Grandparents Raising Grandchildren: Nurturing Through Adversity
A podcast that explores the heartfelt journeys of grandparents stepping into the role of primary caregivers for their grandchildren. Through weekly episodes, we uncover the diverse and often unexpected paths that lead to this profound responsibility. Featuring interviews with experts offering guidance on financial, legal, educational, and behavioral challenges, we delve into the humble, heartwarming, and sometimes surprising stories of grandparents raising grandchildren, providing insights, support, and community for those navigating this special journey.
Want to be a guest on Grandparents Raising Grandchildren: Nurturing Through Adversity? Send Laura Brazan a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/grg
Grandparents Raising Grandchildren: Nurturing Through Adversity
Connecting Mind, Brain and Heart to Foster Emotional Resilience in Parenting
Do you ever wonder why certain emotional patterns keep repeating in your family, or why reacting to your grandchild’s behavior sometimes leaves you feeling overwhelmed? Are you searching for real tools to help you build emotional resilience as a grandparent raising grandchildren through trauma and adversity? You’re not alone.
I’m Laura Brazan, and like many grandparents thrust into caregiving roles, I know the immense challenges—emotional, financial, and relational—of nurturing children who’ve experienced deep loss or upheaval. In this episode of "Grandparents Raising Grandchildren: Nurturing Through Adversity," we welcome Dr. Caroline Eich, co-founder of the Center for Heart Mind Coherence, to explore the profound connection between the mind, brain, and heart. Dr. Eich shares expert insights on how intergenerational trauma shapes our reactions, and provides practical tools—like heart-focused breathing—to help you break free from distressing cycles and foster authentic emotional regulation, both in yourself and your grandchildren.
You’ll discover how honoring your emotional experiences can pave the way for healing, resilience, and deeper family connection. Whether you’re dealing with difficult behaviors, inherited trauma, or simply searching for greater peace in your daily routines, this episode offers compassionate, science-backed guidance for every grandparent raising grandchildren.
Join our supportive community as we learn together how to rewrite your grandchildren’s future, build resilience, and nurture hope—one loving breath at a time.
Did you know that in the state of Indiana, if a grandparent has an adult child who gets angry with their parents for any reason, no matter how trivial, the adult child can deny that grandparent the ability to have ANY contact with their grandchildren? Sign the petition here. Your signature matters!
Parenting Is Too Short to Spend It Stressed.
Learn how to turn everyday moments into joyful connection — with zero guilt and zero gimmicks. Visit Parenting Harmony.
Thank you for tuning into today's episode. It's been a journey of shared stories, insights, and invaluable advice from the heart of a community that knows the beauty and challenges of raising grandchildren. Your presence and engagement mean the world to us and to grandparents everywhere stepping up in ways they never imagined.
Remember, you're not alone on this journey. For more resources, support, and stories, visit our website and follow us on our social media channels. If today's episode moved you, consider sharing it with someone who might find comfort and connection in our shared experiences.
We look forward to bringing more stories and expert advice your way next week. Until then, take care of yourselves and each other.
Want to be a guest on Grandparents Raising Grandchildren: Nurturing Through Adversity? Send Laura Brazan a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/grg
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Have you ever wondered why we do the things we do? Why certain patterns repeat in our lives? Or why we sometimes react in the. Ways we wish we hadn't? On this episode of Grandparents Raising Grandchildren, we're exploring these profound questions and more, diving deep into the powerful connection between our mind, brain and heart to cultivate true emotional resilience. With Dr. Caroline Eich, co Founder of the center for Heart Mind Coherence, Carolyn's work is dedicated to guiding people through the process of uncovering, accepting and transforming those deep seated, self defeating beliefs that shape our perceptions and emotional experiences of reality. She helps individuals, families and communities develop trust in their authentic self to heal and renew relationships. Carolyn's own journey as the first generation child of World War II survivors ignited her passion for understanding how inherited family beliefs and cultural influences shape our well being. She's witnessed countless times the powerful healing effect of devoted attention to the heart. Join us as Dr. Carolyn Eich shares her insights and practical wisdom on how understanding this powerful trifecta mind, brain and heart can empower us to navigate the complexities of parenting with greater emotional resilience and leading to more joyful and connected lives. You won't want to miss this profound conversation with Dr. Carolyn Eich coming up next on episode 69. Welcome to Grandparents Raising Nurturing through Adversity. In this podcast, we will delve deep into the challenges and and triumphs of grandparents raising grandchildren as we navigate the complexities of legal, financial and emotional support. I invite you to join us on a journey of exploring thoughts, feelings and beliefs surrounding this growing segment of our society. Drawing from real stories and expert advice, we will explore the nuances of childrearing for children who have experienced trauma and offer valuable resources to guide you through the intricate journey of kinship care. We'll discuss how we can change the course of history by rewriting our grandchildren's future, all within a supportive community that understands the unique joys and and struggles. This podcast was made especially for you. Welcome to a community where your voice is heard, your experiences are valued and your journey is honored. Welcome Carolyn to the show. Thank you Laura. So happy and honored to be with you. Carolyn, you began your career in addiction treatment, power control, insecurity, sensation, suffering and what their roles play in compulsive behaviors. You also served as Education Director for Pavilion International. You have an amazing list of diverse accolades PhD in educational policy Studies which led you to institutional processes and family backgrounds that led you to examining what these intersecting roles were. You've received a Critics Book Award, an award for teaching Excellence. You hold a PhD in Educational Policy Studies, an MA in Philosophy from Education at Loyola. I love your diverse background and how your passions have led you to doing what you do today. Let's talk about intergenerational trauma and how it can affect caregiving families, like grandparents raising grandchildren. For sure, there is the intergenerational and what we call also transgenerational. So the intergenerational has to do with how my parents raised me, how that has shaped my nervous system, and what am I now bringing into my relationship with my progeny, with my children. Right. And there are also more invisible forces of ancestors in the process. We knew that already, way back 40 years ago, 50 years ago, when we were working in the field of addiction treatment, that actually many times you see that while alcoholism showed up in one generation, it could skip a generation. And so maybe a grandfather suffered with alcoholism and then would, you know, if the grandchild now gets it, although the parent never exhibited that. So there are some mysteries that science is actually examining. We know today that there are some really terrible tests done on mice for mice. They always have to suffer for us. But they did some research where the mother was actually shocked by the trauma. And they noticed that up to four generations, I believe it was up to four generations later, the children exhibited the same anxiety without ever having been exposed to the trauma. Fascinating. Yeah. So we know that there are some. There's a force field here that work that we are just now examining. And the quantum physicists are actually helping the biologists. So there's a conversation that is starting across to understand the fields of energy that we live in. We live in ecosystems, right. And we are constantly informing one another. So in the basic sort of, you know, psych 101 dimension of it is, of course, the messages received in the ecosystem of our childhood and how that affects us. And we know, of course, that trauma is less dependent on an event and more on how the nervous system is interpreting and integrating the particular event. Now, I'm not talking about serious wartime shock trauma. My area of expertise is attachment trauma. What happens in those parental spaces, in those family spaces and school spaces. I integrated that and was very much interested in doing that because too many of my clients were actually speaking about school relations and school dynamics. So the ecosystem of one's childhood and how that shapes us. We know today, of course, that you can have. Let's just think about two people that are facing a stranger who comes at them and is smiling, and one person in their nervous system is actually has all these linkages, right? The Neurons that link together, that create a whole network of interpretation. And for them it's like, oh, friendly, safe, happy. And they respond in the time they smile back for another person, the same stranger, same smile. But for that person, it's like, oh, mistrust, not faith. What does he want from me? Right? And is more standoffish. This is just to illustrate how our nervous systems, and even among siblings can be very different in integrating messages received in the ecosystem. The part that of course interests you and me most is what is the healing then? Where does the healing come right? Because oftentimes in trauma, we are stuck in originally smart coping mechanism. If I had to go out of my body and disconnect in order to protect myself, well, that was a smart thing to do. Talk therapy and older psychological approaches always wanted to fix it. Oh, we'll get to the memory and then we'll fix it and make it go away. We know today that that can just re. Traumatize you to. We go over and over again that actually honoring the first original smart coping mechanism is the entry into a softening. And so honoring and saying, ah, numbness. We're going to honor that numbness because that numbness was your first coping mechanism, as well as, for example, anger for a child or someone. We're going to honor this anger. There's something going on. There's some kind of transgression, injustice that must have happened because anger actually signals a transgression, just like sadness and grief, right. Signal at times we simply have to decompress, be quiet, allow things to sink in. So all of these emotions that we carry, when they are loopy, we are going back to original coping mechanism. We call it being triggered, right? So when we're triggered, and so these spaces and this understanding of trauma as loopy spaces that are of the past that haven't been digested. Because when we digest something, and I mean it both in a biological and a spiritual sense, when we digest an experience, we actually then move into wisdom, into pearls of wisdom. Because then we have learned, we've gained maturity, we've gained more capacity for the distress. And so the healing, as I would call it, is actually fundamentally an act of love. That healing is an act of love, which means deep and precise attunement to what is that is. I'm not going to judge it. I'm not going to go right away and take it away. I'm going to be really, really present. And you know this because you know this every time that you have actually, you know, accepted your grand. The grandchild or accepted the human in front of you, powerless as you may have been. But that love already and that embrace and that space already heals. Now to bring it back to you, because you need that love also. Otherwise you're depleted. Right. It's the practice of noticing. And you've told me, you've just said that you are already noticing your reactivity. When you notice that reactivity, if you can notice the emotional energy that is sweeping you, and then to actually say, yeah, I see you and I honor you, you live in me. Because at some point in my life, that's what I need to do to somehow protect myself or react to whatever circumstance. So for instance, when we have something, a pattern that a child does, that makes us react and we get angry and we do that over and over and over. I'm speaking from my own experience, then we can know that there's a looping going on and it's something from our past that's reacting to what they're doing now. Exactly. You got it. Something in me is looping. And every time that that button is pressed, I react again with anger. And so this is where also the heart helps us tremendously because the latest research in neurocardiology is pretty phenomenal. It is showing how it is affecting the prefrontal cortex, the decision making space, and the brain in general. Of course. The brain, the heart, the nervous system, all of it is in constant communication. Nanoseconds. Right. But we know that the heart actually and has its own neurotransmitters and is decoding information without necessarily first referencing the prefrontal cortex. This is why many times fever, positive thinking doesn't get us out of a situation. Yes. Yeah, we may know things, we may know, oh, just think this way or whatnot. And yet there's a force somehow that overwhelms us and before we know it. Fascinating. Yes. That, that's amazing that the heart retains pain that way. Yes. And it makes sense, doesn't it? There is something. Yes, it does. Yeah. Because there is something that beyond what science is discovering, the science, Science sometimes takes a little bit longer to what practitioners and mystics and healers know, and that is that you can go across cultures, across ethnicities, across backgrounds, and everybody knows that you never say, oh, what a joyous brain. Nobody ever says that. They go to their heart. What a joyous heart. Nobody ever says, oh, what a grateful brain. Everybody knows that it's situated in the heart. Human beings know that it is sort of the clearing house of emotional energy. Now this May have scientific components, there's a polyvagal nerve that really wraps around, etc. There's a lot of neurobiology that can also explain this, but for our purposes of living a life of greater love rather than reactivity, because I've stated that healing is an act of love, that actually becoming aware of this heart and working with it in light also of the science that is showing up is an entry point to coherence, to actually bringing the biological, the emotional, the mental, the spiritual in alignment. And that then we are safe there because we're not trying to change or make an outcome. We're actually able to navigate the process. And that the idea here is not to make an emotion go away, but to actually develop the resilience to navigate its way. Because all emotions are waves, they will recede. And this is how you create emotional regulation. Exactly, exactly. It is both self regulation that then helps with co regulation in parenting. So then if I encounter and I'll model a very simple, hard, focused breath that can help self regulate that, when you do that then, and you self regulate yourself first in understanding and applying this breath list that I'll show you, then you are more likely to be open to, to communication, to co regulate. And it takes one of us to self regulate to be able to affect the nervous system of the other one. We're constantly modeling and reshaping each other's nervous system. This is the beautiful discovery of interpersonal neurobiology. Yes, it's a beautiful way of looking at it. Yes, yes, yes. And for me it's was beautiful because I love connecting the spiritual and the scientific because all of it is a broader story of our human experience. Yeah, exactly. And what just occurred to me is that when there is love between children and a parent or a grandparent, children are so resilient they're always still going back to look for the love, despite when there's been a difficult situation that's risen. Which is why these children still long for the connection with their parents, even though their parents abused them or they were neglected. Which goes back to their longing for emotional regulation. And that regulation can probably happen at any time. Yes, yes, exactly. So, so what you're. Yeah. In your own words. Because when I am aware that I am coming with some kind of guilt over something in a relationship, then what I am bringing is not an awareness of the other one, It's a seeking of alleviating my own guilt through the other one. But here we shift. I am the one to self regulate that guilt, to soften it so that then I can show up and really see the other person and be with the other person. Why do you think it's so difficult for people to do that? What is the underlying issue, do you think? Well, much of it is cultural in the sense that there's cultural norms and controls that tell you how you're supposed to be. Again, like, shame can be a very useful emotion because it tells me today not to show up in my bikini in front of you. That's a good thing that shame is doing, right? Yeah. Toxic shame. Shame that is not appropriate. That is looping right. Then constricts us. And so we are constantly recreating a path. And you know this. We're constantly recreating a path because the way that we are interpreting the world is through a loop of the past. Culturally, I believe the cultural, societal norms, which are the result of millennia of particular kind of parenting. That's why I put parenting at the vortex, at the center of everything, because society reforms from these very various understandings. And as children, we grow up believing that because our parents did that, that's what we should do. This is what we were taught. We're role modeling, in a sense. Yeah. I think there are two dimensions. You're right. The one of them is very important, the role modeling, and the other one is the rebellion against the role modeling. Yeah. So when I'm a parent, and then as I become a conscious parent, Right. I'm doing conscious parenting now, not reactive, conscious. Then I become aware. Am I doing. Am I compensating in ways that I felt bad that I did what was done to me? And so let's say if I was always oppressed and never given a voice, then now I overcompensate, and I will allow any voice to show up, even if it's disrespectful. Right. So they're both. We both mimic, but we also react and resist. Let's talk about how connecting the mind, brain and heart can foster emotional resilience for these grandparents that are raising their grandchildren. Yeah. I would highly recommend beginning a day, ending a day with moments of breath work. Because as I actually. I mean, the extraordinary thing about the human body is that my autonomic nervous system, you know, makes me free from thinking of having to breathe when I'm talking to you. But coming back to breath is coming back to the first nourishment in life. Because when we are incarnate, when we are born into this body or come out of the womb, the first thing they check is, can you breathe. Do you know how to do this? Because to be a human, you will need to know how to breathe. That is your oxygen, that is your lifeline. So this breath is a fundamental first nourishment, by the way. It's one of those nourishments it doesn't need for you to kill anything in order to be nourished. It's actually very interdependent. The trees breathe out oxygen for us and they breathe in our carbon dioxide. There's a big communication and interdependence of breath across the planet to the point that when something goes wrong, the we get sick also through breath. Covid was an example. The breath is communal and it's deeply, deeply human. But there's also the spiritual dimension all religions somehow refer to. God breathes life into man, the breath of life. So becoming aware of breath is from a biological perspective and knowing how to regulate one's breath, an amazing thing because it then regulates the heart rhythm. As the heart rhythm is regulated, the messages sent then to the prefrontal cortex, etcetera, Are more calmer. Right. So there's a whole biological thing going on here where I am actually self regulating. I'm healing myself this time consciously. I am now affecting my breath. I am the one who, through attention is shifting the way that I am breathing. And don't you think to be spiritually conscious, that's another aspect of the importance of breathing. I think when I'm in the state of fear or I'm angry, if I check in with my body and notice how I am being, I go, oh, I forgot to take a breath, or I'm not breathing deeply. So it's an important connection not only to the frontal cortex, but also to the spirit. You got it. That's exactly it. That's exactly. And that's where then you get this coherent alignment of all the dimensions of being human. And that the central focus is the heart. There's just amazing things, and it's in the center sort of our body system. So one of the things that we teach, and it was actually a breath technique that we adapted from the Heart Math Institute, but we changed it. And they know that we changed it. I told them, because they used to do breath work where they would then ask the person to imagine a happy place. And I said, listen, I myself cannot do that. And I have many clients who do not have an imagination of a happy place. So it's not going to work for us. And so the way that we adjusted and that we have actually now have used this particular technique, the last 10 years, the center, of course, has been 50 years in the field. But the center for al my coherence is now in its 11th year. It's the latest iteration of our work. But this breath is very simple. It's like you breathe through your nose, in and out. There is no breath, there's no mouth breathing. And on the breath in, and you breathe, you know, you will try to breathe a little slower than usual, but it's going to be something that every person finds their own kind of natural rhythm. The idea is you breathe through the nose, and on the breath in, you simply pay attention to the breath coming in through your nostrils. For example, expanding your rib cage. You're breathing towards your heart area on the breath in. And so you just pay attention to the breath coming in and coming towards your heart area. That can be a challenge in itself because depending on how much rumination there is, there can be interference, but we just notice. And on the breath out through the nose, you breathe out an intention which I suggest to be peace. Peace is one of the highest vibrations you can be in. When I'm at peace, there it is, right? And so again, the breath coming in towards the heart area through the nose. Breath out through the nose with the intention of peace. And a couple of these breaths will immediately send new signals to the brain. So now research has been done with children, children in refugee camps who, you know, had regression, went back to bedwetting and doing all kinds of stuff and noticed that with the application of this breathwork, bedwetting stopped. But the other thing that was really endearing is that the children themselves started going to other children to teach them how to do it. So there's an element of compassion that also arises in this breath practice. They did it also with children who were not doing well in school, couldn't think, couldn't focus, and teachers were giving up on them. High focused breathing was introduced, and within a couple of months, death stories started coming up. Why? Well, because now the brain was not flooded with signals of distress. When you have unresolved fear, anxiety, these are looping, right? And given that the heart is sending so many more messages, I mean, the brain is in, oh, distress, distress, distress. I can't focus on distress. And then when that calms down, the brain is free for creative thinking. Tell us how we can use this breathing tool every day as grandparents raising grandchildren, when those. I mean, obviously it's difficult to get into a pattern of using a new technique. What's a great way to start? How could we integrate that into our daily lives with these kids. Yeah, a simple way. So moments of communal events. So before a meal, if you all eat together, then you can just say, hey, let's try this. I just found out about this, that it helps you digest better. By the way, it will help you digest better. Because when we are in stress and distress, the one thing that shuts down is the digestive system. And so when you are able to integrate this breath work to send new signals that you're not in survival mode, you're not in distress, well, then you are going to be able to digest and integrate more of the nutrients from the food because the digestive system is free to then do its work. So I would do it at meal, I would do it at mealtime when they are smaller and depending on the receptivity of your grandchildren, I would also, well, I would begin by practicing and maybe through role modeling, morning and evening rituals. What do you call this type of breathing? What is your name for it? Heart focused breathing. I think even when we can share that with the kids and just say, hey guys, I just learned about this really cool thing and this is what it does. Actually, I find my children, anyway, when I explain them why something works, they actually want to know the science behind it. And as we practice that, we can say, see, I want you to feel your whole body, you know, your breath open up through your rib cage and then feel it move into the brain and what that does with how you feel. I think they really enjoy understanding the reasoning behind these techniques, not just saying, hey, we're going to do breathing now. I go, why? You know, why am I going to. Start doing this new thing that I've never heard of before? Exactly. So the, and the other thing is also to become an explorer, right? Become curious and explore. Because if we've been very activated or nervous, doing the breath work sometimes may not feel comfortable at the beginning. New information is being sent to the brain. The brain in survival, right, is like in distress and distress. And then it goes into the old data bank to explain the fear and whatnot. And now you're looping, you're looping into an old story. Oh, I'm not good enough. I shouldn't do this or whatever the story, right? Because now, yeah, the meaning making part that needs to give a reason for the distress is going to go and explain through old patterns, old revisited messages. So it's good to actually think of it as, hey, let's try and see how it lands in you. Yeah, let's try and See how it lands in you. This is how we do it. And let's do a couple and see how it feels. And so sometimes people will say, ah, I've been looking for this all my life. This feels so good. Other people will say, I can't catch my breath. I say, ah, okay, it's okay. We'll just slow down and do only little bits. We'll do little bits. And that is because the system, now, the nervous system is not used to this new information. We're sending new information to the system. It's used to sitting in some kind of anxiety or distress or loopiness. Patterns. Patterns, exactly. And so it's just, oh, we'll just be patient. We'll explore this. Right. And so introducing exploration. I'm glad that you're saying that they're very interested in the scientific explanations behind certain. The whys. Yeah. I think all children are very curious. And when they become set in a particular pattern, rather than resisting them. I've found Athena is especially defiant to authority. And I found the way to get through that is to prompt her about certain things. When we get to that space and say, look, notice. Notice what you're doing. Let's talk about that. Can I explain to you why I'm asking you to do this? And I will. And then she just does much better. It's part of her adhd, autism stuff. Yeah, yeah. And you know, sometimes it's okay to also say we're not sure yet why this works. So that there may be. You can tell me why. Right. Asking them maybe, or how do you feel about experiencing this? Because the other thing that is important to teach our children is that not everything has an answer and it's okay to be with the unknowing, that we could continue exploring it together. So we can say, well, we don't know yet. There's evidence that this is happening and people are reporting themselves, but science is still working on figuring it out. There's room to actually say it's okay to not know because knowing is overrated. Now we're going to have steps for everything and now we're going to categorize. So one of my beefs with my colleagues in psychology, and they know this about me, although I love them dearly and they contributed beautifully, is that the over categorization of people? And of course the categories help because they can help direct us in how to give help. It's good to know that there's such a thing as autism or ADD or whatnot. When we rely too much on categorization we lose the flexibility and softness of individual nervous systems then. And we lose curiosity. It's as if, oh, now I know what you are. This is it. We're actually not knowing is okay. So it's like softening also the human experience, because that's a very Western, inherited since the Greek times of absolute kind of duality, doing everything with the head and explained ourselves into a lot of horrific wars. Well, as a society, I think we're coming around from believing there was only normal or abnormal. And now with what we're understanding about neurodivergency is that you still may not fit into those categories. But we can encourage you that there's. Nothing wrong with you. You need to understand. I tell my granddaughter all the time, you just need to learn how to stand, how your brain works. Because we all. And this goes back to what you began talking about. We've all gone through different experiences. All of those experiences trigger us. So no two of us are the same. Exactly, exactly. And that's a beautiful thing, and it's a very compassionate thing. So that when we meet a human being, we become curious about them in new ways. Right. And begin sort of really soaking in who they are. And then it's what I call love. It's connection. Truly, it's compassion. Tell us about some of the programs that CFHMC offers. So we have one foundational workshop, which is called Inner Journey one. And in that one, we work on identifying the kind of. What I was talking about earlier loops. We look at childhood imprints, messages to some questionnaires, and other introspective work we do. And then we map out the neurologic spots, the kind of loopy things we bring to awareness, some of the loops. And as we do then, we also immediately integrate focus, breathing to work with emotion. Here's a little bit of an example of one of the tools that we offer there to practice, and that is that, let's say, an emotion, a distressing emotion shows up. That could simply be, I'm driving in the car and the guy, you know, cuts me off, and I feel frustration or anger. What we say is, do this with the emotion. You say, I see you, frustration. And then you say, I accept you. So now my clients say, are you nuts? I don't want to accept frustration. I don't want to accept anger. And so I explained that when you say that in this healing within yourself, you are accepting that part of you that got stuck. You might be 3 years old, 15 years old, 20 years old. Something is loopy. That continually enacts this frustration whenever something happens that is either unexpected or not going your way. And so as you greet that, you're actually giving permission for holding that part of you that was never seen or held or acknowledged. So in the practice of I see you, anger or whatever, fear, shame, and I accept you, and said at the beginning, it won't be. It won't be. It will be counterintuitive. But try it, experiment with it. But the most important, after you've done that, you need to follow the heart focused breathing, because you need to send new messages to the brain that you're not in survival, that you're not reactive. It's okay, we're thriving. And so you do high focus breathing right after. This is one of the tools that's the foundational. We have a deeper one where we go into practicing intuition and deepening our intuition and spiritual connections and contemplation, which is in our journey too. We also offer for counselors or people who are like you, who are actually in the field doing practitioners. You don't have to have a degree, you're a practitioner, you're doing the work there. We offer certification in our program. So we have, right now, we just started this, we have six people, one graduated. And so some of them are counselors. One of them was a doctor who was having difficulties with the mainstream medical approach. Some of them are in recovery. One of them has no background in medicine or anything, is just a practitioner. So we offer that also certification for counselors. Tell me the name of your website so that our listeners can find you. And I will also put that in the show notes. Yeah, the center for Heart Mind Coherence, it is cfhc. Before we go, can you share some stories of transformation or success from the work that you're doing with families? So in a family system, and this was a family that is also working together. And I come from that too, because we were a family in recovery, working in the field of addiction treatment. So at the beginning, we learned a lot through our own experiences. But this is a family where all the people were also working together. High profile family. One of the brothers or the son was struggling with alcoholism. And so at this point, we're no longer doing addiction treatment. But as that person sobered up, they were referred to us because we deal with core emotional addictions. We deal with the emotional loops that get, whether that's from security issues, power, control, being stuck in struggle, or fix it all, all the time. The various categories. People can see that on our, on our website. And so as that person began growing and healing and becoming aware of their own reactivities and regulating, we noticed that, and this is not unusual. Then another brother started seeing that change, didn't want to go through any processes, but was becoming aware of his own contribution to the system, to the family system. And so what happens is that we notice, and this is something also that I'm hoping scientists in particular interpersonal neurobiology, are going to be looking at more deeply. How is it that when I soften something and release something in myself, it also happens in a family member? There is something in which we are both. There's co regulation, but there's also the fact that there's some kind of energetic field that affects us all in a system. So that if there's a little bit of a domino effect, it takes one to start becoming conscious, start healing, and there's a domino effect. And now and then, of course, before you knew it, you had the whole family. The whole family was in it. The father, the mother, the four siblings, everybody got in on it. And so there is something to be said about tending to your own garden, tend to your own inner garden and emotional flowers, take care of that garden. Whatever emanates, whatever is experienced then is affecting the others. And the healing just simply continues to grow. I love that thought and I believe it's true that when we begin with ourselves and do the healing within ourselves, then that's the greatest way we can affect our families and others. Yes, absolutely. Certainly that is my lived experience. Yep. Well, Carolyn, it was really wonderful speaking with you. I learned so much and I'm sure for all the listeners as well. So thank you and I hope we'll see you on a show again. Thank you so much. It was a joy being with you. Thank you for the work you do. Bye. Bye. Thanks for joining us today for another episode of Grandparents Raising Grandchildren. Nurturing Through Adversity. I encourage you to share both your challenges and your successes with us. Your story is undoubtedly one someone else needs to hear. Submit your stories to the links provided in the podcast information. Your contributions will enrich upcoming conversations, creating a more supportive community in which we can learn and grow together. Coming up next on Grandparents Raising Grandchildren, we have an extraordinary guest whose life story is a testament to leading with heart, even when the path is anything but clear. Join us as we sit down with Lubim Kogan, a five time immigrant, a Winter Olympian, an NYU graduate, a 911 survivor, and the visionary founder of wingsforheroes.org Lubeam's journey is truly unique, spanning the demanding world of Wall street to profound humanitarian Ms. And he's here to share his insights on what it means to lead when the odds are stacked against you. For many of you grandparents out there who have stepped up to raise your grandchildren, you understand what it means to lead when there's no clear path, no external support and often no applause. Lubim's story resonates deeply with that very resilience and selfless love. He embodies the spirit of turning adversity into action and finding strength in the most challenging circumstances. Don't miss this powerful conversation with Lubeam. Next on Grandparents Raising nurturing through Adversity. Thank you for tuning in to Grandparents Raising Grandchildren Nurturing through adversity. Remember, you are not alone. Together we can find strength and hope in the face of adversity. Peace be with you. And I pray that you find some time this week to listen to your inner wisdom amongst the noise and the pandemonium of this world.
