Family Disappeared

Alienation, Estrangement, And The Path To Healing Explained By Expert Dr. Sue Cornbluth Part 2 - Episode 70

• Lawrence Joss

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In this episode of the Family Disappeared podcast, Lawrence Joss continues his conversation with Dr. Sue, focusing on the themes of healing, responsibility, and the complexities of parent-child and grandparent-grandchild relationships. Dr. Sue emphasizes the importance of empathy, self-compassion, and understanding in navigating these relationships, while also addressing the challenges posed by narcissistic individuals. The discussion highlights the need for personal growth and the significance of setting boundaries to foster healthier connections.

Key Takeaways

  • Healing starts with taking responsibility for our actions.
  • It's crucial to meet children where they are emotionally.
  • Self-compassion is essential for personal growth.
  • Children should not bear the emotional burdens of their parents.
  • Empathy can bridge gaps in strained relationships.
  • Grandparents must resolve issues with parents first.
  • Time and patience are key in rebuilding relationships.
  • You can only change your own behavior, not others.
  • Good enough parenting is sufficient for healthy development.
  • Conflict resolution requires compassion and understanding.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Healing and Responsibility
02:55 Navigating Parent-Child Relationships
06:14 The Role of Grandparents in Reconnection
09:02 Empathy and Understanding in Relationships
11:49 Self-Compassion and Overcoming Shame
14:50 Boundaries and Emotional Needs
18:04 Managing Conflict with Narcissistic Individuals
20:53 The Importance of Personal Change
24:04 Final Thoughts and Resources


Dr Sue Cornbluth - www.drsueandyou.com

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This podcast is made possible by the Family Disappeared Team:
Anna Johnson- Editor/Contributor/Activist/Co-host
Glaze Gonzales- Podcast Manager

Connect with Lawrence Joss:
Website: https://parentalalienationanonymous.com/
Email- familydisappeared@gmail.com

Speaker 1:

The only person that could take hope away from you in this is you. You can become the solution to any conflict in your life, but it starts with you. You can heal conflict, but you don't do it through more conflict. You do it through compassion and taking active steps to change yourself, not change the other person.

Speaker 2:

There was a time in my life when I was overwhelmed and underwater. Those days are the inspiration for this podcast. This is by far the ultimate healing journey for all of us. Healing ourselves emotionally, spiritually and physically is paramount to this journey. From this place of grounding, we can all go out into the world and change all our interactions and relationships. We can engage people from an integrated and resourced place. This is a journey of coming home to ourselves. In today's episode, we'll start to explore some of these issues. Let's begin the healing journey today. Welcome to the Family Disappeared Podcast. Hi, my name is Lawrence Joss and welcome to the Family Disappeared Podcast.

Speaker 2:

Today we have part two of Dr Sue, who is a ninja superstar, a wonderful individual that's doing some incredibly useful work in our community. I love her approach to taking responsibility for our lives, for healing ourselves, for really looking at how we show up in relationships in general, and that there is a path forward, no matter what's happened, no matter how you feel right now. She says something to the extent that no one can take hope away from you. Only you can. So that's part of this next show. It's rich, it's wonderful. There's a lot of great, great, great information. You don't want to miss this and following the show, the next episode is going to be a panel of parents and grandparents talking about you know, the alienator in us some of the stuff we can look at where we've made mistakes and acknowledge them and start to heal and hopefully start to heal our family.

Speaker 2:

Listen to shows out of order. There's a lot of great information and everything builds on each other. So I think it's a great to listen in order and build up and get to hear the community, and sometimes it's useful to just jump into someone in particular. That seems useful. So thank you for coming out today. Welcome. If you're not familiar with our community, we have a free 12-step support group community. There's 18, 19 meetings a week. It dovetails into exactly what Dr Su is talking about on these couple of episodes and is a wonderful, loving, caring community and a great place to start to heal. And we have a plethora of other free resources. We are a 501c3 nonprofit. We have an advocacy platform online that you can submit art to and anonymously share some of your story too.

Speaker 2:

And yeah, I always feel like I talk like a lot in the show before we actually get anywhere. So let me stop talking and let's jump on in. So for you regulars that listen to the show often, you'll know that my middle daughter and I had some contact about a year and a half ago now and we texted for a while and after doing the interview with Dr Sue, I realized that I couldn't meet her where she was. I wanted her to meet me where I was and at the pace that I wanted to go. And I'm having a lot of feelings coming up now about like I could have been slower. I could have just continued the texting for a while and let it evolve and, uh, I couldn't stay with the fear of it going away and I couldn't stay with the fear of, uh, just being patient. There was so much going on.

Speaker 2:

And now that I look back at it, if anyone's just in these beginning stages of reconnecting or maybe this happens for you at a later date slow down, meet the kids, young adults, adults, whatever they are where they are, let them dictate the pace is what I would say. Is the thing that I would like to tell myself is, uh, that's not my pace. Yes, I have some pain and suffering and longing and desire to be in my kids life and I need to acknowledge that their struggle is real and hard and everything that they're feeling is crazy, challenging, and I am resourced enough to take care of myself now and I can go slowly and at their pace. So, yeah, if there's any alienated kids out there or other alienated folks out there and you've experienced this from a parent or a grandparent or something like that I would just like to make a universal apology.

Speaker 2:

Like we're trying the best that we can and we mess up a lot and I want to acknowledge it's not useful to anyone else that's struggling and is an alienated person to have that dumped on them. That's not a great way to connect and and and with wonderful professionals like dr sue and the work that we're doing on an interpersonal level, like, yeah, we are showing up differently and there is hope and there is change and uh, yeah, and what a wonderful resource to have dr sue, other folks sharing their experience and then some of the missteps that we've done. So I have a lot of compassion for myself and also feel a little bit emotional taping this intro and outro and I'm still in the interview a little bit and processing some of my own stuff. So, one more time, a lot from me. Let's jump into the second part with Dr Sue. Is there a difference when you're working with folks that are a parent or if they're grandparents? Are there different nuances in the reconnection and reintegration with the grandkids and kids?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely. That's a great question as well, and I just want to go back to one thing you just said about your kids, because that brought something up in me that I thought was important is that you wanted more, and there is not a time when you want more. It has to be that they want more, and that is one of the main things that happens. The minute that a parent wants more, that's a self-awareness check to say no, no, I can't go there. That's too much pressure for a kid that's been through so much in their life to meet your needs again. However, I don't fault anybody or blame anybody for saying that or anything else. You're a parent. You miss your children, and that is also incredibly important. I want you to be with your children, but it cannot be what you want, because then they think that you're selfish again and that's why that happened, and I'm sorry about that. But you know you can come back from almost everything. It takes time and it just takes a new way of approaching things. Time does heal.

Speaker 1:

Now let me get back to your other question with grandparents and parents. Yes, there is a difference, by the way, with grandparents. Grandparents often ask well, should I just keep going directly to my grandchildren to heal this issue that I have with my grandchildren and then I say no, because you have this problem with your grandchildren, because you have a problem with their gatekeeper, which is their parent, which is your son or daughter. So in order to get to your grandchildren, you have to resolve the conflict first with your own children, who are the gatekeepers of those grandchildren. So that's how it trickles down keeping you from your grandchildren because they feel that you're going to repeat with their children the same things that you repeated you did to them that they don't want to happen with their own children I'm presuming, like everything you're saying makes 100 sense of the kids are a minor going through the parents re-establishing relationship, working for that.

Speaker 2:

But as the children turn into young adults 18, can always reach out when they are adults and start to have communication again with them.

Speaker 1:

But it's important to remember that they probably, for some of them, are still attached to their parents that are not so fond of you, attached to their parents that are not so fond of you. But when you are reaching out to your grandchildren, when they are young adults, please remember this Do not bring their parents into it. Do not bring the parents up and say I haven't understood all these years why your parents have kept me from you. It is not the child's job to give you that information. They are innocent in this. So what I suggest is you reach out to them and say I would love to have a relationship with you. You know that we could maybe text once in a while. Let me tell you about myself. Let me tell you about what I'm doing. Make it very, very lax and do not use your grandchildren for information or blame their parents, because they will cut you off too. These kids are smart and they're savvy.

Speaker 2:

I love that. That's such incredible advice not to talk about the parents, not to ask about all the years, not to bring up any kind of negative contextualization for anything that's happened in their life. Just coming from a place where, hey, I would like to get to know you here's a little bit about myself and see what happens next with the relationship.

Speaker 1:

Right, because I think kids are curious too, especially if they had connections with their grandparents when they were younger and then it was cut off, they could be very curious. Just like I've understood what it's been like over the years for you and I'm really sorry that you had to go through that that doesn't mean that you open up a dialogue about it. It's just showing empathy for them, and showing empathy is critical in any relationship that works, and it's even more critical in relationships that are disconnected.

Speaker 2:

And a little confusion on my side in showing empathy or even reflecting back that it was really challenging and you know something like that Doesn't that bring or open up wounds or rub against something sharp that might actually push the young adults further away.

Speaker 1:

Now you think that and other people have asked me that, but in fact it does the opposite, because somebody has recognized how difficult this has been for them, and it's a place of joining and it's a place of empathy and oftentimes they'll say, oh, thank you for much for saying that it has been really hard.

Speaker 2:

Okay, got it. And the word that I commonly use is shared reality, so you're just creating some kind of shared reality.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I call it joining. You could call it shared reality. I call it joining with them where they are.

Speaker 2:

Wonderful.

Speaker 1:

This was very effective early on in the work that I did with abused children. That's how I got my start in foster care many, many years ago. I wrote a book on that, and then what I found out was the connection is really about showing empathy for what these kids have gone through and that you join with their reality, where they are and what it's like for them going through this. Then they feel as though they have an ally, somebody that cares about them, hears them, wants to talk to them about what's going on, and it's not just about the adult, but it's actually about them.

Speaker 2:

That's incredibly powerful. And just taking a step back to the grandparents' perspective, is there anything else you can share for grandparents suggestions, ideas, maybe a little bit of the arc of what is in your experience with grandparents as far as reconnecting. Is it the same arc as with parents? Is it quicker, is it longer, is it a lot more difficult?

Speaker 1:

I think it depends on the situation and it depends on the grandchild. It depends on where that grandchild is in their own healing, where that child is in their own trauma, and so, no, it can take longer or shorter depending on the exact circumstances. There is no timeline in healing these kinds of disconnections. It takes hard work, it takes learning where your child is, learning where the grandchild is in all of this and really learning the communication and how they are going to hear you and how they're not going to hear you and they're going to hear you again.

Speaker 1:

If you see this from their perspective, not yours, you know, a lot of times we'll hear from grandparents that say, well, why aren't they talking to me? Why aren't they? I didn't do anything to them and I said that at the beginning. It's, I know you didn't do anything to them and I said that at the beginning. I know you didn't do anything to them, but your grandchild is growing up in a home where they feel that you did something to their parent, and so a lot of times these children are going to side with the parent and not the grandparent, and I think one of the things that the grandparent can do is just kind of drip, keep dripping love, saying I'm here for you. We can have a different relationship and I'm not looking for anything except trying to get to know you. That's another good thing to say.

Speaker 2:

And the thing that you just said, which I think is really important, I'd like you to elaborate on a bit from the child's perspective. They are living with the perspective that you have done something to their parents and, like grandparents and even me as a grandparent, that's a great useful thought for you to give me. But can you talk a little bit more about that, on the child's being in the child's shoes, what that looks like, where they feel, based on whatever information they're getting from their parents, that you somehow harm the parents?

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So I mean, I was one of those children, right, you know, I thought that my grandmother was doing horrible things. Now, my mother never said that she was okay, but I saw what was going on and so I also had confronted my grandmother. Where other kids haven't done that, she definitely was doing what she was doing. This wasn't that somebody turned me against her. She was trying to turn me against my mother, okay, but I had heard stories growing up that she wasn't the nicest person on earth. But I found that out on my own and then I stuck with it because it was hurting me what she was doing. But when you're living in a home and one of the parents is saying to that grandchild well, the grandchild says where are my grandparents?

Speaker 1:

And the mother or the father says we don't talk to them anymore. They've done terrible things to us and we're not going to talk to them anymore. Where do you think that leaves the child? It leaves them in a place where they're going to listen to their parents and that's going to be it. It's rare that a child has an open mind, right? They're young and this is when this begins, that they're going to make their own choices, or their own decisions about a grandparent, if they're being told by their own parent that their grandparents are not good people.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. What a terrible position for a child to be in.

Speaker 1:

That's why I say constantly if you want a relationship with your grandchildren, you must first work out your issues with your own children, who are the gatekeepers of your grandchildren.

Speaker 2:

That is beautiful and I know. For me as a parent and as a grandparent there's like a lot of shame comes up, a lot of ruminating thoughts and running old plays through my head and stuff. And you talk a lot about cultivating self-compassion. Can you talk about self-compassion and shame and how that looks in your academy and just from your personal experience?

Speaker 1:

So what you're doing is what you, you know you just said to me is called. What I call and other people I think call it too is nostalgia amnesia is that you keep going back into the past, which doesn't help. It causes more and more anxiety for the person that is going through this, and I know you feel that's all you can hang on to. But the past is gone, the past is the past. You can have those memories, but we're living in the here and now and we have today and we have tomorrow, and I always encourage my clients to live in just today, because we don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. And when you go back into the past and you ruminate and you stay in those memories, all you're doing is going down in a dark tunnel that keeps getting harder and harder to come out of, and so when you're going deeper, deeper into this dark tunnel of memories, you need to pull yourself out, and so you can do this yourself. You do not need other people. We all turn to other people, thinking that they can lift us up, that they can encourage us, that they can inspire us. The truth is that, no, they can't. We inspire ourselves more than others, and so you can give yourself all the self-compassion you need to pull yourself out of these deep dark holes, if you know how to do it.

Speaker 1:

And one of the ways to do that is, first of all, acknowledge that you do need self-compassion, that you need understanding for yourself in terms of what you've gone through and how painful it is, and tell yourself it's okay that I feel this way. It's okay that I've gone through this. I'm a good person. I can make this better. I can work on changing myself, because I sure as hell can't change other people. So what I have is myself and I can hold myself.

Speaker 1:

When I need to be comforted, I can tell myself that I'm okay. I can make better choices. I don't have to react from impulse. I can tell myself that I am a person that is capable of letting love in and giving love out. I am capable of change. This is how you show yourself self-compassion, and when you can show yourself self-compassion on a daily basis, instead of showing yourself self-blame or shame, then you come out a much healthier person. And you come out a much healthier person. And so when things go bad or wrong, you don't go into the victim role, because you pull yourself out with your own self-positive talk, which is what self-compassion is always built around. It's almost like what would you say to a friend who's going through this Say it to yourself, it's going to be okay, I can get stronger, I can learn new skills, I can do this. And see, the more you say these things to yourself, your brain starts to develop more into positive than negative I love the idea of self-compassion.

Speaker 2:

Basically it sounds like kind of like reparenting yourself and just showing up for yourself and walking along the path with you, instead of looking for these external mechanisms to somehow fix you or take care of you. Or even I would say it's looking for like a quick fix, a silver bullet, like this is a long-term relationship. I'm hearing that you actually need to start cultivating with yourselves and, for a lot of us's strange, we're not taught that in our family of origin, but I'm guessing you see wonderful results as parents start to love themselves in this way.

Speaker 1:

I mean, I do it with myself all the time too. If something goes wrong in my own life, I'm able to give myself forgiveness. I'm able to give myself self-compassion. I don't shame myself. Okay, there were times when I did that and all I did was feel horrible.

Speaker 1:

But now that I am my own strong voice, I can get myself through almost anything and I use my friends or my husband or my family around me to reach out just to share, to vent. They are not there to take care of my needs. They are there as support to me, and people don't recognize that, that we are our own healers. But we have to do the work to do it, and none of this is fixable that term fixable. You're not nailing a hammer, you know taking a screw and nailing something in and patching something up. These are feelings, it is trauma. It takes a long time to work through this, to get to the other side, and I wish that people would understand that more, because then they would focus a lot of time on their self instead of just going straight for the reunification, which never works. I have to be very strong sometimes with clients and setting boundaries too, on terms of, oh, we're not going back there now. We're staying right here and we're going to go deeper into this. Now you can do it.

Speaker 1:

When they can break through, that you know when they feel they can go there. I mean, you put up so many protective defenses. That's where the defensiveness comes from, because you don't want to feel this pain. But feeling the pain is what gets you to the other side, not not feeling it.

Speaker 2:

Well, I want to acknowledge nostalgia, amnesia. I haven't heard that before, so I love that word and I'm going to use it. And I will give you credit three times, Dr Sue. Fourth time it's mine.

Speaker 1:

Nostalgia, amnesia, where you're just stuck in it. You know you're like that rat in the what do they call that? That thing that goes around and around and all you're doing is you're just stuck in the wheel and all you're doing is just stuck in the memories. You know, I'm not asking you to let go or forget about those memories that were happy. I would never ask that. But getting stuck there isn't moving you ahead. It's not moving you towards anything. Yes, yes isn't moving you ahead. It's not moving you towards anything.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes, that child that you knew back then, or even it's your own child it's not the same child that came out of this and you're going to have a very different relationship that you do now than you did before and uh, something you you mentioned about the, the self-compasscompassion and you take care of yourself and your family or your partners or whoever you can reach out to for reflection, for support, but it's not their job to take care of you.

Speaker 2:

And in the beginning of the interview you said it's not the children's job to take care of you. And the mistake a lot of parents are looking for is trying to get some emotional need met through the child instead of taking care for themselves. And the self-compassion is about every single relationship. So I just wanted to come back to that for a second and if you can just talk about, like this idea of feeding from our kids emotionally because we aren't able to give ourselves a self-compassion, like how damaging is that? And, yeah, like what are the effects of that that you see from the child's perspective and the parent's perspective?

Speaker 1:

That's another great question. I mean, here's what I'm going to say on this. Children are not brought into this world to give us the love that we did not get from our own parents. No way, no how, and I've heard that from so many parents over the years. I just wanted my children to love me because my parents didn't.

Speaker 1:

That's not the right mindset or mind frame to be in and that is damaging to your children. No child wants to feel that they have to take care of their parents' emotional needs. Look, I don't know one person on this earth who got all their needs met by their parents. Some of us had more of our needs met. Some of us had less. What we do need in this world is what is called good enough parenting, not great parenting. Okay and good enough parenting isn't just giving you know the staples of life food, water and shelter. Giving you know the staples of life food, water and shelter. It's also giving empathy, compassion and being there for your kids while making mistakes.

Speaker 1:

But a lot of these parents that are in these situations grew up with parents that were not good enough in giving this kind of parenting. This is a generational problem. Okay, let's be clear on that. When you see alienation or estrangement happening now, you better bet your bottom dollar. You go look in the past. It has already happened and it's transferring over to here Now. The parents that are able to come out of that and not repeat this are the parents that see this and get therapeutic help in some way to deal with their struggles that they had with their own parents, that their parents did not meet their needs. If they don't get that help, lawrence, they're going to repeat that. Now there comes a time in our life when we're all adults and we can't blame every single thing that happened on our parents. But what we can do is explore the feelings that that brought up inside of us and then we can look at that and put it to rest over time to make us better parents. And that is your work. That's your work to do so you can show it better for yourself and then show it better for your children.

Speaker 1:

No child anywhere deserves to have to take care of their parents' emotional needs. And that is when a child says my parents did not put me first. I had to sacrifice so much to take care of this parent's needs. When you're in so much turmoil about what has gone on here, and you have a right to be. I mean, these cases get out of control and a lot of times you have somebody on the other side. Is just like shooting bullets at you and you don't know what to do. But your child is not the person to turn to for comfort. They're the ones that need the comfort from you, not vice versa. They are not your parent, they are not your therapist, they are not your confidant, and that's called boundaries.

Speaker 2:

Right and I love the idea of good enough parenting. So many of us get wrapped up in perfectionism and doing it right and getting it right, and we're not supposed to. There's no guidebook, we just show up.

Speaker 1:

That's right. I'm not a perfect parent. I say that all the time. You know I'm not. I've made mistakes, but I think I learned along the way. When I mean, my parents did this good enough for me. When you do hurt your child and you're aware that you hurt your child, you go and you talk to them about it and you apologize.

Speaker 2:

talk to them about it and you apologize and you take accountability and responsibility for that right away, because that shapes who they're going to become later in life too, in their own relationships sure that makes a lot of sense, and you also mentioned something before like this idea of defensiveness and reactivity, and you said something to the effect that we're defensive or reactive because we don't want to feel our feelings and if we stay with our feelings we can actually work through. That. Defensiveness and reactivity is what I'm guessing is your approach.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. We spend a lot of time on working through defensiveness. What do we all do when we feel attacked or we feel that we don't have a voice, or we feel that we're not heard, or we keep getting rejected or hurt over and over? We start to build a protective, what I call a shield around us, you know, and we put that shield up and nobody can get through that, because we're so afraid of being hurt again and we're so afraid of looking in to our real feelings and the real truth about what happened and what our role is in it. And when we can do that and we can shed those shameful moments that we hold deep inside of ourselves because we feel different or we feel embarrassed, or we're not as good as other parents, because we tell yourselves that you're going, to put up defensiveness.

Speaker 1:

There is nothing to be ashamed about if something like this happens Nothing. You're human. You make mistakes. You can become stronger if you take and make the choice to choose that path. We all have choices in life. You can continue to choose that destructive path or you can continue to choose growth and development and change. We are forever evolving human beings if we want it.

Speaker 2:

Totally, totally. That's wonderful and uh, and I've only got a couple questions left here, as we're we're wrapping up on our time allotment but, um, so many parents and grandparents are looking externally that they want to change this identified alienator or this identified other parents behavior and they get lost in that. Like you, really concentrate on changing your own behavior and letting go of trying to control or change anyone else, can you just talk about that for a minute or two?

Speaker 1:

yeah, I think that's the hottest question out there today. You know we talk so much about, um, personality disordered individuals and we throw the term narcissist around, you know, like it's the flavors of the day on the ice cream chart. But look, there are true narcissists out there, but really only 1% of the population is a true narcissist. Other people are just pretty much damn selfish and want things the way they want it. But you will never, ever, ever change a full-blown narcissist. You will never change, probably, somebody with narcissistic tendencies either, because they're right all the time. They have to be right all the time to preserve their own ego.

Speaker 1:

So I haven't met one person anywhere in this world that can or has changed a narcissist or someone a personality disorder. It can not happen. And if you think you have changed them, they're not a narcissist. But what you can do and this is what I talk about all the time on social media and in our programs that we do is that you can only change yourself. You will never be able to change another person, and that's true in life. Okay, but you can learn how to micromanage a person like that. That's probably another show, because that's going to take a lot more than two minutes here.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes, I appreciate that and that does sound like another show and, yeah, I'd love to step into that conversation and I got a couple of questions left back here and again.

Speaker 1:

This might be another show too, like how does your method stop, step, do with when you are being bombarded or feel like there's a slew of text messages or nasty emails or phone calls coming at you, where the other party usually the parent right is calling you names or calling you disgusting, telling you what you need to do, bossing you around and bullying you. Okay, that's when you have to stop and take a step back. All right, and you cannot. Please do not respond when somebody's coming back to you like that. The only response that I would like you to do is I'm not participating in this conversation while you continue to call me names and we will talk later. End it there, because oftentimes you do have to talk to your narcissistic co-parent.

Speaker 1:

It's something that we have to do in life, but there are ways of managing them. So first, you need to stop and pull away from that and not respond automatically when you get a text message unless there's an emergency going on that you need to be in front of your child immediately, okay. The second thing is what? Stop till we did stop right and now we're going to step back. So you stop. You say I'm stepping back. Now I'm not going to respond to this for at least two to three hours, because in those two to three hours I'm going to calm myself down, because nothing good ever comes out of impulse control Okay, nothing.

Speaker 1:

That's how you ruin relationships by just letting your fingers do the talking, and then you respond, or react in a very calm way with a statement that is designed to not elicit more attacking. Now, somebody can always attack you, but you can always stop it by pulling back. You're in control of how to handle. When somebody is coming towards you in an attacking way, you've got to shut it down, and that's how you do it. You don't have to respond just because somebody's sending you something, unless there's an emergency, but it pumps up your adrenaline and you want to just get back and call them names, but all they're doing is feeding into their chaos.

Speaker 2:

I love that.

Speaker 1:

Stop pull back and respond.

Speaker 2:

That's fascinating. Thank you for clarifying that. And just final words for people how do they get hold of you, how do they find out about your academy, and is there any other services that you offer? If you can just let folks know a little bit more about that before we say goodbye?

Speaker 1:

right. So we are. We really are, um, a coaching practice, a parent reunification coaching practice and grandparent, and the reason that we are that is because traditional therapy as I have learned along way and I have a doctorate in psychology is that traditional therapy does not work in terms of reunifying parents or grandparents with their children, and it's because you need hands-on plans, action plans. You need to learn language, you need to learn coping skills, you need to learn a whole new way of mindset to go forward with this. Also, we work with you on a daily basis. This isn't just one time a week. We're working with you throughout the week. We're teaching you how to communicate, we're giving you new skills. So that's one thing we do.

Speaker 1:

The Compassion Academy is a program that we designed that you can purchase through our website to give you a start in learning how to give yourself self-compassion and learn the beginning ways of reconnecting with your children or your grandchildren and getting in touch with yourself. I also have a new program coming out with the Grandparents Academy later this month for grandparents. Okay, and that is three videos, trainings that I did on how to help grandparents reconnect with their grandchildren. So that'll be on the grandparentsacademycom, and we do give a free 30 minute consultation for anybody that works at wants to reach out to us, because we feel that we're your partners in this and that we have to feel that we have a connection with you to work with youcom. That is D-R-S-U-E-A-N-D-Y-O-U, and any information you need is there. You can follow me on social media. I give tips every day about how to reunify and there's just lots of resources there.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for that, and I love to hear that you have 30 minute free consultations, just so you can see if it's a fit. Not very many people do, so that's incredibly generous.

Speaker 1:

I've always done that because I really feel I want to get to know you and I want to see if you are capable of doing this work. That is very important in going forward with this and also I feel like people need to feel in the beginning that they're being heard.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes and yes to being heard.

Speaker 1:

Especially in this and not just saying, well, this is what your case is, and this is it, and this is what you should do. No, every case is different and unique and it deserves to be treated that way. And I also just want to say this as we close that the only person that could take hope away from you in this is you. You can become the solution to any conflict in your life, but it starts with you. You can heal conflict, but you don't do it through more conflict. You do it through compassion and taking active steps to change yourself, not change the other person.

Speaker 2:

What a wonderful way to wrap this up, and, dr Su, you have been incredibly informative. I love your approach and what you're offering, and you're also a hoot to talk to, so thank you for that and thanks for taking the time to come out and play with us for a little bit thank you so much.

Speaker 1:

I really enjoyed being on. You asked great questions today thank you, that's very kind.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, dr sue gets a hoof and a wow, maybe an extra wow and an extra. I really enjoyed the interview. I really um, we just finished doing like our post interview wrap-up and I'm realizing like I should be taping those too, because some of the post interview wrap-ups may be better than the actual interview. So, uh, I learned something today and uh, you know, that's the point of the show, we learned something today. Maybe we can change something later in the day or tomorrow or in a year, or maybe we can reflect on how we showed up in the past and see it would have been a more useful way to do that, and maybe that's the path to healing, and maybe it's a path to healing ourselves, maybe it's a path to healing some of our relationships. But what a great show. Dr Sue, again, is a rock star and, just to reiterate, she offers a three 30 minute consultation, which I think is really generous, and she has some wonderful resources on our website. She has a social media presence and puts tips out on a daily basis and yeah, yeah, really, really wonderful lady sharing a wonderful perspective. That is a practical perspective. It's not a theory, theoretical perspective. It is actually how we can live our lives and our relationships. So I loved it. I love you.

Speaker 2:

Dr Sue, thanks for coming out and playing, and everyone in the community great resources in our show notes. Come out and check out the free 12 step support group. It's wonderful. Every meeting's different. Every meeting has different leaders and secretaries, so try several meetings to see if it's a fit for you. And it takes time to get used to because it is recovery-based. It is about working on ourselves, exactly like Dr Su is saying and we are a 501c3 nonprofit can use any kind of support if you have the resources to do that and if anyone hasn't told you yet today.

Speaker 2:

I love you and I love me, and I think Dr Su really nailed on the head like I need to love me in order to love you. So have a beautiful day and we'll see you around the neighborhood. Bye-bye. Thanks for taking the time to join me on this episode of Family Disappeared Podcast. Do you know someone who can benefit from what we're discussing on today's episode? If so, please share this podcast with them and anyone else in your community that might be interested in changing their lives. Together we'll continue the exploring, growing and healing journey. I will see you on our next episode. Until then, happy days to all.