Family Disappeared

Parental Alienation Life: The Next Chapter - Episode 90

• Lawrence Joss

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In this episode of the Family Disappeared podcast, Lawrence Joss shares his personal journey through parental alienation, emphasizing the importance of community support, understanding boundaries, and the impact of family dynamics. He discusses the concept of 'siloing' in relationships and how it affects children's perceptions of their parents. The conversation highlights the shift from a self-centered perspective to a community-focused approach, advocating for service as a means of healing and connection.

Key Takeaways

  • Parental alienation can be a painful and confusing experience.
  • Community support is crucial for emotional and spiritual healing.
  • Setting boundaries is essential for healthy relationships.
  • Children often adapt to survive in alienating environments.
  • Siloing can prevent siblings from forming healthy relationships.
  • Shifting focus from 'me' to 'we' can foster healing.
  • Service to others can provide purpose and fulfillment.
  • Understanding the dynamics of parental alienation is vital for recovery.
  • Emotional growth often takes time and life experience.
  • Love and connection can exist without expectations.

Chapters

00:00 - Introduction to Parental Alienation and Community Support

02:48 - Personal Journey Through Parental Alienation

06:04 - The Role of Community in Healing

08:55 - Understanding Boundaries and Agency

11:49 - The Impact of Siloing on Family Relationships

15:10 - Shifting Perspectives: From Me to We

18:06 - Finding Purpose Through Service

20:55 - Conclusion: Embracing Change and Connection

If you wish to connect with Lawrence Joss or any of the PA-A community members who have appeared as guests on the podcast:

Email-      familydisappeared@gmail.com

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/lawrencejoss

(All links mentioned in the podcast are available in Linktree)

Please donate to support PAA programs:

https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=SDLTX8TBSZNXS

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:

Do you think that's any different than our family system? Like these poor kids are getting strangled and suffocated and all they want is love, but they have all these weeds growing over the surface of them which is blocking the essence of love. It's blocking the transmission of love. Like I can love my kids as much as I possibly want and I can be standing in front of them and they're not gonna be able to see me through the weeds. The weeds are taking so many nutritions and so much resources out of their lives that the best they can do is barely breathe. And I think this is an incredible analogy because as we work on ourselves, as we start to change, we can start to affect the family system, and the number one inflection point in any system is the individual, and that is you and me. 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 coming home to ourselves. In today's episode, we'll start to explore some of these issues. Let's begin the healing journey today.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Family Disappeared podcast. Hi, all my name is Laurence Dawson. Welcome to the Family Disappeared podcast. Today we are taping in the jungle and it's a little bit different format to what we've done in the past, but I think it should be pretty powerful. And if you're new to the community, welcome. If you've never listened to a show, there's a bunch of great shows in the can Attorneys, therapists, panels of parents, panels of grandparents, panels of previously alienated kids. There's a plethora of stuff to look at. And again, today we're taping in the jungle and we're going to talk about the jungle and the evolution of parental alienation and what it could or possibly does look like in our lives. So again, welcome to the community.

Speaker 1:

If you're new, there's a bunch of great resources in the show notes. We have a free 12-step program Parental Alienation Anonymous. Show up, check it out. It's a great place to get support, build community, find resources and it's a place that we do a bunch of spiritual and emotional work, but at your pace and when you're ready. We're also a 501c3 nonprofit. We'd love to get your support to help continue to bring all our services for free. There's a link in the show notes. Click on that. Become a monthly donor. We'd love to get support as much as you can possibly give, and some people's support is just volunteering. So if volunteering is your kind of support and that's what you can offer at the moment, please email me or us at familydisappeared at gmailcom and let us know what your skills are and strengths are, what you want to offer, and we'd love to have you as part of the community. And yeah, yeah, this should be an interesting show.

Speaker 1:

With that, let's jump on into the show. So we're taping here in the jungle, right, god? How did I get to the jungle in the first place? I'm in Hawaii, on the big island, on some beautiful, beautiful land that I'm getting to participate in, which is a miracle by itself and I had no connection to the big island previous to parental alienation. You know what do you see? You know what I mean, and this is kind of how parental alienation presented to me. And if you happen to be listening to this just on the podcast, it's a green bush with a bunch of leaves. You can't really see much of anything. Parental alienation in the beginning is I just didn't know what was going on. All I could see was a green bush and I thought over time that my kids would grow out of whatever was happening, that my ex-partner was doing the best to help support me in having relationships and that we're both doing our work. What I've come to realize just like the bush in the back, I really couldn't see what was going on, and a lot of it, which is super empowering, is about me, about how I was raised, the codependency, the enmeshment, somewhat people-pleasing fixing, like all those different things that I was indoctrinated into in my family system, that I brought into this new family system that I started. It helped create a really ripe environment for parental alienation to take shape in such a whole.

Speaker 1:

My ex has a lot of great qualities and she also has a lot of trauma. You know she didn't talk to her dad for 12 or 14 years and I thought that was normal. I had no idea there was anything wrong with that and wrong is a terrible word to use that there was anything worth talking about or investigating or understanding, and yeah, if you're just waking up to finding some trauma in your family system, you're in a better place than a lot of us because there are tools out there. I just didn't know. I just kept looking at this bush and saying, hey, when my kids get to be 18 and there's not as much interaction at home or they go to college, this will shift or that will shift, and none of that has come to fruition. You know what I mean. Like I keep hoping for something to change and the only thing that's super changed is me, the emotional, spiritual work that I continue to do, the parenting that I do, which is phenomenal, black belt parenting, which I call parenting without access, when I don't have access to my kids, how do I parent? Do I? Do I still show up? What does it look like? And for me today, it looks like being on this island, on the big island of Hawaii, and being out here showing you all something super cool. And again we're talking about.

Speaker 1:

I couldn't identify parental alienation when I first started. It was just too tricky, too complex, too complicated, and I didn't have any experience with this kind of trauma and really didn't think it was possible. I think it was reserved for talk shows that were really out there Jerry Springer or some of the other shows that were out there in the 80s and they might be great shows now or might not be around, I have no idea, but anyway. So this is what's gonna happen. Let's see what happens next. Next, if you're just learning what parental alienation is estrangement, erasure, family dynamic structure, whatever you want to call it if you're just learning about that, welcome to the club.

Speaker 1:

I didn't know anything about any of this stuff for the first eight or nine years, but I did know something was happening in my life that was unmanageable. The anxiety, the fear, the discontent that just wanted to have my kids back in my life in a really easeful way was paramount. You know, family is just so important to me and I always had my family around and always introduced my kids to family, and it just wasn't happening. And when I did have them around my family, it was just a struggle. It was a struggle to get some ease and I will say this we traveled to Hawaii, not to this island, but to Maui. We did some trips to Mexico, we did some other family events and when we were a bit further away and there was a bit less contact after a little bit. We did a lot of family stuff and sometimes it took days to get people to relax, to get into the family stuff and sometimes it was pretty quick. But it was really a beautiful part and I couldn't identify that, with some space and a little bit less access to connection it created more attunement and more grounding for me and the kids.

Speaker 1:

And I will say this that when I was parenting I always wanted to give the other parent access to the kids. So all the texts, all the telephone calls, all those kind of things that were happening all the time, the notes coming over sending some food I had no idea how destructive that could be and how undermining that could be to my relationship. So if you're new to this and you're just trying to figure out boundaries or what to do, I'd say make sure you have them, make sure that when it's your time you get to have your time and it's got to be done in a useful and easeful way and there needs to be consent and there needs to be conversations around and make sure that the kids are understanding and maybe you'll get buy-in from the other parent and maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have to have some more rigid boundaries and talk to people in your life, talk to the professionals in your life, do some research, read some books, reach out to other parents and grandparents. What I'm saying isn't law and isn't the only way to go, and every situation is so dynamic that sometimes this is going to be great advice.

Speaker 1:

But I know for me me looking back I wish I would have understood the dynamics that were at play and how important additional boundaries would have been, even though everything seemed so benign. I never knew that my ex-wife sending notes every day with my kids when they came to me saying I love you, I miss you, only three or more, four more sleeps until you get home. This is your house, I'm the only one that really loves you just stuff like that, and that might not be the correct language and I might be making stuff up with my memory, but I didn't know those little subtle things amounted to so much pressure on the kids. You know, and yeah, it sucks for me, but like I missed an opportunity to parent, I have a huge regret that I wasn't able to protect my kids through that, that I wasn't able to establish boundaries and you're thinking the boundaries are for you, but they're not. They're really about me taking care of the kids. It's really about me giving the kids a safe place to rest, and I couldn't see it. You know what I mean. I couldn't see it. Kind of like this bush behind me. I couldn't out what's coming next.

Speaker 1:

So when I first got to parental alienation, I'm like the other parent has to change, right, they have to do the work. You know why do I need to do it? I'm the person that's struggling. I don't know if you can see in here, but you see, see all those lemons. So this is a lemon tree. Like you wouldn't know it was a lemon tree. Just by looking at it, you would just think it's like a shrub in a bush, and this is kind of like how parental alienation has been for me. I couldn't identify the bush, I didn't know what was going on. I didn't know that there was anything inside.

Speaker 1:

And then, once I started to discover that something really bad was going on God, I hate that word bad Something was happening in the family system. Once I started to understand that something was happening in the family system, then then I had to start taking a look at myself, because I co-created that family system and my family system started on day one when I met my ex-partner. It just didn't happen all of a sudden when we got a divorce or someone else came into the picture or something happened. It'd been happening the whole time and I think this is paramount in identifying parental alienation and dealing with it and coming up with a systemic response to it is this is something that is there the whole time. It's not magic At least it wasn't magic in my case but I wanted the other person to do the work. I wanted them to just fix it. I wanted them to tell my kids love your dad, do this, do that. I wanted them to change and ultimately, I was the person that had to change in order to give the family system the best chance of healing, order to give the family system the best chance of healing.

Speaker 1:

And it's crappy. I've done so much work and I know that my kids are better off for it, but I might not get to experience it with them. But I will tell you this I've met so many people in community and I've been of service so many different times that I know I'm having an impact somewhere else and maybe my impact is helping another human being, and maybe one of those other human beings, or someone that I've never met or someone else that's doing parallel or different work, will have a conversation with my kids and something will start happening different there. So I implore you, wherever you are on this journey, be of service. Help people start to uncover the lemon trees that are covered over.

Speaker 1:

You know, these weeds around the street is trying to suffocate and destroy the tree. Like, do you think that's any different than our family system? Like, these poor kids are getting strangled and suffocated and all they want is love, but they have all these weeds growing over the surface of them, which is blocking the essence of love. It's blocking the transmission of love. Like, I can love my kids as much as I possibly want and I can be standing in front of them, and they're not going to be able to see me through the weeds. The weeds are taking so many nutritions and so much resources out of their lives that the best they can do is barely breathe.

Speaker 1:

And I think this is an incredible analogy, because as we work on ourselves, as we start to change, we can start to affect the family system, and the number one inflection point in any system is the individual, and that is you and me. But the only way we can make a difference is to be consistent. And you think consistent might be calling every day, telling the kids I love you every day, going to every single school event. But sometimes consistency is working on yourself emotionally and spiritually. Sometimes consistency is coming to the jungle and helping another community grow food and continuing to work on yourself and continue to be of service whenever service shows up. So, as I'm on this land, as I'm learning about the fruit and the food and cooking with people and cleaning with people and hopefully creating some kind of sustainable community, I'm changing the family system. And it might not make sense because I presume you're like me. You just want your kids back in your life, you just want things to be simple and you want the other person or the other people to do the goddamn work. Do the work, do the work, do the work. That was my mantra.

Speaker 1:

I remember going to my what was it? I was 36. So it was my 15 year, maybe 20 year high school reunion and maybe 20 year high school reunion. And I remember being in Santa Monica somewhere and talking to people and tell them about my ex and the crappy stuff that was happening to the kids and how she wouldn't do anything. And she said this and she did that and she said that. And what I was doing in those times and sharing this information in this way is I was perpetuating the disease of parental alienation. I was part of parental alienation. I was part of the inertia that pushes it forward.

Speaker 1:

Until I started doing more work on myself, I couldn't really understand that the access point was me and it was a lot of years before I knew a lot of years before I even heard the word parental alienation, a lot of years before I started reading on it that literature and stuff just wasn't available 10, 15 years ago and kind of like this this is my hickory thing, whatever it's called that you cut back stuff within the jungle. Kind of like this this is my hickory thing, whatever it's called that you cut back stuff within the jungle. Kind of like this lemon tree, like I had a prune and prune and prune, and part of it was just me cleaning away the wreckage of my past and part of this for me is just cleaning up some of the transgenerational trauma and thoughts and ideas and codependency and enmeshment. God, how many generations does that come down your family line, your ex's family line? You know, and that's powerful. That's powerful.

Speaker 1:

Okay, let me clean a little bit and let's see what comes up next. Oh, my Lord, I see a little bit more lemons there. But check out all this stuff that I'm hacking away, you know, and we can see a little bit of the lemons there and, wow, it's a lemon tree. Who knew? And this is the experience. This is parental alienation. It's a lemon tree knew, and this is the experience. This is parental alienation. It's a lemon tree. Who knew. We lose sight of our kids, we lose sight of our relationships, we even lose sight of ourselves, like we are this lemon tree too. I know there's been so many times of this journey where I've been just unable to get up off the floor or get out of bed or even go to work, or the physical pain's been so great that I couldn't even find myself, and parental alienation wants me stayed lost.

Speaker 1:

So this work that I'm doing here, even though it's physical and I'm whacking away the jungle, is the same emotional, spiritual and physical tenacity that it takes to beat this disease Not to beat this disease, but to become the best variation of a person and human being and parent that I am. So I can navigate the complexities of my family system and I believe we're all interconnected Like it's not about my family system, it's about every family system. It's a systemic issue. So we have to deal with this on every single basis. And as I start to whack away at the tree, it's a lot of work and I'm going to hopefully clear up most of this tree, but it doesn't stop right. The tree needs sustenance, it needs food, it needs been taken care of, it needs to make sure that the jungle still keeps getting cut back. So this is the work we are, I am committed to for the rest of my life, is showing up in my own life, is doing the work, is becoming the best variation of myself and is joining in community. Because today it's more about my kids getting an opportunity to see a different way of life, and maybe without me, but also creating a path forward for other people to see a different way of life. And maybe one day my kids are back in my life. Maybe one day we're clearing the jungle together, or maybe we're just in a mall having a cup of tea, it just doesn't matter. But this work that I'm doing here is hard. This work that we do in here is hard. This daily work that we do with missing our kids and wanting to be with them so much is hard.

Speaker 1:

Give yourself a break. If you're in the middle of the struggle, if you're confused and don't know what to do, jump into any kind of community. Jump into our community. Try it out. You like it, stay. You don't like it, leave. Find a different community, find a different support group. And I will tell you this the more service you are in any community, the more you're going to get out of it. Once you start moving from what you're going to get, how you're going to get something, how you're going to get somewhere and how you start giving your life changes, you build deep, meaningful relationships.

Speaker 1:

You land up on a farm on a big island in Hawaii, finding yourself in a bush that happens to be a lemon tree. If I can do it, you can do it too. You just gotta I would love to say you just gotta be willing, but sometimes you just gotta get in enough pain to be able to make a change. So I'm going to get back to this lemon tree and then we'll jump into one more segment before we close out the show. Okay, so I've actually moved spots here because I want to show you something. You see that lemon tree. I'm showing a bunch of lemon trees that we've taken back from the jungle. You know, over the course of the last little bit there's lemon trees, there's mango trees, there's cacao trees, there's all variations and forms of trees that were lost to the jungle and the jungle's eating it. You know, eating these trees, like people were telling me that the jungle just takes stuff and then the weeds and the ferns grow over the top of it and it slowly starts to suffocate the trees and suck the life energy force out of them.

Speaker 1:

And that's my experience of parental alienation. That's what I'm witnessing in my family system and in so many family systems. And it's not that anyone is trying to do anything to me. They're just trying not to have the life sucked out of them. And it makes it so much less personal when I understand what's happening with my kids, when I understand I'm just turning here for anyone that's out there, because there's just so much beauty out here. I'm just showing up today where, in the early days of parental alienation, I thought something was going to change rapidly and monumentously.

Speaker 1:

And I will say this there's been so many people that have come through the pa program and that I've spoken to that they've been able to interject in the family system in a way that I wasn't able to because of the new resources that are available, and they haven't gone all the way into parental alienation in the way that I have. You know, so that there is hope for you, watch the videos, check out the other resources, find community and at worst case, you know, know, start to uncover a lemon grove or a fruit grove, start to peel away the stuff that's blocking it from you, start to peel away the stuff that's blocking your heart from yourself and in doing that you're going to find a lot of peace. You might not get your kids back and you might not get your grandkids back, but you will get, in my experience, more than you've given. And I don't have my two oldest kids in life, but I have a rich and meaningful life and I have a beautiful community and I continue to show up and I continue to be of service to people and I am not perpetuating parental alienation, estrangement, erasure, whatever you want to call it, anymore.

Speaker 1:

I'm being part of the solution most days and some days I get stuck in my head and some days I act like a knucklehead and some days I create harm. But I'm creating a lot less harm in everyone's life that I'm in contact with, especially my kids, and I have almost no contact. I have no contact with my oldest daughter. A tiny bit of contact with my middle daughter, but it's just she's available for a text, but we don't have any kind of communication. So it really doesn't feel like much contact at all to me and it sounds really brave that she's even willing to have any kind of contact. And I love my kids and I miss them.

Speaker 1:

And if you ever happen to watch this or you're just a kid and you're not talking to your parents or young adult adult and not talking to your parents, there's a lot of us that are doing some phenomenal work out there and that we're supporting other people in community. It might not look the way you think it should look. We might not look the way you think it should look. We might not be doing things perfectly or in a way that you think is useful, and at the same time we're trying our best and we're showing up as integrated people and we're slowly starting to change the world and we're affecting the system. The more we show up, you know and I'll say this to people that come to some meetings and leave after a meeting or two stick around, whatever the support group is, whatever the community is, stick around, sit down, listen, try to give instead of take, be part of the solution, be part of the opportunity for change, and the more of us that link hands and stay at a certain point will give us enough density where we can start to affect the system.

Speaker 1:

Right now, there's just not enough people rowing in the same direction at the same time to have consistent change. There's a lot of different silos happening in the country and in the world and until those are connected in some shape or form, systemic change is going to be incredibly, incredibly challenging. And we need to keep our candles burning and we need to do the work. And I'm hoping the show was good and the analogies were useful, because parental alienation has taken so much from me and yet I've gotten so much more in return Disproportionate amount of more in return. Again, my life is super rich. I've made friends all over the world, I can adapt myself to most any community because I've done a lot of interpersonal work and I get to be of service in this form and fashion and I get to talk about lemons and parental alienation and I get to have that creative outlet and I'm so incredibly grateful. And I'm going to move over to one other spot here and then we'll wrap up the show for today.

Speaker 1:

So check this out. Today this was all. This ground all over here is all covered with trees and weeds and there's all trees all over this old house that we're all craved in. And if you look over here I don't know, yeah, you can kind of see the tree. It's about a 200 year old lychee tree, you know, and I grew up in South Africa eating lychees. And this is like I'm getting called home to the earth over and over and over and over again.

Speaker 1:

And we're reclaiming this house from the jungle and we're going to rebuild it and must probably have someone that's wanted to contribute to community and live on the land. You know, make this their home, help us preserve, reclaim the fruit trees, the earth, the ground, and in doing that, we're sustaining the opportunity for us all to have a relationship with our children. We're sustaining an opportunity for us all to start to change, and it's profound work and like mother nature had taken this structure and it's going to sound weird but kind of brought it into her bosom and held on to it tight and loved it until it was time for it to be reclaimed. And now it's going to be revitalized into something different. And that's my children, that's me, that's my parents, that's every single human being in my life, like we're all having the opportunity to be rejuvenated, reclaimed, reminded who we are. And I have faith that this can happen in the jungle, that this can happen in my family system, that this can happen in your family system, that we can make a difference, that our kids have a chance, that our grandkids have a chance.

Speaker 1:

Get on the bandwagon man. Get on the bandwagon man. Get on the bandwagon. That's it. Love to hear from you. Familydisappeared at gmailcom. Let me know if you like this kind of content, if it's relatable, if it's a waste of time, if you prefer professionals and panels. Being on there Feels healing to me. It feels a little bit vulnerable and uncomfortable doing this, but it's super fun and I'm super curious how it's gonna translate parental alienation.

Speaker 1:

Anonymous is a free 12-step support group. That is something I highly recommend for anyone. I found 12-step support groups Jesus, over 30 years ago maybe 30, I'm getting old, 35, 36 years ago and it changed and saved my life. And I've been part of this community for a little bit over four years and it has changed and saved my life multiple times. I've been able to reach places that were so itchy that I tried with my family members, with my friends, with other groups, with other support professionals I could never reach that itch. And I've been able to reach that itch. And I've been able to reach that itch and I find myself on the big island of Hawaii reclaiming my ownership to the earth, to the ground, to more of my essence, to more of my heart. And in doing that, man, I am a great parent, I am the best parent that I've ever been, and I don't have access to my kids in the way that I would like to, and yet here I am, parenting profoundly.

Speaker 1:

So my challenge to you is how are you parenting profoundly? What are you doing today to be the best version of yourself? Comment, share, send me emails, ask questions, share some kind of story. Let me share your stuff with the community. How are you being the best parent you possibly can in the most trying situations. How are you surrendering over and over again and being of service to the larger community? What kind of changes has it made in your life and other people's lives by being in service to the larger community? Right, what can we do to make this better? And, man, that's a lot out of me.

Speaker 1:

Anyway, in case no one's told you yet today I love you, I love you, I love the ground, I love the sky. I'm really grateful. Saying I love you to complete strangers is not a year I ever had until I found community. So I started working on myself until I realized how powerful it was when someone that I didn't really know said you know what, lawrence, I love you, you're a good man, you're a good father. I'm going to end with this.

Speaker 1:

These are some of the good parent messages I learned through something called IBP, which is integrative body psychotherapy, and these are messages I give to myself when I'm not feeling great, and these are messages I'd like to give to my kids one day, because I don't know if they necessarily got them communicated in a really clear and concise way. So I love you. I'm talking to myself, I'm talking to you, I'm talking to my kids, I'm talking to the universe and these who talk to me, they are not mine. I love you, I want you. You're special to me. I hear you and I see you, and it's not what you do, but who you are that I love. That's a big one. It's not what you do, but who you are that I love. Yes, child, that's not what you do, but it's that you are another loving human being and that's what I love and I will be here for you. I will even be here for you when you die. Right, I'll be here for you. I'll even be here for you when you die. But I want you. You're special to me.

Speaker 1:

Kenny remembers which ones I said, but there's like 10 or 12 of them and I will stick that in the show notes so you can click on that. It's a wonderful thing if you're struggling to just tell you're in a child and then maybe it's stuff in a mantra, in a meditation, in a journal, something to start sending to your kids also or to the universe, even better, to start a universal healing. Thank you, love you. Hope that was good. Let me know if you liked it. Let me know if you didn't like it. Let me know if wow is appropriate. Like a lot of wows. I didn't give myself a wow, but you can give me a wow or whatever. Love you Bye.

Speaker 1:

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.