relationship with the siblings. If you have issues with the siblings, it's also going to impact the relationship with the parent. And this whole time we've been talking about nuclear families, but I grew up in a home where I had step-siblings, right? So now you're also dealing with the integration of a blended family.

Minaa B: And so there's a multitude of things. There's more than just your mom and your dad. There's a step-parent, there's a multitude of people involved in this dynamic. And I think one of the things that we do as people is we want change, but we want change to feel safe, right, and we also want change to feel easy, right. And I think that we have to open ourselves up to recognizing that when I have conflict with one person, I may inevitably have conflict with other family members in my life, and I have to figure out, what choice am I willing to make?

Minaa B: Yeah, am I willing to be open to having conflict so that I can maintain my sense of self, my peace, and my safety, or am I just going to abide by the culture and the tradition and the rules? Because I think there are a lot of people listening who can think about their own culture and traditions and recognize we've normalized a lot of harm and dysfunction and referred to it as tradition and culture, right, right?

Minaa B: If you have a whole family lineage of all the matriarchs in the family dealt with, for example, dysfunctional men, and now you want to break the cycle where you're calling out the men in your family maybe it's your brothers, maybe it's your fathers, maybe it's your uncles you're disrupting a whole cycle that predates your own parents, right, right?

Minaa B: And a lot of this work around healing is fundamentally new for a lot of people. When you think of the boomer generation, they weren't doing this. They weren't having these conversations. No, right? And so it was a lot of this dysfunction is passed down. And if one factor yeah, it's generational trauma, it's generational trauma. So I do think it's unrealistic to think that you can change a system without kind of breaking it apart, yeah? Which means it's going to trickle to the whole family, and there are going to be some people who are like, "Yes, I was waiting for somebody to speak up," right?

Minaa B: Maybe your little sister, yeah, saw all of your dysfunction from all the older siblings and they're like, "I was waiting for someone to say [it], but I'm too shy, because I also saw the consequences," right? "But I'm so happy you said something, because I actually agree with you," yeah, "but I'm just not brave enough to say it." And then there are going to be people who don't agree. And I think it can be so empowering to normalize that, so that it's kind of like being prepared for battle. Yeah, you know where everyone's setup is, and it's like, "I already know what their opposing views are. I know where they're going to stand. I know how they're going to try to attack, because I've been here before."

Minaa B: But the fact that I know all of these things, I could be a little more guarded, and I could be a more...

Laurie James: ...be more prepared. Yes. It reminds me I don't know why this vision came up but growing up, I'm older than you, but the game Battleship, where you've got all the little players and you're making the moves. But it's also like chess too, right? It's like knowing the players and knowing what you're the player that you're playing against and what their general moves are going to be, and preparing yourself and thinking a step ahead.

Laurie James: But it's also like a nervous system that trigger, and you talked about getting comfortable with the discomfort that and the disruption that, and so many people just don't want to feel that, right? And I've had to feel a lot of that, not only in my own healing, but also standing up to my oldest brother at times when he did come back into the family as my parents were aging, and I knew he was only coming back into the family for a reason, right?

Laurie James: And so, and realizing I'm not that little girl anymore who was four years younger and not as strong and smaller; like I can be an adult, but it was scary. Like there were times he would show up and like, I'm shaking, you know, right? And then I'm like, "Oh no, this is still present, and I need to work through this and feel that discomfort and not attach to the thoughts that are associated with that same nervous system response that's coming up in the present that I felt as a child."

Laurie James: And that tell me what your thoughts are on this but you know, what I share with my clients is we want to do it in small, tolerable you know, we want to feel the discomfort, but in tolerable doses, because otherwise it's going to overwhelm us, and then we're going to recoil.

Minaa B: Exactly. I 100% agree. I believe that when we're doing something new, we do want to take baby steps, right? It's I always tell my my way of talking to my clients about is thinking about learning how to swim. Yeah, sometimes the first thing you need to do is dip your toe in the water so you could feel the temperature, but also recognize that, "Oh, I can survive this. Okay, my foot is in the water," right? But if you don't know how to swim, you're not going to dive into 12 feet, right?

Minaa B: And so you might have to put on a life vest. You're going to dip your toe in the water first. "Oh, the temperature I get the temperature, I can do this." Put on my life vest, I'll get into the pool. I remember when I first did my swim class, the first thing we learned how to do is hold our breath underwater. Yeah, and that was the first step, right? "Can I sustain holding my breath this long?" Yeah, before I move into six feet, and before I move into 12 feet.

Minaa B: And so I do think that it's important for people to ask themselves, "How can I learn how to swim?" because this is a territory I haven't navigated yet. Yes, the ocean seems so big until you learn how to control the ocean, right? But if your mindset is, "The ocean is going to control me and it's going to consume me," you probably will drown in it. But if you learn to master certain skills that you can dominate while in the water, you'll be successful. Yeah, right.

Laurie James: And so it's a beautiful analogy. Yeah.

Minaa B: Thank you. I think it's really important for us to figure out, though, what those baby steps are, and sometimes it could look like writing scripts and just learning how to react to one particular thing. "I'm going to stand up to this one particular issue," and continue to build from there. Sometimes it looks like writing out those scripts first so that you can be practicing assertiveness, and also use reflection.

Minaa B: "I was really upset when my brother left the house yesterday. What were some missed opportunities here? He said something to me that I thought was snarky, but I ignored it." Missed opportunity. "I'm upset because there wasn't this opportunity where I didn't assert myself." Yeah. So I'm collecting that data to also help me assess: what are the things that I can be doing differently? So that again, preparing for battle, preparing to learn how to swim. "Next time my brother says something snarky, this is what I could say to him," right?

Minaa B: And leave it at that. Don't focus too much on his response; just focus on, "This is what I want to say," and he might have a response that's jarring or whatever it is for me, but my main goal right now is to execute initiating the conversation, which is, "I really didn't like how you spoke to me yesterday." Yeah. Another thing that I share with my clients really quickly is the importance of mirroring the audacity versus the dysfunction.

Laurie James: Say more, yes.

Minaa B: I use the word audacity because I do believe that because of our upbringing, because of the things that people were allowed to get away with going back to early peer dynamics and sibling dynamics, right when your parent didn't intervene, when your parent allowed certain harms to happen, but also when your parent didn't set certain values or boundaries in the home, it can create this dynamic that "I have so much power I can do whatever I feel like doing," right? And that can cross over clearly into adulthood, where there are times where people can be very entitled to your time, to your energy, to your money. They can feel entitled to show up and say what they want to say because, also, they've never had to deal with consequences.

Minaa B: And so when I'm talking to my clients around these dynamics, I always say, "What would it look like for you to mirror the audacity, but not mirror the dysfunction?" What I mean by that is you actually said something intriguing. I'm going to I don't know if this was the full story, but I'm going to kind of take that and make it something where you said your parents, I think you said something along the lines of, your parents were older in age, and your brother came back at a certain time where it kind of felt clear why he was coming around.

Minaa B: And I'm going to take that and make it a story where it's like the sibling who's gone, they don't help with the caretaking, they don't provide any finances, knowing that you're the primary caretaker for your parent. But now that, you know, they got the call, "Mom's not looking well," but they also know the house is in Mom's name, and they also know that Mom has life insurance. And they also know all of these other things. Now they're coming around because they understand that the end of life also means some sort of gained opportunity, right?

Minaa B: And what I mean by mirroring the audacity is: I think it takes a lot of courage to do something like that, right? Like, think of the courage it takes to say, "I'm going to disappear..."

Laurie James: "...for 25 years," which was actually a good thing, right?

Minaa B: It could be a good thing. "...but I am just going to do what I feel like doing..."

Laurie James: "...and I want my family back."

Minaa B: Right. "And now, when it benefits me, I'll just come in and I'll act like nothing happened." In my opinion this is just my opinion, right it takes a lot of courage, yeah, to be able to do that. To be able to say, "I'll treat you poorly, and then ask you if you could lend me $1,000," right after I shared your information on Facebook, or I said something poor about you, or I was literally, physically abusive and or I threatened you and two weeks later, "Hey, can I borrow some money?" Right? Yeah, right.

Minaa B: The amount of courage. And also, we can also see, depending on the patterning this goes back to being the spectrum of personality disorders, right but when I say mirroring that courage is: I think that there are people who have the ability to manipulate, people who have the ability to guilt-trip, people who are severely entitled they're also working with a level of courage, because they perceive themselves as powerful.

Minaa B: And I want you, my client, or whoever it is listening, to also perceive yourself as powerful. What does it look like to tap into your own power and courage and mirror their power, mirror their courage? So me mirroring their audacity looks like: "Since you feel courageous enough to treat me harmfully and ask me for money, I'm going to feel courageous enough to say no." Yeah, that's where my courage you're teaching me that I get to have courage too, right?

Minaa B: Because it takes a lot of courage to think that you can be so powerful to treat me however you want to treat me, yeah, and then still expect from yes. So I'm going to mirror that, and I'm going to take that data, I'm going to say, "You know what, maybe I should exercise what it feels like to be to have this level of courage?" Yeah. "No, the answer is no." Yeah, right.

Minaa B: What would it look like to tap in and say, "My courage right now and my power is saying no," yeah? "I'm not going to allow this dysfunction to be enabled in my my household. I'm not going to allow you to treat me this way. I'm going to use the courage the same courage that you're helping me realize I can have that level of courage too."

Minaa B: Why is it that you get to be the only courageous person here, but you're using your courage to cause harm? Yes. "So now I'm going to use my courage to protect." Yes, yeah. And that's what I mean when I mirror the audacity, not the dysfunction. Yeah. Don't be petty. Don't try to seek revenge. Focus on how you can take that same level of audacity and say, "All of these years, this person has so felt so comfortable being harmful. What would it look like for me to be comfortable to stand up?"

Laurie James: Yeah, that framework that you just shared doesn't just apply to siblinghood. It applies to what we're seeing and experiencing in our world right now, too, on a bigger scale, which can feel scarier, but I just wanted to name that because I'm getting chills as I'm sharing and saying that, because it's true. I mean, we're all especially women we're all experiencing this and feeling it.

Laurie James: So Mina, there's been so much wonderful information and so many more questions I had for you, but I just this conversation just flowed so beautifully. As we come to a close, is there anything that you want to share that we haven't discussed, that you want to leave, or a confession or a takeaway that you want to share with our listeners?

Minaa B: So the name of my podcast is called This Feels Familiar, and it really is a way to point to that familiar feeling that we all kind of have that guides our life, or that familiar feeling that comes up when we recognize we're not living in alignment with our truth, or we're exposing ourselves to toxicity, or we're experiencing that same cycle of dysfunction, and it's that same familiar feeling that we're trying to break for you, yeah.

Minaa B: And I what I want to leave for people is to pay attention to that familiar feeling coming up for you. Especially as we were talking, there might have been some points where you're like, "Mina said something that feels so familiar to me right now," yeah. "Laurie mentioned something that feels so familiar to me right now." And the next step is for you to ask yourself, "Now, how can I break free from that pattern?"

Minaa B: And that's what I want to leave people with: recognizing that familiar feeling is data, and we can take that data and create new data with it. Yeah, right. And so just pay attention to the familiar feeling that came up for you as we were having this discussion. But don't stop there. Ask yourself how you can now restructure yourself and the life that you want for yourself.

Laurie James: Yeah, beautiful. And also, I would highly recommend listeners pick up her book, Owning Our Struggles: A Path to Healing and Finding Community in a Broken World. I've loved this book. I've really enjoyed I've gotten so many really wonderful nuggets out of it, and she talks about so many really important things as we are healing. And I love even just the title of Owning Our Struggles, turning inward and not being afraid to look inward and do that inner work that I think is so important in our healing process. And Mina, people can find you by listening to your podcast. Where else can people find you?

Minaa B: You can find me on social media using the handle Mina B. You can also head to my website where I actually have a quiz called "What's Your Sibling Blueprint?" if you want to see how your sibling relationships have shaped you. And I also have a newsletter on Substack called All the Hard Things, and you can subscribe. There's a news newsletter every Thursday, and my podcast releases every Tuesday. So subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast.

Laurie James: Beautiful. Thank you so much for being here with me today and with our listeners and all this really wonderful, valuable information. I know it's going to help many.

Minaa B: Thank you, Laurie.

Laurie James: Thank you for listening to this episode of Confessions of a Free Bird. I'm grateful to be in your ears and hearts. If you're interested in becoming a free bird, I'd love to support you. Please check out my website at https://www.google.com/search?q=Lauriejames.com to learn how we can work together, or to sign up for my newsletter so you can receive tips on how to date and relationship differently and ultimately find more freedom and joy in your life.

Laurie James: If you found this podcast helpful, please follow or subscribe, rate and review, and share it with friends so they can find more freedom in their second or third act. Also, until next time, you.