Family Disappeared

Parental Alienation, Pre-Alienation & Rebuilding Trust with Your Kids - Episode 106

• Lawrence Joss

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In this conversation, Lawrence Joss interviews Charles McCready, a parental alienation coach, who shares his personal experiences and insights on the complexities of parental alienation. They discuss the emotional challenges faced by parents, the concept of pre-alienation, and the importance of understanding the child's perspective. The conversation emphasizes the need for parents to focus on their own healing and emotional regulation to foster trust and connection with their children. Practical strategies for preparing for interactions with children and the long-term nature of healing from alienation are also highlighted.

Key Takeaways

  • Grief and vulnerability are interconnected in parental alienation.
  • Parental alienation can begin subtly and escalate over time.
  • Understanding pre-alienation helps in recognizing early signs.
  • Children often feel caught in loyalty conflicts during alienation.
  • Emotional regulation is crucial for parents dealing with alienation.
  • Parents must focus on their healing to support their children.
  • Trust is built through consistent, safe interactions with children.
  • Preparation for meetings with children can prevent emotional triggers.
  • Healing from alienation is a long-term process requiring dedication.
  • Self-awareness and understanding of triggers are key to recovery.

Chapters

00:00 - Understanding Grief and Vulnerability
00:41 - Introduction to Parental Alienation
02:04 - The Complexity of Parental Alienation
03:56 - Personal Experiences with Alienation
05:45 - The Concept of Pre-Alienation
08:52 - Cognitive Dissonance in Children
10:02 - The Dynamics of Healing and Safety
11:58 - Navigating Emotions as a Parent
17:47 - The Nine Emotions of Alienation
22:05 - Practical Strategies for Parents
27:04 - The Importance of Continuous Healing

For more detailed information regarding Charlie McCready and the 9-step program, please click the link below:

https://charliemccready.com/

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sU40Zul0RDNDxb-Vmh0-bWkXpyRnO0qj/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JcmEUSYpt25kkBUCQP2DnmtO7bZI7Cz-/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WaClh5wrJ3AYY9cD4lnrD0aYg-wh61cJ/view?usp=sharing

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:

What is the stuff you brought with you into your adult life that you felt judged on or criticized by, that you feel vulnerable about? And when you start putting all these things together, all these insecurities and vulnerabilities, it will tell you what is going on with that word grief.

Speaker 2:

There was a time in my life when I was overwhelmed and underwater. Those days are the inspiration for this podcast. 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.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the Family Disappeared podcast. Hi, my name is Lawrence Joss and welcome to the Family Disappeared podcast. Today we have a fantastic guest. His name is Charles McCready and he's a phenomenal coach that specializes in parental alienation, has direct experience in his own life, having gone through the process, but does a really phenomenal job of coming from a compassionate place but also a place of empowerment, and has processes in place and has a nine-step model. That is just fantastic. And he's been connected with the community and a bunch of people in the community for a while and the conversation is great so many nuances and so many different things that we talk about. So I think you're really going to love the show and if you're new to the community, welcome. It's great to have you here. We have over a hundred podcasts that have already been taped, so if you're looking for stuff on different categories lawyers, therapists or just listening to panels of other parents or to other professionals like Charles, there's a bunch of stuff there. I hope you enjoy the show.

Speaker 2:

Today we do have a bunch of great resources in the show notes, including all Charles's contact information and some of the stuff we talk about in the show. We also have a free 12-step program, which is Parental Alienation Anonymous. It's a wonderful, beautiful community. It's an empowerment-based community and it's free. So come out and check that out. The information's in the show notes. It's a great place to find some support. We're also a 501c3 nonprofit. You can use any kind of support or resources that you have that you'd like to share with us, and always keep in mind when we're asking for a donation or for you to be part of helping keeping everything free.

Speaker 2:

It's really about the next person in. It's about helping that person that's in the beginning stages not have to go as far along down the rabbit hole as we are. So that's why we ask for resources. That's why we're trying to build out more programs and trainings for folks. So thank you if you're able to donate. If not and you want to volunteer, please just email us at familydisappeared, at gmailcom. And a really neat thing about this interview today is it's another person that listens to the show that said hey, lawrence, this would be a great person to interview. I've been working with them for a while and they're fantastic and that's how this resource is coming to you. So if you have any resources that you think would be great to tap into, organization a person questions for our panel of parents, please email us and let us know. And with that let's jump into the show.

Speaker 2:

Parental alienation, estrangement or ratio whatever you're talking about is so complex and so nuanced. And as I do these different interviews and I hear professionals talk about different aspects of how we show up with our kids, I sometimes have these anxious feelings come up in me, or this like fear or something, because I remember something that I've done in the past. I just want to say this like in the past, I love my kids and at the same time, I wanted my kids just to love me. And in that aspect of just wanting my kids to love me, just say, hey, dad, I love you, or whatever it was. I was coming from a place that was probably dysregulation and trying to get something from my kids that I should have been getting from somewhere else. And I mentioned this because, as I interview people and I look back on some of the instances where I just wanted a normal family life, I was showing up with my children needing something instead of just showing up as a parent.

Speaker 2:

And it's not a bad thing to show up needing something, but it also puts pressure on the kids, and in this interview with Charles, we talk a lot about trust and I can see different places where I corroded the trust, where I became part of the parental alienation which I talk about all the time, even though it's happening, and it's not me creating some of these things.

Speaker 2:

As I get this regulated, as I show up, as I maybe talk about the other parent, as I maybe get over emotional because I just want my kids to love me, I'm creating harm too and I'm helping create this inertia and energy of parental alienation that keeps pushing it too. So I think that's a really important thing and I'm just thinking about some of those instances in my life that I would do differently now, and I hope the show provides you some different tools so you don't have to quite do what I did and what other people have done. Okay, let's see what Charles has to say. So, charlie, thank you so much for coming out to have a little bit of a conversation with us today, and if you could please introduce yourself to the community and let us know a little bit about you and how you're personally directly connected to the parental alienation or estrangement or whatever in your personal life.

Speaker 1:

Well, a pleasure to meet you, Lawrence, and thank you so much for the opportunity of being here today. I really appreciate this. My name is Charlie McCready.

Speaker 1:

I'm a parental alienation coach. I'm involved in this field primarily because I've been through this personally. So I went through 10 years of what I would call pre-alienation, which was a period when I was with my ex. We were together, but she was laying down the foundations of future alienation to be. I then went through five years of full alienation a combination of alienated kids and also no contact at all for two years. And then, since then, I've been going through 10 years of continuing to enhance the relationships with my kids, but as of 10 years ago, we've had a good relationship. But this stuff scars children, even adult children. For long periods of time I've had sort of 25 years now quarter of a century of dealing with alienation personally. My role now really is to help parents to fast track the learning process and to avoid a lot of the bear traps that people typically go through because we don't have the knowledge, we don't have the understanding, and that's what we're here to talk about today.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for that, Charlie, and 25 years is a long time to be going through this and I know so many people out in the community are in different parts of a year, a month, six months, 35 years, whatever it is. But you mentioned something about pre-alienation and I'm curious how old are your kids now?

Speaker 1:

They're now 32 and 30. So the alienation began when they were 14 and 16.

Speaker 2:

And I just want to ask you this from your experience with working with people and stuff, there's like this idea that I believe for myself, alienation is something that's happening in vitro, really, really young age, and then it starts to separate and you can actually see the differences and maybe there's some kind of pivotal point that separates the family and it's full blown. And when you say pre alienation, in your experience in dealing with other parents, like this has happened in many, many, many years before it actually produces as this alienation bubble, this alienation earthquake whatever you want to call it, just accurate in your estimation.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. Pre-alienation is a phrase that I kind of feel I coined, and it can be very different in different circumstances.

Speaker 1:

So sometimes people experience a partnership with a person who is going to be an alienator in the future, who never, ever really lets you have a proper independent relationship with your kids.

Speaker 1:

So they're very protective almost from the point in time that the kids are born. So that's one form of pre-alienation. But what more people tend to experience is the alienator starts very subtly denigrating your character. They start undermining you. They start saying you don't need to listen to mum or dad's rules. They start giving the impression that they, the alienating parent, or the alienator to be, is the important parent in that relationship and very often we don't recognise what's going on because it just seems like family dynamic. You know I'm being put down a bit. It's not going to be that big a problem. But what's really going on is that there's this sort of alliance being set by the alienator and very often the alienators are well ahead of us in terms of their intentions for the future. They're thinking this relationship is going to end and when it does, I want to have the kids with me. A lot of pre-alienation can be very, very subtle and parents can just be unaware of it.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for that, charlie. That's really great to talk about the pre-alienation, because so many families experience this and they think, hey, this is just happening now, in the present moment. But every single case, or almost every single case or person that I've spoken to, there's always these, these things that are getting laid out days, weeks, months, years before In some cases in my experience, you know pre-birth also, where there's this incredible dynamic happening with the baby and the parent and you know the baby's actually taking care of the parent in some ways. Thank you for that.

Speaker 1:

I was just going to add it's very relevant as well, because one of the big surprises that happens for parents is at the point in time there's a catalyst, such as a separation between yourself and your partner. We see these what seem like very quick shifts in behavioral patterns with our kids, and it almost seems like the kids turn overnight. And that's not what's happening at all. All that's happening is that the kids have got to a point in time where they're basically experiencing there's this thing called cognitive dissonance, where they're being given one sense of reality by one parent and a different sense of reality by us, and they can't live in this twilight space of you know, two different versions of reality and these competing loyalties and they have to pick one, and they normally pick the alienator because they're more afraid of the alienator than they are of us is completely counterintuitive. But what we see is this kid suddenly becoming very different, and of course it's just.

Speaker 2:

It's been years of this background pre-alienation that's been taking place yeah, I really appreciate you naming that and labeling it and talking about pre-alienation, it's really a great term to work with because so many people are unaware of it and as they're able to track that like we'll discuss further in the show it surely helps with kind of moving through the system. And you also mentioned one other interesting thing. I think you said it's been 10 years since the really intense periods in your life and I don't know if you agree with this, but like alienation never leaves the family system. It's there. If I get connection back with my kids, alienation's there. If I don't get connection back with my kids, it's there. And it's something we have to continuously work with and evolve as a person to be able to adapt to the complexities, even when we do get our relationships back. Is that being part of your experience?

Speaker 1:

Totally, yeah, and the dynamic really there's two dynamics going on. When the kids get older, the alienator tends to move. Depends on your experience. Sometimes they can stay front and foremost and be really involved in continually actively alienating the kids. Other times they can move more into the background. As the kids get older, they get more independent. But in either instance, there's two dynamics going on.

Speaker 1:

There's what is your kid experiencing and what are they going through as a healing process, and we have to really put ourselves into our child's experience. But the other part of the dynamic is who are we as a parent? You know what are we experiencing in terms of alienation? Because it's a mind bender for us and it brings out all our own insecurities and vulnerabilities. And if we're not careful, we end up being unable to fully assist our children because we're so caught up with our own insecurities. To give an example of this, I talk about two universes. So I talk about you know, the kid and I talk about the parents, that's us.

Speaker 1:

We need to focus 100% on the kid. What are they going through? Why are they demonstrating coping mechanisms? You know, being rude, being rejectful of us, not wanting to take our advice, not sharing information with us. Those are all coping mechanisms. They're just trying to keep themselves safe.

Speaker 1:

But what our kids need from us to rebuild a relationship is to feel safe with us. So everything that we do that we focus on the kid. If they feel safe, they'll move towards us. If they don't feel safe, they'll move away from us. So if we're spending time with our kid and we get triggered, guess what? The focus shifts off the kid and it shifts onto us. When that happens, the kid will move away from us because if we're triggered, we're showing them that we're not feeling safe, that we're uncomfortable, and it automatically gets picked up by the child who goes hang on a minute.

Speaker 1:

If you're not safe, how can I feel safe? And that will push them away. And it's really subtle, this stuff. So things that we might do would be to criticize the other parent. That's going to make the kid feel unsafe. It gets more subtle again If we defend ourself. That's the same as criticizing the parent. That pushes our kid away. It gets more subtle again If you change your body language, if you change your tone of voice, if you change your facial expression. All of change your tone of voice if you change your facial expression all of those things will tell your kid that you're feeling unsafe.

Speaker 1:

It will push them away. And it gets even more subtle, which is we're electromagnetic people, which means our hearts are sending out electromagnetic messages kind of 12 to 15 feet away from us messages kind of 12 to 15 feet away from us. So if our kid picks up on our vibes this might sound a bit woo-woo but this stuff is scientifically proven. If they pick up on the vibes of what we're sending out, they will detect immediately is this person comfortable, are they uncomfortable? So even if we try to disguise the facts that we're getting triggered, our kids will often pick up on it. It's as simple as when you walk into a room full of people, you'll tell instantly if people are comfortable or if people are uncomfortable. You know are they happy or are they? You know feeling nervous about something and you'll tell the moment you walk in the room without anybody saying a word. Kids pick up on the same stuff.

Speaker 2:

I appreciate all the different nuances in that and the idea that the kid picks that up. They move away from you if they're feeling unsafe. And Is this through all ranges and ages, and does it ever end? And as your kids are adults too, like 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 years old, do you find the same dynamics happening as the kids are starting to fully develop?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I would say a lot of the time. As they become more mature, they become in many ways more sensitive to the subtleties of the way that we're behaving, because they've become more experienced in detecting this in the world around them. You have to, it's a natural skill. Young kids are very good at it as well, but older children tend to be more skilled.

Speaker 2:

I would think with younger kids it's more black or white safe, not safe. And as younger kids develop into young adults and adults they start to be able to see different shades of the world and are able to work with that differently.

Speaker 1:

Is that how it's going to happen developmentally, I guess with the younger kids, as you say, their world is a bit more black and white. It's a little bit less sophisticated. They're less aware of the ways in which they might be being manipulated and controlled. Some of the older kids can start becoming a little bit more aware. A good way of looking at parental alienation in general is just through this lens of safety.

Speaker 1:

So the people who have a propensity to alienate and this kind of builds on compassion and other things the people have a propensity to alienate. A lot of them have gone through trauma which has resulted in them developing sort of narcissistic behaviours and narcissism really it's a mental health issue. But they all do the same stuff. They tend to protect themselves from the world outside them by manipulation, coercion, control. They're basically afraid of the world around them and they tend to be quite infantile people. So they're like a little kid in an adult body who, despite all their bravado, is actually quite afraid of the world. But that's why they're doing what they're doing.

Speaker 1:

Then you look at the people who get alienated and the general thing there is we tend to be empaths, we're people pleasers, we're people fixers. We have often had an experience when we're growing up that the people who should have protected us, didn't do a great job at that. So we've ended up having to people please, you know, our parents, basically to, you know, look after us, give us the love, the care, the support that we should naturally have received. But then we take that with us out into our adult behaviors and we become, certainly in our personal relationships. We can be different in career and professional lines, but in our personal relationships we don't like conflict and we're fixing and we're people pleasing. But when you put a people pleaser in with a narcissist who's a black hole of me, me, me, me, me, it's like we are defenseless because all the things that we try to do to pacify that person doesn't work and they give nothing back to us.

Speaker 1:

So our defense mechanisms and also we don't like conflict. We become quite defenseless with these people. And then you've got the kids, and the kids are going through. You know they're being stuck in a loyalty conflict. They're being told that they have to pick one parent over another. They're being parentified, they're being given a false sense of their own importance. The whole child parent relationship shifts. But the child is just trying to keep themselves safe. So when they don't answer our texts, it's because they're trying to keep themselves safe. When they're being rude, they're trying to keep themselves safe. So when they don't answer our texts, it's because they're trying to keep themselves safe. When they're being rude, they're trying to keep themselves safe. If they don't have contact with us, it's all about them keeping themselves safe. And when you look at the world through that very simple lens, it starts becoming much easier to understand the dynamics of what the alienator is doing, why they're doing it, why we're doing what we're doing and why the kids are doing what they're doing.

Speaker 2:

That makes a lot of sense and I just want to ask you one clarifying question. I think for a lot of parents listening out there you're saying, hey, if you start to feel a little bit dysregulated, the kids start to pull away. They sense your emotions, but as a parent going through this, your emotional stuff does come up. What would be your advice to a parent? How do you show up to meet your kid at any of these ages and not actually have a human experience? That could create some dysregulation in yourself and the child?

Speaker 1:

that's a really good point. So of those three dynamics the alienator, the kid and you, the alienated parent you are the one part of that dynamic you have the most control over. You have virtually no control over what the alienator does. You've got a degree of influence over what your kid does and how you can help them. But the one person in the dynamic you can really do something about is you and, generally speaking, for us, we go through nine big emotions when we're going through alienation. So there's grief, which is our sense of loss because our child's not in our life and it's like a living bereavement. There's guilt and because we're empaths, we are very good at you know, have I done enough?

Speaker 1:

Should I be doing more? You know what else could I have done differently? And we're very self-critical, so we'll beat ourselves up. Or you know what else could I have done differently? And we're very self-critical, so we'll beat ourselves up. There's shame, because the people around us don't understand parental alienation and they will give us advice or be judgmental about the fact that our kids are not having a good relationship with us or not in our lives at all. But it really is. You know, those people should not be judging us because they don't know what they're talking about, but they make us feel shameful.

Speaker 1:

Then there's isolation, because literally the world around us doesn't get this. Our families don't get it, our friends don't get it, nobody gets it. The judges don't get it, the psychologists don't get it. It's like we're so left to our own devices. There's powerlessness, because the alienator turns everything against us. If we buy our kids a present, we're bribing them. If we don't buy our kids a present, we've abandoned them, like. Whatever we do, they'll find fault with us.

Speaker 1:

Then there's injustice, which is the whole system fails me completely or fails my children and me, you know being the courts fail us, the psychologists fail us, cps, dcf they all fail us. But injustice is also this sense of disconnect between us and our children, where we don't feel that our children know who we are. They don't understand our values. So injustice is a really big one. There's anger, which is self-explanatory. There's anxiety, which is a huge one for us, because we get caught in this world of creating all these scenarios about what's happening to my kid. Are they okay, you know? Are they suffering? Are they going to be emotionally scarred for life? Are they eating properly? Are they doing well at school? You know all these little things that we create with these anxious moments.

Speaker 1:

We live it as if it's real emotionally. So we need to be really careful about these ideas we're creating. And then there's fear. What happens is this is a conversation that starts in our head. The alienator begins. It's like we're running a marathon. They pass us this baton, they run the first hundred yards, they give us this baton. The baton's got grief, guilt, fear, anxiety written all over it and we go thanks very much, and we take that. And that baton is a looping conversation in our heads. It's the grief, it's the guilt, it's the isolation, and whatever is going on in your conscious mind is picked up by your subconscious mind because it's just a problem solver. That's what it's there for. And it goes.

Speaker 1:

Lawrence, you want me to think about grief, guilt, isolation. Give me a couple of hours, I'll get back to you. So it does. So it's now going to wake you up or it's going to give you sleepless nights. It's going to disturb you when you're doing your job, driving your car, making a meal out with your friends. Grief, guilt, isolation all pops back up again. Now you're thinking about it a second time and because you're thinking about it a second time.

Speaker 1:

it automatically goes down to your subconscious and you just loop and most alienating. Parents are stuck in this cycle where they're just thinking all these negative thoughts all the time. So you have to start consciously being aware of what you're thinking. You know what am I experiencing?

Speaker 1:

All these things, the grief, guilt, isolation they're all insecurities and vulnerabilities that we have that manifest themselves as grief and guilt and isolation. So we have to learn to unpick those symptoms and get down to the root causes and I can talk to you about how we do that. It's a bit like a bowl of spaghetti. We're in this kind of emotional turmoil and we want to pick out each strand and say grief, what's in grief? Guilt, what's in guilt? Isol. Say grief, what's in grief, guilt, what's in guilt? Isolation, what's in isolation? Then we can deal with each of those things and we can effectively heal ourselves so that when we're back with our kids it's a healed version of us that is able to then be totally focused on our kids, to help our kids through their trauma, because we dealt with ours.

Speaker 2:

So there's a long explanation, but it's it's relatively complex, this stuff yeah, it's super complex and nuanced and the nine stages are great and we will put that in the show notes for anyone out there listening. Trying to get that all down and each one of those was probably could be a show and I understand we have this play in our head and this movie going on and just like a real simple baseline, like when we're in it and we haven't done all this healing work but we're still trying to connect with our kids. What's the thing that you say to parents when they're going to go meet their child? To not create the safety gap and this distance, just as a baseline, not say anything. What do you say? Because it's such, such a again, such an emotional, tumultuous experience, yeah.

Speaker 1:

So the big thing is don't allow yourself to get triggered. I would encourage people if you're going to be meeting your child, you haven't had the opportunities to do the healing work just spend a few minutes preparing for that meeting. I would encourage envisioning techniques. Think about who is the version of me. I want to turn up for my kids today. So I want to turn up as the confident parent.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to keep things light. I'm not going to talk about alienation, but I want my kid to see that I'm in a good space. I don't want my kid to see that I'm kind of broken or I'm really struggling with this because that just guilt trips my kid broken, or I'm really struggling with this because that just guilt trips my kid. And I'm really going to focus all of my attention on what they need from me in this kind of meeting that I'm going to have with them. So I'm going to put all my efforts into not getting triggered because, as soon as I do, I'm taking my focus off them and I'm going to pay attention to what they're saying. What are they asking of me? Are they sharing information with me? So, for instance, if they're not sharing information, they're holding back. They're being reluctant to engage with me.

Speaker 1:

Try to find out where your kid is in terms of the way that they're engaging with you, and help them to try and have a greater sense of safety with you, if that makes sense.

Speaker 2:

It all makes sense and it is super complex. The most parents and even grandparents going through this just don't have the background in healing, and healing takes time and dedication and stuff like that. So, yeah, it's a super challenging, nuanced area. And to stay in your body, have a plan, have some other resources outside of your kid is great, and I think there's a lot of people out there listening like, yeah, that's great, but in reality it, you know, like I kind of like fall apart and it creates distance. It's such a complex thing. I wish there was just like one or two things besides the self-talk that people could actually use as a practical guide to prepare themselves, but it's like a really long road to be prepared and heal yourself Again that's a really good point because we basically have two kind of categories.

Speaker 1:

We got the people who have contact with their kids today and we have the people who are no contact. The people who have got contact they're in a really good position because, even though you might have children who are being difficult and fighting your boundaries and saying I hate you and all this sort of stuff, the kids are actually experiencing you. They're spending time with you. They're having an opportunity to see who you really are, rather than the version they're being told about by the alienating parent. But it also gives you an opportunity to start practicing healing yourself and then using techniques on the kids to help the kids start feeling safer. But, as you say, it's a journey. You're not going to do this in the space of, you know, a week or a month. People, this takes a few months. You can have some big impacts in the space of just a few weeks, but it's really over a few months that you start becoming much better at understanding your own emotions and being able to deal with them, so that you can then help your kid. For those people who are in no contact with their kid, the biggest mistake they make is saying when I start having contact. That's when I'll go off and I'll start learning about alienation. That's when I'll start working on my healing. And it's like that's too late If you're no contact at the moment. This is an opportunity. It's a golden opportunity to get your healing addressed now, to learn what you need to about how to help your kid now, so that when they pick up the phone unexpectedly or suddenly decide to, you know you might bump into them on the street. You're ready to go.

Speaker 1:

And the big bear trap that parents fall into is they wait until those opportunities arise. They're not prepared. They don't understand the kid's perspective. They're not healed themselves. What do they do? You know? The kid reaches out on the phone. And the kid's perspective they're not healed themselves. What do they do you know? The kid reaches out on the phone and the kid is basically sticking a toe in the water tiny toe, am I safe? And we hit them with this tsunami of. Thank god, you've seen the light. You phoned me. You understand. I'm the good parent. I was always the great parent. You know this other person's the evil one. And the kids just like hit by this wave of our issues. We wash them away. We might not hear from them again for a great deal of time.

Speaker 2:

It's just because we're not ready. I love that. Do your work now, do your work all the time. Keep doing your work. Good conversation with the kid, not conversation with the kid, not conversation with the kid like this, healing stuff is imperative. And also, from my perspective, as we're doing this healing work, it's affecting every single relationship in our life, because we're taking all these different ways we present into every relationship and as we practice in these lower level relationships, then we become more prepared to practice with our children. Would that be a fair thing to say? Oh, completely Exactly, more prepared to practice with our children, would that?

Speaker 1:

be a fair thing to say. Oh, completely Exactly, as you say, the very things that affect the way that we experience alienation, because the way we affect it is personal. You know when we're feeling secure or when we're feeling insecure. It's the same stuff that's affecting every other aspect of our life. So if we address the things that are causing us pain in our relationships of alienation, it's going to have a positive impact everywhere. Maybe it'll help if I just give an example as well of the sort of pain that I'm talking about and the healing that will help people.

Speaker 1:

So we're empaths because of the experience that we had when we were young. When it comes to us parenting our own children, what we do is we're basically trying to fix the things that went wrong in our childhood. So our parenting style is built on two things what was the stuff that was good? We repeat it. What was the stuff that wasn't good? We do 180. We try and do the opposite so that our children have a very positive, supporting, loving experience growing up. But then we marry a narcissist and what happens is that our child goes through this experience of coercion and manipulation and being put in this loyalty conflict. But then the way that we experience that because we're empaths. First of all, we feel a lot of pain for our child because we're feeling empathetic towards their experience, but what we're really feeling is I would hate to be in that situation that you know my kid is in, because that's what I'm trying to avoid so we feel our pain, which has been kind of manifested as a result of what the kid is going through. Then we feel the second chunk of pain because we feel that we're failing as a parent, because this is not what we wanted to have happen, and then we might even be reminded of a third level of pain, which is well, this is what I went through when I was a kid, so this is why this is all painful for me.

Speaker 1:

What I do with a lot of parents is I use some really simple techniques, because none of this stuff is rocket science, and I think that's a key thing, for parents Always have hope, and this stuff is actually relatively straightforward to deal with once you have the appropriate tools. I get people to look at what are the things that are triggering you. Is it reminders of my ex? Is it the way that my kid is treating me? Is it stuff I see on TV, is it other people around me who seem to be having a nice time with their kids? What are all these things? Because every single one of them will tell you what your insecurities are. Expectations huge one, let's be honest. When our kids are born, we invent stuff in our heads about what their lives are going to be like for the next 20, 30 years. And we just conjured this stuff up. But it's also often based on our own experience of childhood and what we want to create for our kids going forward.

Speaker 2:

So when we're in a situation of alienation.

Speaker 1:

what we wanted in our expectations and what's happening are completely different things. That causes us pain, but it also tells us what our insecurities and vulnerabilities are. I look at things like judgments what is the stuff you brought with you into your adult life that you felt judged on or criticized by, that you feel vulnerable about and when you?

Speaker 1:

start putting all these things together, all these insecurities and vulnerabilities. It will tell you what is going on with that word grief, what's behind it. It'll help you to understand the injustice, the isolation, the powerlessness. What am I really feeling? So this healing word, which is very broad and nebulous, actually starts becoming quite specific and very helpful, because you can then say okay, trigger number one, I'm just going to work on that, and then you can dig your way down to the root cause of it and you can address it. You can let it go.

Speaker 1:

It might not be gone immediately, but you know that's the first one out of the way. If you've got 50 triggers, you do one a week. You're a different person, you know within the space of a year I know that sounds like a long time, but in terms of really healing, that's phenomenal transformation. And at that point in time, when you're with your kid and you're looking at the pain that they're feeling, you will dissociate their pain from your pain because you can see your pain is not the same as theirs, it's not linked. When you see yourself failing as a parent, you can recognize no, I'm not failing as a parent. Failing as a parent, you can recognize. No, I'm not failing as a parent. This is actually the narcissist who's creating all these problems, and it literally starts transforming your experience, which enables you to then help your kid, because you're not feeling vulnerable oh, what a great show.

Speaker 2:

We covered so many topics. There were so many questions. I wanted to ask to follow up on different things, but we have a limited period of time, so I I think it was really wonderful all the things that we did get to touch on, and I love a couple of things that Charles brought up right around trust and creating trust. And the kids come closer as they're able to trust us more and, further away, as they feel stuff that doesn't feel good in their bodies, and really understanding what the child is going through is a place that we can start to create connection, and really understanding what's happening in the system is the place where we start to feel grounding and taking responsibility for our own recovery. Whether we have connection or don't have connection with the kids is just is so incredibly important and, again, we covered so much great stuff.

Speaker 2:

There'll be notes in the show notes if you want to read a little bit more about some of the stuff that we discussed. All Charles information will be in the show notes too, and if you have any questions or suggestions for us, please email family disappeared at gmailcom. And like share. Let us know what you think. You know we need your support in the like and in the sharing, just so we can reach a greater population. So we appreciate that. Thanks for coming out and listening to the show and for playing with us today. And in case no one's told you yet, today, I love you. I hope you're having a beautiful day and it's a beautiful part about finding myself and having a relationship with myself. I get to have relationships with other people like you, so thank you.

Speaker 2:

And we will see you around the neighborhood. 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.