Family Disappeared

Somatic Healing for Parental Alienation: Rewiring Stress Response with Vivian Meraki Part 1 - Episode 115

• Lawrence Joss

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In this conversation, Lawrence Joss interviews Vivian Marrake, a somatic trauma-informed coach, who shares her insights on somatic therapy and its transformative power in healing emotional pain, particularly in the context of parental alienation. Vivian discusses her personal journey through divorce and how somatic practices helped her reconnect with her body and emotions. The conversation emphasizes the importance of acknowledging one's feelings, building resilience, and the role of co-regulation in parenting. Vivian provides practical tools for parents to support their children in navigating their emotions and developing self-trust.

Key Takeaways

  • When someone starts to see you and hear you, it shows us that we matter.
  • Somatic therapy can be a life-changing experience.
  • The body holds our experiences and reactions before our mind does.
  • Resilience is about how quickly we return to our center.
  • Co-regulation is a powerful tool for parents.
  • It's okay for children to feel their emotions.
  • Children need to learn that they are the experts on themselves.
  • The silver bullet for healing is often within us.
  • Acknowledging our struggles is the first step to healing.
  • Building resilience involves softening and reconnecting with our bodies.

Chapters

00:00 - The Importance of Acknowledgment
02:45 - Introduction to Somatic Coaching
05:54 - Understanding Somatics
08:58 - Personal Journey to Somatic Healing
11:52 - The Power of Somatic Practices
15:05 - Navigating Parental Alienation
17:57 - Building Resilience Through Somatics
20:54 - Co-Regulation and Parenting
23:57 - Practical Tools for Parents
27:08 - Empowering Children Through Somatic Awareness
29:59 - Living the Somatic Experience

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)

Vivian Meraki's Website: https://www.vivianmeraki.com/⁩

Please donate to support PAA programs:
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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_00:

When someone starts to see you and hear you and even understand, it shows us that we matter. And the most powerful thing that we can do for ourselves is to show ourselves how much we matter, that what we're feeling matters, that we've been struggling, that we've been overcoming in many cases. And we do it because we have to. We have no other choice because we're moving through this. But at the same time, that doesn't take away from that achievement and how hard that actually is that we're actually doing the work.

SPEAKER_01:

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. And we have a doozy for you today. Really, really, really wonderful interview. And it's with Vivian Marocki, who is an expert out of Canada on somatics and somatic coaching and author and so many wonderful things in the conversation and some wonderful, wonderful stories, some incredible tools that she shares throughout the podcast. And also it's a really wonderful example of watching what it looks like from a somatic experience, keeping coming back into your body and finding yourself. And you'll see the how succinct the conversation is and how clear it is. And I think this is just a wonderful opportunity for people to understand a different kind of modality, somatic therapy, somatic coaching, and just a wonderful way that Vivian shares stories about her kids and what she's gone through with them and how she's been able to help them find themselves and their way back to their inner self so they could get out there and deal with the world in a different kind of way. And it gives me so much hope for any of us that are struggling with alienation, estrangement, erasure, whatever it is. Like these are tools that we can use. And it doesn't matter if you're a parent, if you're a previously alienated or alienated child, a young adult, everything we're talking about is kind of through the parenting lens, but it's really about the individual relationship with ourselves. And that's a lot out of me before we even start doing anything. So welcome to the show. If you're new to the community, it's great to have you here. We have over a hundred podcasts in the can. So if you're looking for stuff specific on therapists, attorneys, panels of parents talking about their experiences, everything's available. You can check out YouTube to see the different watch lists that we put together for you. And we have a free 12-step program called Parental Alienation Anonymous, which is a great place if you're looking for some community to build up some resources and also to find yourself in a way very similar to we're talking on the show. It's a way to actually build some resilience in yourself and some more capacity for this really rough time. And we're also a 501c3 nonprofit. Love your support if that feels available to you. And the support you're giving us is to help the next person, like you already have access right now. The next person that might not have all the same privilege and access that I have or you have. We want to reach those folks too. So again, thanks for coming out. Like, share, please comment. There's so much we're covering in the show that we probably could do another five shows based on some of these subjects. Let us know what you'd like us to continue talking about or not. And with that, let's jump into the show. When I was going through parental alienation in the beginning of my journey, I didn't have a language for parental alienation. I didn't have anything. I just know that my relationship with my oldest daughter wasn't there. I didn't know how to connect with her. I didn't know what was going on. I thought she would just get over what was happening. I didn't realize there was anything going on, and I was in so much pain. And I was going to talk therapists, and it was like years of talking to them, telling them my story. It wasn't really going anywhere. And I got into enough pain. A physical therapist, so a PT who was helping me with some of my chronic pain suggests that I go see a somatic therapist. And it changed my life. And everything that Vivian's talking about in the show about finding your body, finding your power, your capacity, your resilience, all these things that I learned by going to a somatic therapist, and then eventually did my own training and because I wanted to know more. Finding my body for the first time in my life is the best gift I've ever given myself or my children. So if you're listening to the show and you're really, really struggling in your lot of pain, this is a great opportunity and a great channel. Vivian would be a wonderful person to work with and offers a lot of online stuff, and there's so many different resources out there to check out too. So let's hear what Vivian has to say. So, Vivian, it's so great to have you on the show this morning. And I'd love for you to go ahead and just introduce yourself to the community and let them know a little bit about you.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so my name is Vivian Maraki. It's so nice to be on this show. And I am a certified somatic trauma-informed coach, also a best-selling author and an award-winning keynote speaker. And part of the reason I got into this work is mostly came out of my own pain. So going through my own divorce, walking through my process with my children. And at the time I felt really desperate for answers. I went through a lot of articles, journals, podcasts, books. I consumed everything I could get my hands on. And I found that not a lot was really out there that was supportive or that I found resonated with me and my family. And in the end, what I leaned into was actually my own somatic practice and my own coaching methodologies. You know, my children did sign up for child therapy, and I thought that was really beneficial. But therapy was only 50 minutes a week. And I couldn't help but think, what am I doing the rest of the time to help support them? So the work that I did is actually the book that I ended up writing, which is Parenting Through Divorce, which is really intended to support parents through the methodology that I developed, the framework, conversations, exercises, really practical things, but also rooted in somatics and coaching, and are designed in a way that really help to support you build that bond with your children. And whether you have a collaborative co-parent, or if you're parallel parenting, or if you're parenting with someone that you feel may not be the best for the children, it's all about leaning back into your own self-trust and helping to build up theirs and their critical thinking so that they start understanding what's right for them and building confidence from the inside out. So that's what I do now. And I work with a lot of clients on that, but also create a lot of content to get the word out there to talk more about these things because these are hard conversations to have and not a lot of people are having them.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you for that, Vivian. And super excited to have you on the show. And for anyone out there listening, it took us a moment to get connected here. Like video wasn't on, audio wasn't on, and then we both logged off and logged back on. And for some kind of magic, we're here today with you. And thanks for your introduction. You said a lot of stuff in there. I'd like to just start off with something super basic. You mentioned somatic a couple different kinds. Somatic a couple different times. Can you just let folks know what somatic means to you and how that manifests in your practice?

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, absolutely. So somatics, of course, is a really broad study. And the way that I often explain it is it's mind-body connection. And at the heart of it, soma, which is the root word for somatics, is Greek for the aliveness within a living organism. And what I believe is that when we connect with the body, then we get in touch with our own aliveness. And the reason that matters is because we were all designed to feel alive and to be in tune with that. And when we get in touch with the body, we start to unlock a lot more around our alignment, around what's actually right for us and the way that the body holds our own experiences and reacts sometimes before our mind does, in a way that honors us and protects us, defends us sometimes. Anyway, I could go on into the nervous system and the way that we're wired and like there's a lot of science behind this as well. But my version of somatics is a lot of getting in tune with the body, learning to become aware of what's going on in there, and then making the choices that help us stay in that alignment with ourselves.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. And my understanding of semantics is everything happens in the body and then it goes to the mind. But the way that I perceive it in Western culture, whatever, is I'm having a thought and my body's completely cut off. So what you're saying is we go back to the body because that's what the real truth is, and we learn how to track our own bodies and then we go to the thought. Is that kind of what you're saying?

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, exactly. And to get into the science just a little bit, the way that we're wired, our vagus nerve network is the nervous system that helps us support basically the part of our nervous system that is responsible for fight or flight. And so the way it's wired is that it's actually 80 to 90% from body to brain, exactly as you said. And so what that means is that most of us are trying to go through the brain to, you know, access the body and get the body under control, right? But it's actually through the body, when we're in a stress response, it's actually through the body, not the mind, that's the most effective in de-escalating and then coming back into our place where we can make those decisions, where we have full access to the brain. And that's why this work is so powerful, because actually when we go through our life, so much of what we experience is actually through the body first, not through the mind, because of the way that our nervous system is set up.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you for that. And you also said that you came to this work through your own personal experience, through your divorce and not necessarily finding any tools out there that resonated with you. In your struggle, you're struggling, you can't find anything, you're in a lot of emotional, physical, stressful pain, and then something manifests in your life that kind of like took you down this path.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I would say that I've probably been on my own path of healing for probably, you know, 25, 30 years. And initially I was really entrenched in a lot of therapy, talk therapy, different modalities. Along the way, there was a therapist that I came across. I really wanted to reopen and kind of take a look at a lot of my old experiences and traumas and things like that. That I felt like, yes, I've worked through a lot, but I know there's a lot there that may not be at the surface. And I felt that alongside the divorce and what was going on in my life at the time, that some of those things were likely having an impact in terms of the way I was being in my lived situation at the time. And it was in that work with that therapist that she happened to have a somatic practice as well. And we did some of the somatics and it just started opening so much up for me. And I had breakthrough after breakthrough. And I couldn't help but feel that wow, like this is so profound. This is so powerful. I would love to bring an aspect of this into my own coaching practice. So I actually sought out an organization. I trained in somatics, focused on it, and I actually love it so much. And the work that I do with my clients now is so potent that it's the main focus of what I do now. So I've intersected the two. I'm also an accredited ICF coach. And the somatic program I went through is actually ICF accredited as well. So it's nice that the two kind of come together. But I've brought so much of the somatics into the practice as a primary focus because I think that there's so much power and learning and insight that can happen when you start to become more and more aware of the body.

SPEAKER_01:

You mentioned ICF, which I'm not sure what that is. And also, what somatic practice did you go through? Like what was a call, or is there anything like that that you'd like to share about what that is?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So ICF is the International Coaching Federation. So they are the main body. Coaching is not regulated like doctors or therapists. There's not a licensing body, but there is a body that is a governing body that upholds codes of ethics and things like that. So that's the body that I align with.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you for that. And yeah, for anyone out there listening, like somatics for me is just kind of geek out sometimes. I'm always super curious to get a little bit deeper in the weeds. But the somatics, you start to get into your body, and as you're going through your divorce, you're starting to find like this new pathway to healing as you're working with this therapist and you go into the body. And can you give us an example as you spoke about talk therapy, which so many people are familiar with, and then moving into the somatic realm? Like, what was that main shift for you interpersonally that you could see, wow, this is super different, and I'm finding this new pathway of healing?

SPEAKER_00:

I'll give an example of something that happened, not necessarily with the therapist, but uh in my own practice that had come up. So I had been traveling with my children, I took them back to see my family. And during that time, it was right around the time that I was in a really busy time with my coaching practice. So I'd been working around the clock. Like I wanted to carve out time with my family. So during the daytime, it was all family. But then before that, on the bookend hours, I'd be up working on everything else for my business. And so, long story short, I was burning the candle at both ends, really pushing myself hard, feeling a little tired, but it felt like, you know, it's something that I was committed to continuing to carve out the time for family. But I wasn't in a place where I felt that I could let up on the business piece without basically losing a lot of the momentum that I was building at the time. And by the end of those three weeks, I was exhausted. My body started to, well, I mean, very simply, I started to get a little bit sick. I had my own trip that I was supposed to be on. And so I remember on that flight, I was thinking, oh my God, like I'm gonna be starting this trip sick. Like I can feel, and I am quite susceptible to bronchitis, or I used to be. And so that was something that had come up for me where I could feel it in my lungs. It was starting to feel heavy. That evening when I got to my hotel, I lay down on the bed and everything, like I could barely move my neck. Like everything was so stiff, my shoulders were stiff all the way down my back. And I thought, wow, like I don't want to have my whole trip be ruined by this. And so I did my own somatic practice. And for me, it's going into the body in attunement. It feels a little bit like meditation, you know, becoming really aware of where I was feeling the different things. And I started to go in towards those things and starting to unpack what's there and open them up and have basically kind of have a conversation with it through visualization and conversation. And basically what came up was this sense that, oh, my body felt that it had to armor me up to protect me from all the stress that was going on in my life at the time. And it was almost like we wish we didn't have to put the steel armor on you, but you're not taking care of you, so we feel like we have to, you know. I talk a lot about repair in my coaching work, and I also talk about in my book, and it was the first time that I did a repair with myself. And that was really opening where I said, I'm sorry that I put us through this. You know, I'm sorry that I pushed so hard. I wasn't really as conscious about limits and resting and giving that space. And I felt that I learned a lot at that time. And what was really interesting is with that repair, things started to release, and then I finished it. And the next morning, my lungs had cleared. I felt like I was at the end of a two-week bronchitis, not the start. So it didn't get any worse. In fact, it got a lot better and I could move no problem, like I always have. So I had to feel like that's like an example of how this work can be so powerful, where it can even show up physically, where things are coming up and it can manifest in different ways. I have clients where they've had chronic pain and in some of these sessions, wow, like I actually can feel it releasing and relaxing, and then the pain is gone. It doesn't mean it's gone forever. I'm not suggesting this is like a magic bullet or anything like that. But it is that there's things that we hold in the body that as we release, we give the opportunity for more healing and more release.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you. And yeah, and I love the idea in the hotel room, the body's locking up and we automatically go look for a pill for a solution, and you just came back to your body, tracked what was happening, your body started repairing and actually loving yourself and taking care of yourself, and it shifted. And I think that gets to the base of the somatic, is just the body, love, acknowledging, and then it opens up energy within the body, like you're saying, and you've had the experience with your clients. And I'm gonna take this and kind of relate it back to like parental alienation, estrangement, divorce, all that kind of stuff. Because as we're going through that process, our body is going through so much stuff. And I know for most of the people that I'm talking to, it's all in the head, like they're not getting to anything like you're talking about. So if we just dull it down a little bit and you're going through divorce and you're in this place of separating from someone and you're trying to figure out how to navigate it and what does closure look like? How do I move from this divorce to whatever my new life is or relationships with the kids? Like if we're taking a real basic with a parent or even a child that's disconnecting from a parent and they're trying to do that separation, like how does that show up in the body? How would you work with someone in that initial stage?

SPEAKER_00:

Before we go on, I just want to say how hard it is. You know, going through a divorce and just acknowledging how hard it is. And I think that's actually the first thing that I say to a lot of my clients and parents is let's just take a moment and acknowledge how hard it is and what you've been through already. Because we don't often, and so much of the time we look, oh, like we're going through it, we go through it because we have to, but we don't often give ourselves credit in terms of how much we're actually holding and how much we've been through. And to start getting into the answer to your question, because we're going through so much, our body's actually holding a lot for us. And then the stress mounts and then it starts. And so oftentimes as we go through that with the acknowledgement, sometimes that's already enough to start to release and go, oh yeah, you know, taking that pause, I have been going through a lot. And it means so much to have someone validate and see it as well. And then there's this idea that when someone starts to see you and hear you and even understand, it shows us that we matter. And the most powerful thing that we can do for ourselves is to show ourselves how much we matter, that what we're feeling matters, that we've been struggling, that we've been overcoming in many cases. And we do it because we have to, we have no other choice because we're moving through this. But at the same time, that doesn't take away from that achievement and how hard that actually is that we're actually doing the work, you know. So I think that's the first thing. And then from there, what I take my clients through is a process of understanding their goals. Like, what's the ideal situation that we want on the other side of this? What do we think is possible? What do we would think we want for ourselves? And what do we want for our children? And that's a place that we build from. Now, recognizing also that oftentimes in cases of parental alienation is complex. There's a lot that's out of our control. So, what are we looking to build for ourselves that is almost like the best case scenario within the context of everything going on and understanding where that is? And that building is actually from a place not of the mind, not the mental goals, but actually from the body. Because what's really interesting is that when we start to tap into the body, what the body wants for us is really different, yet similar. So, as an example, oftentimes when we first start, it might look like, you know, I'd love to be able to have civil conversations with my co-parent. I'd like to have a job that helps us support me through this and I can make my mortgage payments. Eventually, I'd even love to be able to take my kids on vacation, you know, several times a year. I'd like to have a really good relationship with them. Like it kind of builds from there and it might get into a really beautiful picture in the future of what that is. When we start to get into the body in terms of the goals and the somatic side of things, what the body wants for us is it's not that it doesn't want all those things, but instead what it starts to whisper and say is I want freedom, I want peace, I want connection, I want love. And that's the place that we start building from. And as we start to build from that place, a lot of those other pieces will, you know, start to fall into place. It doesn't necessarily mean that it might come from the co-parent and it may take a while with the children simply because of what's happening, but it does start with us.

SPEAKER_01:

So uh as people are you're asking this really poignant question, like what do you want? What is your ideal? And again, we come up with a narrative and the story, and then you're coming back to the body, which you're saying is the wisdom, and I agree a hundred percent. And as people are starting to actually figure out they just want some love, they want some nurturing, they want some acknowledging of how hard it is, then you start to see people actually have a physical release and then they're able to move into like some sort of action. Is that what's happening usually in your practice?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, if I was to put in a different way, when all of these stresses are happening, especially in our social context of what we typically expect from people, we talk about resilience. And we talk about resilience in the context of how much can you withstand without breaking? And we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to not break, not show it, not sweat, et cetera, right? Even with ourselves, even if we're in a room by ourselves, how many of us have been in that room going, I should be better, I should know better, I should do better, right? Like all these things that we say to ourselves. But oftentimes what starts to happen is we harden, like we harden to our circumstance because that's a normal response. We're trying to defend and protect ourselves. So almost similar to the example I gave earlier where my body started hardening, right? Like putting the armor to protect. But actually, for me to be at my most productive self, it was actually the softening after as I was doing the repair. And so what I find with a lot of people is actually those early conversations and as we start to get into the body, it's not that we're not protecting ourselves, it's actually that we're allowing ourselves to soften and resilience starts to shift. And, you know, I spend time with every client talking about resilience. Our somatic definition of resilience is actually, in my opinion, the original intention behind the word resilience, because in Latin, resilience, the root word is resilire, and it means to recoil or to bounce back. And the somatic definition of resilience is actually how quickly you can return to your center. So it's no longer about how much can we withstand over here, but rather how quickly do we move back to our center and our place of grounding where we feel supported, we feel safe, we feel connected and whole. And then we go back out and choose how, how much, when, you know, where we want to confront the difficulty in front of us. And all of a sudden, now that gives us so much more agency, choice, and empowerment. And it gives us the capacity to start assessing for ourselves how am I doing? How much capacity do I have to deal with this right now? And if I don't have a lot of capacity, what can I help myself with to help fill up my tank, to re-resource myself, or we get help from other places, you know? And this is something we do with children as well, because children have less capacity than we do. Their developmental stages are, you know, still developing. And so they don't have the cognitive understanding. There's a lot going on there. And so helping children do the same in terms of giving them permission to not be okay, that things might be a bit messy, to create safety for them to assess, you know, what do you need right now? And you don't have to keep pushing and be strong and be brave and all those things, but rather, what do you need and how can I help support you? And it's coming from that place of safety that they can start to adjudicate for themselves, what do I need? How does this feel? And this is particularly important in parental alienation, in my belief, because uh in those cases where it's a circumstance where the other parent may be doing things, saying things, there are circumstances where it's not the other parent, but there's also circumstances where it is very much the other parent that's creating a situation of parental alienation where the child is not feeling safe with the other parent. And when we start to build up safety with our children and normalize what safety and center feels like for them, we give them more of the tools for them to assess for themselves and gut check how does this feel with me? And what it takes is one safe adult to support them and to normalize and validate them for that to strengthen. So then when they're with the other parent or with individuals where they don't feel as good with, they notice. And then it's okay, then what is that conversation? How do you continue to create that safety consistently and build them up so that they start to really lean into their own instincts, their own perception and what's right for them and what actually does feel safe for them or not, and build up that self-trust. And over time, that's something that will serve them and also is something that with parental alienation, it can also help to gradually bring them back through that consistency, through that safety, and through an understanding of this other version of resilience and what's expected of them. I know I just talked about quite a lot there.

SPEAKER_01:

There's a lot of stuff you covered. So I'm gonna come back to a couple of things that's super, super important. I love the idea of resilience and building up resilience. And traditionally, we're gonna go to a more cognitive thing or grabbing another person, another attorney, another something outside of ourselves. And you said that resilience is coming back to your center, like coming back to yourself. And for your clients, like, are there some basic things you give them that are really simple just to find that pathway back to themselves so they can even see if they're at capacity or what's actually happening?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so I have a lot of somatic practices I do with my clients. All of my clients get homework. So during the week, they do the practices on a daily basis. I really am the one that believes, and I know a lot of somatic practitioners believe the same, which is that we become what we practice. Somatics is something that we do need to practice because many of us were trained not to pay attention. We were conditioned to dissociate, ignore, or even suppress the body. And so it takes time to build up the reflexes and awareness to understand, oh, there is actually something there. I do feel something there, and then to go in and find it. So a lot of what I do with clients is supporting them through that process, different practices that help them figure out like center, you know, practices that help them to practice resilience and accessing what that resilience feels like for them, as well as, you know, obviously like some of these openings as we get into releasing some of the old patterns and old conditionings that are held in the body. And then I often will actually support in-between sessions. So there's voice note support. So we will have conversations back and forth, especially because some of these situations can be quite complex. Waiting a whole week can feel like a long time. And then I'll also do personalized guided audios to help support them in the moment sometimes, and then they'll do those, and then that'll be homework. So it's not one easy answer, it's not necessarily one practice per se. It's really unique to each person, but I'll bring in the different practices that might be supportive, depending on their circumstance and situation or what's going on for them.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, that sounds incredible and so robust. Because as you said in the beginning, you get 50 minutes with the therapist and then with a somatic person and it goes away, but you have this whole process to actually support people, give them some action items to do in the week, voice notes and stuff like that. I love that. And as we're going through this and you start to feel your body and you start to start building resilience, then I heard you say from that place you can start working with your children in a different kind of way, and you can start getting back to, oh, you don't need to be so strong. What how are you feeling? What do you need? Can you talk a little bit as you build the resilience up as a parent, how that might manifest in a conversation with your children, just as a really low base example for folks?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so I'll actually use an example from my own life. Like my daughter would have been five around this time. I'm using her because she's really young and she didn't have the vocabulary to explain. But just to illustrate how this can happen, my daughter was going through a period where initially it looked like the adjustment was really, really good. And I wasn't worried at all. But then we hit a period, especially about a year after I'd moved out of the matrimonial home, that that's when the anxiety started to hit. Almost like a realization that, oh, like this is it, like this is the new normal. Mommy and daddy are not living together anymore. And I really miss that. And she would actually communicate sometimes, I wish that daddy was here, or I wish that daddy, we lived together again. But there'd be these times where she would be so overwhelmed with circumstances and there's things going on at school and different things as well, that she would enter a phase of shutdown. There'd be a lot of meltdowns, a lot of, I don't even want to call them tantrums, but just like you could tell, like she was kind of expressing outwards. I'll say it like that. Reason I don't like labeling it as a tantrum is because for me, these things are signals in terms of what's going on with our children. And sometimes when we label things that can have this baggage, we communicate those things to them unintentionally. But anyway, that's an aside. But I'd have these conversations with her and I'd say, okay, I can see that you're having some really big feelings right now. Do you want to talk about it? Be like, no, right? Like, no. Okay, that's fine. When you're ready, I'm right here. And then she'd go in her room, maybe slam the door, and then eventually I might knock on the door, or she'd come back out. It's like, okay, so let's talk about it. Do you want a heart to heart? And by then we built up this practice of heart to heart, and she'd always nod yes, and then come sit on my lap, and then we just cuddle for a bit. And that's all it is sometimes. It's just the safety and cuddling and the co-regulation that can happen. I often say to parents, one of your most powerful tools as a parent is actually your nervous system because you can co-regulate with your child. But the key is like you almost have to gain this mastery over your own nervous system and understanding where you're at so that you're co-regulating with them. Co-regulation happens normally. Uh you don't have to do anything uniquely different, but it's an awareness that you have. Anyway, that's a whole other conversation. But in any case, in this context, we're sitting there, we're cuddling, and as she's calming down, I open the conversation. Do you want to tell me what's happening right now for you? What I see is it seems like you're really overwhelmed. Are you overwhelmed? And then she nods. And then because of that age, she doesn't necessarily have the vocabulary. So then I actually have a feelings wheel in her room. So I pull down the feelings wheels like, Do you want to point at how you're feeling? And then she point to the sad face. Oh, so that's a sad face. Yeah. You know, that must be really hard right now to feel sad. You want to tell me what that sadness feels like for you? Where do you feel it in your body? You want to put your hand there? Do you want mama to put a hand there? Sometimes yes, sometimes no, and it's fine. It's like, what do you feel there? And then I actually will sometimes do the somatic practices. At that age, it's hit and miss. Sometimes it's too much. They can't quite get it, but sometimes they can. My son consistently, probably from the time of seven, he started to really get it, and consistently we can do it. But in any case, that conversation is just allowing them to feel and creating a space that says it's okay for you to feel like this, and to validate, to say, I I understand why you would feel sad. If my friend treated me like that at school, I would also feel sad. Or if my teacher went away and there was different people every day, I would feel really unsettled because I didn't know what to expect. I'm really proud of you for doing what you did and handling that. But it's okay, and I'm glad that I'm here and we can talk about it because it must be really disarming. And so for her to even have that outlet to because what that does and what that builds is this is what I'm feeling, and then connecting the dots for them. Oh, I'm feeling sad because of this, and it's valid that I feel that. And then they start to connect the dots also in other contexts and situations, like you know, I was with someone in this case and I felt really off, like another adult or whatnot. And something that I've started doing with my children from the time like she would have been three, my son would have been, I think, six or five or six. It's this idea that just because someone is an adult does not mean that what they say is true. You get to pick because you're the expert on you. So there's a few of these kind of practices that you know we'll go through with them. And the intention is actually to build up the muscle that you can feel what you feel. And basically, we're not gonna allow someone, even if they're an adult, to gaslight you. And we start to train that muscle when they're young because even with that training, they're gonna go like it's still easy to get gaslighted or told, like, you shouldn't feel like that. So, anyway, I've got examples of those as well. But basically, like I've seen them really grow in their confidence and their empowerment. And my son's now 10 and he's untouchable, like it's pretty impressive. You know, he'll have these really negative and detrimental interactions with certain people, some adults, and he just comes home like, uh, guess what happened, mom? And then he'll tell me, and then he's like, Yeah, but you know, some people, it's nothing to do with me. It's really cool how that can happen.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow, what a great first half of the interview. There's so much information and communicated in such a clear, succinct way. I just loved what Vivian had to say, and it's really nice to see someone talking about somatics or coaching, but actually living what they're talking about. And I think that's my takeaway from the first part of this interview, is when Vivian's actually talking about somatic coaching and what it does and how it works, you can see her actually living what she's talking about, and she brings in a lot of stories about her kids. So you can actually see that it's embodied. And Vivian, like any of us, we all start in this place of pain of looking and searching for something, like she so eloquently spoke about. There wasn't anything out there when she started looking for some kind of resources, and now she's found those resources, but she actually's embodied the resources, and that gives her the ability to go out and do all these wonderful things she's doing and helping all these different people. So I really love that it actually is like, hey, the silver bullet that I'm looking for has always been inside of me, and I am that silver bullet. And if I can cultivate this different relationship with myself and bring myself back online, then everything is possible and everything can change. So thank you for the first part of the show, Vivian. Thanks for everyone for coming out and playing with us and would love to hear your comments. Please like, share, ask questions, send us emails, family disappeared at gmail.com. Let us know what you'd like to discuss. All Vivian's information will be in the show notes. And the second part of the interview is better than the first part, and there's a really great story in there, and there's also some great resources that Vivian gets to touch in and share with at the end of the show. So please come back for part two. And no one's told you yet today I love you, and I hope to see you around the neighborhood. And the only reason I can say I love you is because I've learned how to relove myself, and that's what the show is about. 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.