House of JerMar

Overcoming Toxic Relationships

• Jeanne Collins • Season 1 • Episode 28

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Growing up as the family scapegoat, Dr. Sherrie Campbell faced an uphill battle against toxic family relationships. Today, she joins us on the House of JerMar podcast to share her transformative story and the resilience it took to break free. Together, we tackle societal misconceptions around maintaining familial ties, especially when those ties are toxic. Dr. Sherrie's experiences challenge the belief that all parental relationships are inherently good, offering insights into the courage needed to advocate for one's self-worth and the healing potential of therapy and supportive communities.

In this episode, we explore the profound journey of setting boundaries and healing from past traumas, highlighting the importance of nurturing healthy relationships for ourselves and future generations. As Dr. Sherrie and I share our personal stories, we invite you to reflect on your familial relationships and the power of choosing who gets to be in your life.

On the road to self-discovery and wellness, we uncover the importance of journaling, emotional regulation, and the transformative power of positive thinking. Dr. Sherrie shares with us the healing environment that she has created in her space, demonstrating the power of wellness starting within ourselves and our surroundings.

Dr. Sherrie's Book Recommendation:
The Road Less Traveled and The People of the Lie both by M. Scott Peck

More about Dr. Sherrie:
DR. SHERRIE CAMPBELL is a licensed clinical psychologist who specializes in helping healthy people cut ties with the toxic people in their lives. She is a nationally recognized expert on family estrangement, a best selling author, TEDx Speaker, top 1% Podcast Host of the Sherapy Sessions: Cutting Toxic Family Ties, a well-known social media influencer and a regularly featured media expert.

She can be found at:
www.drsherriecampbell.com
www.facebook.com/sherriecampbellphd/
@Dr.sherrie on Instagram and TikTok
 

House of JerMar:
Learn more on our website: houseofjermar.com.

Follow us on Instagram: instagram.com/houseofjermar/

Subscribe to our YouTube Channel: youtube.com/@Houseofjermar

Read Jeanne's Book: Two Feet In: Lessons From and All-In Life

WELCOME TO OUR HOUSE!

Speaker 1:

I feel so lucky. I just feel like I have just this magical little angel baby and she wants to teach third grade and she's going to transfer to UCI soon and I just, I just feel so lucky that I had this opportunity to give what I was never given and to love in ways I was never loved and to feel things as a mother that I would always have had hope to. My mom felt about me, so I may not ever know what it feels like to have it the way that I deserved to have it, but to give it is really special. I just feel so lucky.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the House of Jermar podcast where wellness starts within.

Speaker 2:

The House of Germar is a lifestyle brand, empowering women to live all in through interior design and personal wellness. We are a destination for women ready to reimagine what is possible in their homes and lives and then create it. We are honored to have you join us on our mission to empower 1 million women to live all in. I am your host, Jean Collins, and I invite you to become inspired by this week's guest.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the House of Germar podcast where wellness starts within. I'm your host, Jean Collins, and this week's guest. We're gonna be talking about something we all can relate to. We are talking about toxic people in our lives. You might not have one in your life right now, but I guarantee you've had one in your past or you might have one in your present as well. So this week's guest is Dr Sherry Campbell. She's a licensed clinical psychologist. She specializes in helping healthy people cut ties with the toxic people in their lives. I am so excited for this conversation and, by the way, folks, Dr Sherry, her resume is so impressive. So get ready, this is going to be a great one. So welcome, Dr Sherry, to the show. Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 1:

I'm excited to be here to be here.

Speaker 2:

Oh well, thank you, and I was really excited. I got introduced to you by someone else who was a podcast guest, and so it was really exciting when we were actually talking about our combined past toxic relationships. Actually, this woman and I and she was like, oh my goodness, you need to talk to Dr Sherry.

Speaker 2:

Yeah exactly Because I was like oh, we had so much in common as we're talking about our toxic relationships, in particular with our parents and some other relationships, and she was like, if you've never spoken to Dr Sherry, you need to talk to Dr Sherry. So here we are and I am so excited, thank you. So thank you for joining. No-transcript began.

Speaker 1:

At birth. I was the family scapegoat and I was the emotional slave and janitor for the toxic family. And I was working real hard. For a long time I was the loser kid. I almost failed fifth, eighth and 10th grade. I was not thriving. I was a very sensitive, intuitive child and could not not see the truth. There are nine marriages between my parents. That's cute, but I was the one that made the family bad somehow. So I must have been very magical to have that kind of power as a child, but what I did is I couldn't cope and thrive through the change and my mirroring of that didn't land well. And I have a sibling who's a golden child and I feel far more sorry for him than myself now because I got out. The scapegoat gets out.

Speaker 1:

So I ended up in therapy because my mom's best friend told her she thought I needed it. My mom, being the good image keeper, put me in therapy and that started the real downfall of everything, because I was recognizing I was always in alignment with the truth that my inability to do well in school was that I was not being taken care of at home. So if they didn't care about me, I didn't care about me Like who cares? How old were you when you started therapy? How old were?

Speaker 2:

you.

Speaker 1:

I was 15 and I went from 15 to 21 with the same therapist dealt with an eating disorder anorexia. Through that time, thank God, I'm afraid to vomit. I'd actually rather be stabbed in the face. It's the scariest thing ever. So, but I was very willful.

Speaker 1:

But of course, you know, when you're 15 to 21, your prefrontal cortex is shut down, so you can do a lot of things at that age that I could never do today. But on some level it gave me an anchor. It robbed my mother of her ability to make me bad, so food became the new authority in my life and I had control over that food so I could be good. So I don't recommend it, but it was in some crazy way helpful for me. And then I got to college and I started studying human development and family studies. I found it far more interesting than actual psychology and I just started thriving.

Speaker 1:

But the grieving that I went through in college was pretty insane. I mean, I think that in today's world of labeling and mental health they probably would have put me on medication. I'm very glad that I didn't do that. I think I just needed to cry a lot. Then I went through the PhD. I went through all of the education. I went all the way with my success getting me more and more abused. Really, yes, and I thought, if I keep succeeding, then one of these days they're going to be like you know what? She's auditioned for her entire life, like she's got a PhD. Now we're going to Right she's a rock star Thumbs up, we actually like her.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it turned into well, you're the shrink, I guess you know everything. Oh, wow. So it turned into that for my mother and I had my own child and I'm finishing the PhD married the wrong person. So I went through a lot. By midlife I couldn't take any more. But I was lucky in that the game in my family was to actually cut me off and silence me into hell and purgatory until I'd fix it. And this time I didn't. And now I'm eight years free of these abusers.

Speaker 1:

And so the books. I never intended to write a book ever. I wanted to hide out as a little introvert in my office and just stay there. But the books came. They were gifted to me. I feel like they kind of came through me, and then I was like gosh, if I publish one of these, I'm going to get stoned off the earth.

Speaker 1:

Yes, because there's this theory out there that all parents are good, and it took me 10 years of having a TED Talk on a vision board to end up on that stage. And in my year, 150,000 people applied and only 100 speakers were chosen. And the title of my TED Talk is Not All Parents Are Good. Yes, so it was really wonderful to get this on the stage, and each TED place has a theme for their talks and ours was disrupt, so I got cut off and I didn't mend the fence and then I started writing my books and I can just tell anyone who's listening that my healing could really not begin until those ties had been severed, because even when I tried low contact or even cordial contact, just one drip of that poison would make me depressed for two weeks.

Speaker 1:

And there's a lot of experts out there that just want to promote. You know, you need to accept your parents for who they are. You need to love them. Well, you know what? There were five cases in the last two years where children were testifying against their parents for murder. Crazy, so that's what it takes. I don't think so, because there's emotional homicide and there's emotional rape and there are parents who do this to their children, and we have rights. So that is my career story and that is so true this to their children, and we have rights.

Speaker 2:

So that is my career story and that is so true. All right, I have so many questions. Let's go back to the TEDx talk or TED talk, because it takes so much courage, first of all, to get on that stage and, second of all, the reach of that audience is so big that you have no idea where it's going to go, and that's the advantage for those of us that want to be speakers. You're like that's the upside you have no idea where it's going to go. But when you're talking about a subject like yours, which could be very controversial, were you afraid of what was going to happen to you if you got out and really spoke about that in such a public forum?

Speaker 1:

Horrified. In fact, I went blank. I can see it. I just kept talking. I just kept talking like, oh my God, oh my God, I'm going to have to stop Like I literally went completely blank To my surprise and Ted does a lot of you know, editing, sound and stuff but I was getting so much positive feedback. Really it was unbelievable. I really hoped I'd get a thousand views to it. I didn't expect a topic like mine to go viral or anything like that, because it just ruffles too many feathers. I'm at close to 140,000 views.

Speaker 2:

It's amazing.

Speaker 1:

The average talk gets about 300 views. I wanted to just go in and just be reality with me and recognize that my topic was going to make people angry or upset or whatever. But the bottom line is just not all parents are good and there's not all parents are bad, and I say it in the talk. I mean we see good parents all around us. I'm a very good parent, but I didn't have one and I shouldn't be imprisoned for my life to these people who abuse me. And I do think there's emotionally immature parents, but I had sadistic parents, so it's offensive to someone like me when people say I know but it's your mom.

Speaker 2:

But Right, I know, but yeah.

Speaker 1:

I had asked for a sign because it wasn't getting put out there and I'm like I just need a sign. I just want a sign. So my maternal a sign. So my maternal grandmother. I've always wondered like, does she support my work, I mean, you know. So I asked for an owl by the end of the day. Okay, and this, I have a new puppy, a glass shattered. And I'm telling my daughter, come get the puppy. And she goes hey, mom, is this the mug, the mug that this certain family member gave you, not my grandmother? And I said I don't know, let me see. And it was owls, and one owl was perfectly carved out that I now have in my office, wow, so it still wasn't going, wasn't going. I was just so scared, I put so much of my heart into that. And then someone called me and said it's been published. And it was published on my mother's birthday.

Speaker 2:

Whoa, oh, I literally have goosebumps by that story. Goosebumps, yeah, you're like, this is the universe and it is talking Anyone who doesn't believe or have faith in some form of universe. Here it is, folks.

Speaker 1:

So for me, more than the talk, because I did go blank, so I didn't feel like I did my best because I was so scared and there's this big clock counting you down and it's all timed and you know I'm great live. But just to memorize something was so hard and it was one of the scariest things I've ever done and that I got the owl, and then it was published on her birthday. I mean it couldn't have just been a bigger sign that this message needs to be in the world, and maybe that's why it's getting all these views right? So I'm not here to harm anyone. I don't hate my parents, but I don't like them and I don't respect them because they're abusive.

Speaker 2:

And you don't have to like them. I think that's part of your message. Is this concept that we have as a society that we have to accept being treated a certain way by people just because they're family or you know well, of course you need to do that. That's your mother, they're your parents, and why? Why do we have to subject ourselves to abuse of which we would never accept it from someone else? So if you had been married to someone who treated you that way, your girlfriends would tell you get out, go, run, run as fast as you can. From someone who treats you like that, you deserve more, you're worthy of more. But when you put the family label on it, all of a sudden I don't know why, but the expectations change and that doesn't seem fair.

Speaker 1:

And it's the worst, only from child to parent, correct? Yes, parents can cut their children off at whim. I was cut off every other week in my childhood, in silence, and that was considered tough love or it was considered I deserved it. Siblings cannot have relationships and people may not like that, but other people be like oh yeah, I get it. So parents can do it, siblings can do it, but you cannot do it if you're the child. Okay, but here's, let's just look at this for a minute. Parents don't need children. They don't need them, right, they're not dependent, they're adults. Right, they're not dependent, they're adults. They have resources, they have money. They don't need them, they choose them. And then, if they don't choose them and they have one, they still have resources. What resources does a fetus have? I don't walk like a baby horse on my first day, right?

Speaker 2:

You're dependent on them until you're not, until you get to the age. For at least 18 years, exactly Right. Yeah, that's a long time.

Speaker 1:

It's a long time to be abused. So we can cut off in every direction in any other relationship. But if a child cuts ties with their parents, it is an evil child because their parents meant well and provided them food, home and shelter.

Speaker 2:

But not always, but not always either.

Speaker 1:

And not always, Not always, but at the very least they provide food, home and shelter. You know, there's a scene in a movie called Lady Bird where the mother is just as toxic as they get and she comes out with a pad. She's like how much do I owe you for raising me? Like I'll just pay you back Because I can't. You get financially abused, emotionally abused. Everything is a game. Everything, every resource they have is used to keep you in a cage, Right and under their rule, and it is insane.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, when did you realize that? At what age did you realize that how you were being treated was wrong and that it wasn't you, it was them?

Speaker 1:

I'm still working on that when you're the scapegoat from birth, and I think it's simply because my mom just doesn't like women in general. I was competition, probably from very young, and my sibling is not a girl, so she really did a number on me because her abuse was so much more of like a mother Gothel style. Yeah, now look at this beautiful woman in the mirror. Oops, you're here too.

Speaker 2:

You're like, wow, what's that?

Speaker 1:

mean that's felt mean to them but no one else thinks that's okay. Maybe I'm insane, um, or she'd say horrible things in public and I and everyone else, I imagine, would have a reaction, but then they would say you know what, sherry, she, just it came out wrong, she, there's no way she made it right.

Speaker 1:

So I was never. I was always questioning my reality. So I think, having a child and feeling this incredible love for this child that I had, and when my mom or dad would be around my child, I felt like they were going to get her dirty, like I had this really weird maternal. I didn't want them to hold her, I didn't really want their presence around her and I thought that was really interesting. But it started to be very clear to me, like my mom said to me once, london is just such a good girl and she's such an easy kid and you know, some kids are just a lot easier to raise than other kids implying that you were not that kid.

Speaker 1:

She's like I was ready to sell you on a corner for 25 cents or best offer. Oh my.

Speaker 2:

Okay, Okay. For someone as a parent to say that about their child and not think that that type of statement has such a deep impact of making you feel unworthy and of no value, that's just like that one, even if that's the worst thing she ever said to you that I know this from my own family that sticks. And then when they do that again and again, and again and again, I can only imagine how hard it is to dig out from that and find you and find your voice and find your worthiness.

Speaker 1:

I was midlife before any of that happened. I had to get out. Yeah, I had to fight my way out, and I had to do that with no confidence, no self-worth, a new baby and a divorce. No self-worth, a new baby and a divorce. She wants my life to be as hard as it can possibly be and she will contribute to that the most when I'm suffering. So that's how she is. I can't explain her insanity. Understanding her has never changed her. Forgiving her has never bettered her. It's only put me into the line of deeper abuse. I truly think that she's relieved that you've cut her out Absolutely, because at some point all along the way she enjoyed losing respect for me for sport, like any bully, right.

Speaker 1:

But she was naive to the idea that because she owned me, she gave me life, that I could ever actually stand for myself. So when she cut me off because she followed the wrong car to a restaurant and I had my first nice car, that's not okay if I have nice things. So she turned it into this all out assassination of my character. Because she just followed the wrong white car to a restaurant. She just followed the wrong white car to a restaurant. Okay, it was cute and I was just cut off and I was confused.

Speaker 1:

But then she tried to reach out to my ex-husband to develop a relationship with this man that she hated, didn't speak to for 10 years, to have a relationship with my daughter behind my back, without my permission. So not today, satan. Not today, not doing it. So it's been eight and a half years. She still sends flying monkeys here and there to me, especially if I'm on a very famous person's show and this is being talked about. It's really not her, it's me and my journey and my healing. Again, I don't write my books to hurt her, because I'm not thinking about her when I write. I'm thinking about how I overcame her Sure and what I've done.

Speaker 1:

But she's irritated that she doesn't get to see my emotional carcass laying at her feet anymore, and so my healing took midlife. I was trying to heal. I've been in therapy for most of my life trying to heal, but I never dreamed of a day that this would be my life either. Right, I was in therapy trying to be a better daughter, right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Right, right, but now I feel like your focus is on you trying to be a better human and sharing your lessons with others so that they feel that they can become better humans as well.

Speaker 1:

I'm no longer a scapegoat. I'm a cycle breaker, I'm a superhero.

Speaker 2:

Right. Because that's what that takes, which is powerful. Now, how old is your daughter? Now she's going to be 20. Okay, and what does she think of this? Because she's definitely old enough to understand this.

Speaker 1:

Well, I married my mom, so I did that too.

Speaker 2:

Isn't that fun when you do that. It's amazing when you wake up and you realize how did I do that? And people said to me and you tell me if they said this to you. People said to me how did you never see that?

Speaker 1:

I'm like I don't know.

Speaker 2:

Until I saw it.

Speaker 1:

And then when I saw, it.

Speaker 2:

I was like oh no, I can't unsee, right, yeah, right, but I didn't see it until I did. Were you the same? You didn't see until you did. No, I didn't.

Speaker 1:

And when I did, I was like, oh God, oh no, this is not good, right, but really it wasn't good for her. I couldn't have her in that environment. Like my mother, he's very neglectful. So she stopped seeing him at 14, her choice. She wrote a letter to his therapist. She wrote a letter and this whole package she sent there and he told the therapist to ignore her. So we found that out a bit later and that's his choice and he can go live his life the way he wants it. But so she'll probably have some daddy issues, but she and I have I you know I'm a single mom and I mean I have a partner.

Speaker 1:

I've been with my boyfriend for eight years but we're raising kids in two different counties and I wouldn't have it any other way. I feel so lucky. I just feel like I have just this magical little angel baby and she wants to teach third grade and she's going to transfer to UCI soon and I just, I just feel so lucky that I had this opportunity to give what I was never given and to love in ways I was never loved and to feel things as a mother that I would always have had hoped my mom felt about me, so I may not ever know what it feels like to have it the way that I deserved to have it, but to give it is really special.

Speaker 2:

I just feel so lucky. It is an amazing gift, right when you can feel like you've you've changed the path of history and been able to experience that relationship of parent and child in a different way.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, when I got off the stage of the TED Talk I'm actually very clumsy and there was like this little step and so someone walked us down the step and walked us back up the step and she was like, oh my God, mom, I was so worried You're going to wipe out, because now you are. You know what I'm like, god I know. But when I got down to see her face makes me teary, watch me do that and I got to her and she's like mama, you did so good, she goes. Mama. Everyone was like mumbling and they weren't doing that for anyone else. Mama, it was so good and uh, and to have her there for that moment when I did that has, I think, helped my daughter have her voice with her dad. She asked me to start therapy, so she started therapy.

Speaker 1:

I just feel so lucky and maybe she's my gift for all the trauma. You know, because not only were my parents toxic, but there were nine marriages between them and so many bad things happened, so many awful situations I was put in so many situations I should have never seen. I was thrown into the middle of affairs and having to go see lawyers about affairs and divorces that weren't mine. I had to be the adult, the best friend, all the while I'm the enemy. So there was just so much parentification that happened to me and I haven't really even started that journey in my own healing because there's just so much Right and they didn't marry healthy people. So let's just look at it that way Right, right.

Speaker 2:

Well, congratulations to you for being in a relationship for eight years with someone else. That's a long time. I haven't made it to that mark Long time. Maybe we should just live together. Maybe we should just live next door.

Speaker 1:

I know people who do that who are in their 50s, like me, who?

Speaker 2:

do that. They live around the corner from each other. 50s like me who do that.

Speaker 1:

They live around the corner from each other. I need a she shed. I need a tiny home. I need a she shed in the back, so I will need that kind of space someday when we combine lives but we do. He has two boys and I have my daughter and we have a cute little family. It's really great because his ex-wife is just a whole other experience and we're lucky because we each kind of provide a friendship and a mentorship for the other's children that they don't get from their own parents. So we're really lucky that is. That's a good gift.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so let's switch gears for a second to your practice. And why do people come to you for help? And how do people come to you for help?

Speaker 1:

I have a waiting list that, if you know, I have to try and keep it shorter than it is because it's so overwhelming. People come to me that are healthy and broken, who want to figure out how to have relationships with their toxic family members. I don't ever encourage no contact, but I absolutely support it, and there's a big difference between that. I get a lot of hate because of the no contact theory, but I don't care. They're not living in my life, but what they tend to find is we try to differentiate. Is your parent unconscious and emotionally immature, or is your parent calculated evil and wanting for your destruction? Because if it's that it's very interesting the only way out is no contact. That's it. Nothing else works, and the large majority of them that come into me find that they have the parent that is calculated evil and wanting for their destruction.

Speaker 2:

That is such an interesting thought, but also so hurtful as that child realizing that, because I think we're conditioned to think that our parents always have the best of intentions as parents and having to come to that reality that that might not be true is very hard to come to terms with.

Speaker 1:

When I realized it was, you know, after the white car incident, I kept waiting for repair because it was such a ridiculous thing. And I realized and I was looking at my daughter she was 11 and I was looking at her and I realized my parents would rather die than just say any variation of the following three word sentences I am sorry, or you were right or I was wrong. I've never seen any of those statements harm a relationship in my life. I've seen tremendous repair come out of those statements and my parents and sibling would rather die than say those words and see myself or my beautiful daughter ever again. And that was like swallowing sand that hurt my soul to recognize that they would curry that kind of favor to their ego because they saw me as weak and they saw me as broken and they never thought they'd see the day that I wouldn't be. So shame on them. Jokes on you, because as soon as you went away I found myself.

Speaker 2:

Right, then you got stronger, right Then you found your true self and then you were able to start the healing. And I think you had said this and I can see, as you're explaining it, that it is almost impossible to heal when you are in it, and it's not until you can step away from it and get some perspective, like just the three things that you said. I was so curious to hear the three things you were going to say and I found it interesting because none of them are I love you, which is what you expect your parents to want to say, or even I like you. I was surprised and you didn't say those things. The things that you said, I would have never thought of those things, but when you put them in that framework, it's very different. Yes, I was hated.

Speaker 2:

She hates me, and she has always hated me, which is so hard to understand. As a parent, I can't even begin to understand that.

Speaker 1:

I love my daughter more than anything in the world. I can't even imagine especially because you're not an evil human light up when one sibling would walk in and then I'd walk in and it would be like she'd have to say a freaking word, I would get that Right.

Speaker 1:

She made me feel just so unwelcomed in my own life.

Speaker 1:

Yep, and it's because I had reactions to the abandonment, you know, and my sibling could pawn his stuff off into athletics or other things and as great of an athlete as I was, I couldn't put my I don't. I'm not one who can take my heart and put it somewhere else and just put it aside, and I think that my brain, as a woman, I have more gray matter, I experience more negativity and I use both sides of my brain and maybe that's just easier for boys, but it's like being in a cult. There's a uniform way of thinking and you have to think that way. But for me, no matter how hard I tried to think that way, I couldn't think that way Right, and I did think I was very bad because of that and I would get very angry and enraged at her as a teenager because she was so mean to me and she would do it passive, aggressive, and then it would just light me up and then she'd call me an abuser and I did yell. So I really thought I was an abuser.

Speaker 2:

Right Until you get to the other side. Yeah, so when people come to you for help, do you feel like you have to relive your childhood because you're listening to their stories, or does it bring you a lot of peace because you can help them?

Speaker 1:

It just brings me gratitude that I can help them. The reason it doesn't get under my skin is is do you ever see stranger things? I was raised in the upside down Right, so when I see other upside downs I'm like, oh my God, down Right. So when I see other upside downs, I'm like, oh my God, upside downs, upside downs, unite. You know, I feel less alone. I feel like there's at least for them, there's my footprints in the snow, making them a trail up the mountain. I was doing it blind and deaf and mute and everything. I just was doing it by myself. But I love seeing my other upside downers because they understand the language I speak.

Speaker 1:

Like, my partner is not an upside downer. That's probably good. There are parts of him. There's a gap between us, yes, and there are parts of being in the right side up. Now that too, I'm like hmm, that's not the best, because if you're securely attached and love is always there, imagine if you always had money and you knew that you would always have money. You're a nepo, baby or something right.

Speaker 1:

I think there's a negative effect to some of that. Like one, you don't appreciate money. You maybe won't work hard for money. Sure, you know, like he's had to grow a lot because he's never really had any trauma, um, and there are times that I'm like, oh my God, the sensitivity chip is just missing. That's where you get into sort of like the unconscious. He just doesn't know, and he's grown a tremendous amount. So I think it's interesting that I have a right side upper and I would kind of want that, because I think if I had another upside down or it might just be very dark, yeah, and he's very fun and there's a lot of fun and happy and we go places and I see new things and you know he takes really good care of me and he loves my daughter and you know, and sometimes I'm sad there's this emotional gap, but then in other times I'm like I do this thing every day, all day, 40 hours a week.

Speaker 2:

It's probably good. Yeah right, it's good to have a little different energy than all the people you interact with every day. It really is.

Speaker 1:

And it's just nice kind of just not a lot of depth in some spaces, right, and that's okay. But what I do love about my practice is I do celebrate my little when we grew up in the upside down world, like I know, right, Right, Cause you try to see this stuff in the right side up world and people are like there's no way a parent would do that. So I, I guess I feel excited and I feel I feel like I I get to be so grateful that I get to see someone like me, and they get to see someone like me and I'm going to have answers for them, and I just feel thankful and I love that.

Speaker 2:

you said you feel grateful. Yeah, I really do. Well, and I also talk about I talk about this a lot when I talk, reminding people that you know life. I always say life experience is your most powerful educator. People that you know life, I always say life experience is your most powerful educator. And I say to people you know, if you're one year as an entrepreneur, you're one year ahead of somebody who hasn't even started yet. And so one of the gifts that you can give to people, even though you're still a work in progress we're all a work in progress is that you are farther along than people who are coming to you, and so it gives them so much hope and inspiration as to where they could get to and where they could be. And then they, as they build a relationship with you, they see you continuing to work and continuing to grow and continuing to get stronger, which is inspiring.

Speaker 1:

And I think that they see that I'm actually genuinely happy.

Speaker 2:

That's nice.

Speaker 1:

You know, I remember this girl in high school and I would watch her and I went to a very small I grew up in a very small ski town, so it's like 60 kids in my grade and I remember seeing her laughing, genuinely laughing, and I looked at her and I was like I don't have any of that, like I don't even what she's feeling right now. I've never, ever felt. Yeah, I chose attachment over authenticity because I didn't want to lose my family. I didn't want to lose my family, I didn't want to be all alone, but I recognized at some point I was always all alone in that family. The only difference now is the volume has turned down, but I was always alone.

Speaker 1:

But it took me until midlife and I think something happens in midlife, especially with women. I feel like around 40, I had just a major upgrade or some kind of a download, and I started to feel like this different perspective, instead of birth to life that would be unending, it kind of became more like life to death. And then I had this beautiful daughter and I just didn't want to live the second half in as much pain and confusion as I did the first half, and now I had all kinds of resources and I was financially independent and I've been cut out and cast out of every will. They won't give my daughter the education money left for her by my grandmother. It's disgusting.

Speaker 1:

So they wanted to starve me back, not love me back. They wanted to bully me back, not love me back. So none of that. Take the money, I don't care. Take the money. And then once I had those resources, I had power. And I know that not everybody gets financially independent. Sometimes the cult is so thick that they haven't and that's really hard. But it was a superpower for me. Yeah, because then there was just no need and I just think something happened at 40. So by 45, it was all over.

Speaker 2:

Yeah Well, and it is an interesting perspective when you start to look at it as wow, if I'm starting the back nine at 40, right, and that's saying you're going to live to your 80, which you'd hope you'd live to your 90, but you might only live to your 75. And so it's like wow, because I think, as we're growing up, it feels like we have so much time that very often we don't deal with things because we feel like we have the benefit of time. And I do think you're right. I think something happens when you're 40, 45, where all of a sudden you start to realize that time is really starting to tick away.

Speaker 2:

And what am I going to do with what's left? And I think a lot of the listeners of this show are in that age group and they're trying to figure out what do they want their career to look like, what do they want their lives to look like? How do they want to emotionally feel, what do they want their health to be, like who's in and who's out? And because you start to realize like whoa, I need to start living for me and take control and have power, like you're saying. Have power. Have power because if not now, when?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and you know the power that I feel doesn't feel like the power that my parents had over me. It's like the abuse of power is abuse right? The power that I feel feels more like liberation. It feels more like a revolution. It feels.

Speaker 1:

Tracy Chapman sings a song called Revolution that just sings to me and my favorite poem is I Rise by Maya Angelou and I have the tattoo of it. I've got the poem, I've got all the things, because it meant so much to me and this kind of power feels very internal and personal. It's not something I want to have over anyone else. I want to help people find that inside of them I will never be their power. I can just be a guide to the power.

Speaker 1:

But I think when you have parents like mine, they want to hurt and harm and force and control and keep secrets and drive insanity into people. And I went through so much pain wondering why I wasn't able to have love, why people didn't love me. I couldn't choose a good partner, like hitting the broad side of a barn. I couldn't get one because I was constantly picking the right one. And I have all these journals.

Speaker 1:

I think journaling kept me to be honest with you very much alive. I don't know that I would be here and I'm just not putting it out there flippantly, thank God. I'm a scaredy cat because I'd be too scared to do anything that could either make me barf or make me bleed, so I don't want to do either. But I did not want to live at certain times in my life, truly just didn't want to be here. I didn't think I even deserved it and I felt like I was in everyone's way and I was everyone's problem, and I couldn't figure out why I was so bad. Yeah, and then it clicked the reason that I was so bad in my family is because I was not toxic.

Speaker 2:

I was not toxic. Right, you were different. I was different, you were different. And that doesn't make you bad. In fact, it makes you unique and it makes you special and it makes you wonderful.

Speaker 1:

And journaling allowed me and I'm going to do a play on words here, but through the writing, words here, but through the writing then I could R-I-G-H-T or correct myself back into existence. There'd be this negative narrative and I would be confused about it, buying into it. But by the end of every time I wrote I was just like I don't see what they see and I don't know why they see this in me. So I would go try, like a dumb ass, and go try to fix it with them. Like listen, I went to court, my journal and I did all the litigation and one plus one actually equals two.

Speaker 1:

And that conversation so spun like maybe one plus one does equal the square root of 27 times two squared by three. Right, like I never got heard because you go into the hamster wheel of hell when you try to communicate with these people. But I think, without the writing and writing myself back into existence and correcting the narrative on a daily basis, I have 500 journals, wow, and I can't let them go. I don't burn them, I'm actually going to leave them to my daughter when I pass, because I think it's just someone's full life story. It's real. And in my journal there was no, judge, I said it all and I don't know that I would be here without writing. I had paper parents through books, and I healed through my hands.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, which I love that, because my next question for you was going to be what do you do for your personal wellness? And journaling, to me, is one of the most powerful things. So I'm so glad that you mentioned that, because I think there's so much power in writing and just getting it out there and just letting it flow without boundaries, and you can solve so many things by just almost turning your brain off and just letting your heart go and just write, and it's, I think it's a very powerful thing.

Speaker 2:

So I'm so thankful that you actually mentioned journaling, because I'm a big fan.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, writing is huge. Exercising and getting outside are both big. I need oxygen. Yeah, and manifesting. I'm really into manifesting and knowing I have the power to create miracles. I'm starting to learn that I don't have to suffer to get a miracle. I can actually get a miracle without suffering.

Speaker 2:

Right so.

Speaker 1:

I've always only known that to get anything good I had to suffer.

Speaker 1:

So I'm learning to get out of that, running and doing some weight training and just kind of getting into my body. Because I got out of my body when I was anorexic and I kind of just turned to vapor and I was so high on hunger that I didn't even connect to my body, to the world, and it just felt so good during that period of time. So getting in my body has never felt good because there's so much anxiety in my body. So I still wake up a little wide eyed and petrified because there's a part of me that's always going to be in the upside down, you know, with demogorgons and stuff. So I do try to just be like okay, this is just that old feeling that we're used to and we're going to carry on, and so those are my wellness things and just eating right Nutrition is so important. I learned that by not having any, because whatever we feed our bodies, we feed our brains, and so I just try to do the whole person sort of wellness.

Speaker 2:

So I just try to do the whole person sort of wellness, which is important, yeah. How do you decide what to work on or what to read in terms of personal growth, personal wellness, because there's so much out there and in your profession I'm sure there are studies published daily that you can read. How do you decide what kind of content you're going to absorb?

Speaker 1:

I read. I'm kind of like a little sorcerer. I read a lot of kind of like a little sorcerer, like I read. I read a lot of stuff on manifesting. I love having magic in my life. Um, I I did a whole bunch of work to find my authentic code and one of the things of my four pillars of Sherry is just magic and sparkles and and happiness and laughter. And I'm a whole lot of Chrissy from Three's Company. Yeah, that's one of my pillars. And so, whatever I'm feeling, if I'm feeling down, I chase information on that feeling. What is this feeling? I was getting very annoyed with the emotional regulation movement because it was being interpreted as you have to you dim these emotions, right, you're going to control them. And I'm like, well, that's not, that's like they're organic, like we feel before we think I mean, that's been proven through EQ stuff, right. So I started reading on it and then I kind of came up with my own theory on emotional regulation that just fits for me better. So, like that irritation led me into some reading.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

But as, um, yeah, just temper your emotion. No, I look at it as there's a monster in my basement. Homie got woken up, so there's a trigger on the ground floor. Now I'm not grounded because homies running around making a mess in the basement. So I have to go down there, right, and I have to have a conversation with this. I'm not important monster who's running amok once out, and the person that made me feel that way, right. So I have to hear this monster out and do some work on the intersections between floors. How this person that triggered me didn't make the monster that goes to mommy and daddy, right, so he doesn't deserve the full monster. So I have to figure out what part of that emotion does this person deserve so that I'm being appropriate? So I figured that out. Now all my systems have to shut down to do this kind of work. So I figured that out. Now, all my systems have to shut down to do this kind of work. But then I control, not the emotion, I control the timing, the pace and my tone. Sure.

Speaker 2:

So when I'm angry, it's like your response and how much it hits inside and what your response and how you're going to react.

Speaker 1:

But you're not saying the emotion doesn't exist is, I think, your most important point and it exists at its full throttle of existence, you know, because those monsters are really embedded into my amygdala and hippocampal areas. Unless I get a lobotomy, that's not going to change. So I focus on the pace, the timing and my tone. So when I say my system's shut down, for example, let's say it's an issue with my boyfriend, I'll just tell him I need some space so that your head remains attached, so let me go. And you know I need to go and work on the intersections between floors. Or let's say I get mad and I get snarky. Then I'll see that reaction and I'll be like okay, I just need a minute. And that minute could take a day or two for me because I have so much trauma.

Speaker 2:

Right Sure.

Speaker 1:

So when I come back, I've learned and this is great for parenting you can. I've never yelled at my daughter, not once. You cannot yell and talk slow at the same time, unless you want to sound like Dory calling the whale, yeah Right. So I control the tone and the pace and then the timing. So I try not to react. I try to respond. If I find that I'm reacting, I try to take some space so I can come back and respond and then I just talk slow and it's just powerful because it allows me to feel the fullness of the emotion that I'm feeling. I don't think repression does any of us any good.

Speaker 1:

No no, that's kind of how I choose to read. I would say anymore in my life. I write far more than I read.

Speaker 2:

Okay, yeah, I love writing Well, and that could be why you maybe have what 10 books out A lot, I think I'm like six A lot.

Speaker 1:

It felt like a lot. You're sitting with two of them right here.

Speaker 2:

It felt like a lot. Are you working on a book right now? I am.

Speaker 1:

You are Okay? Yeah, I'm writing a workbook called Monsters in the Basement.

Speaker 2:

In the Basement. There you go. Well, your analogy. What I love about that analogy? So I can't wait for that book to come out. What I love about the analogy is I could visually see you talked about the space between the floors and I'm like, oh, that gives me something visual I can understand that. I can visually relate to and having to work on what's going on in the air in between those two. It's it just, it triggers. It triggers so many things in the brain and you're super smart.

Speaker 2:

So of course you realize this and what you're saying, and I don't have the right words for this but you're triggering, like the visualization, with the practicality, with the emotion, in very actual steps.

Speaker 1:

We need to know the location, right, Like like the outside of the inside of the house is the person and the outside is the real world. So I have a porch, a yard, a fence and a picket line yeah right, and they all are various different levels of contact, how we get there, how to manage it, because the ground floor, the whole goal, would be to be grounded. So the second and third floor is about calling on the higher mind. There's an express elevator that'll crash us into the basement. It doesn't matter how high we are, Right. So it's just those. And I think when we know someone's location, I hear my patients now, well, I had to move my mom to the fence. I'm like, now I get it.

Speaker 1:

Right so when I, when I hear this, it doesn't feel like I kicked my mom out. It's like, you know, I just had to move her to the fence and you know I have a huge picket line of I hate Sherry and the smear campaign. And you know I now feel metaphorically. I'm on my porch, I've got some fans going on in the ceiling squishy chairs, lemonade, and I'm thinking, wow, they gotta be hot. You know anyone want to go give them some lemonade? I mean either. And just watching the waste of energy that that's that smear campaign almost killed me emotionally because I lost everybody that was attached to me and they believed her, and which just is insane to me. But now that I'm not afraid of it and I see it going on, I'm like, hey, they just have to keep creating shit.

Speaker 1:

That did you hear that one, like that one isn't even true. You know, like it's just drinking my lemonade and you can be happy with that, marching along in the background as they're trying to get your neighbors against you and you know, the metaphor just makes me feel safe because home was never safe. Yeah, and I want to make home safe now. I want to make home safe.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes. So simple, yet so powerful. I can't wait for your new book.

Speaker 1:

Thank you All right.

Speaker 2:

So, speaking of home, I focus a lot on your inner wellness is also about your surroundings, and right before we joined, I made a comment about the artwork that's behind you. So can you share that artwork, because I am a comment about the artwork that's behind you. So can you share that artwork, because I am a true believer that artwork has so much energy and the importance of having certain things in your house that mean things to you.

Speaker 1:

So this is my healing room. Behind me is a love sack. Okay, yeah, and that's a womb. That's a womb, yep, because I wasn't comfortable in my womb. So this picture on the right is a woman on fire and her arms are chained and her hands are despair over her face. And now she's breaking free of the chains and she's exploding those out of her and for me, the bad thoughts in her mind are going out. And then this woman is a tree of life growing out of her back, and then here there's a woman that's walking out of. This is today.

Speaker 1:

So my past is always behind me, okay, yep, okay. So, metaphorically, I always sit in my womb. My past is behind me. Then over here there's a woman coming out of a forest with fireballs, ooh Like, oh Right. And then below her is a woman and this is all the same artist, and there's a cloud of empathy flowing down to the person who sits at this desk. And then in front of me is a woman, bare-breasted, holding the earth suspended above her hands, with wild red hair everywhere. And then to the left of me is a woman who's walking down a street and all her troubles are exploding away because she's walking through them. Sure.

Speaker 1:

Right when I sit in this room. There's a lot of just feminine energy in here, and I write in here and I create books in here, and I'm surrounded by this man who doesn't know me but who painted the story of my life Truly, and so I love being in here and it's like my sanctuary.

Speaker 2:

And I love that because that speaks to so much to what I talk about with people is that creating the energy within their own spaces that helps them grow and flourish and feel their more most authentic selves.

Speaker 1:

So that is so powerful.

Speaker 2:

Oh, dr Sherry, I could talk to you for hours. I've taken up so much of your time. So, before we go, and I'm going to put links to everything about you and your bio here and be so great and can't wait for your next book to come out, because that speaks to me so much the analogy of a house I use a lot in what I talk about. So I can't wait for that one to come out. But I always ask my guests to recommend a book that has impacted them personally or professionally that they would recommend someone read. So what I actually have two, Can?

Speaker 1:

I do two. Of course you can. Okay, I mean I have a thousand, but let's do two. I don't know. I had to read this book on every level of my education and it's called the Road Less Traveled. Oh yeah, and Scott Peck is my dead boyfriend, even though he doesn't know, but he's my dead boyfriend. So he has another book that is probably what inspired me to really put my story onto paper and it's called the People of the Lie and he evaluates evil in human beings and what it is and what toxic is, and he gives a million billion different examples, million billion different examples. And I felt like I got catapulted into the upside down to the computer room where it all works, how they all do it, why they do it, why they don't get better, why we can't help them, that the real patient never gets treated. You're not crazy, and it just liberated me.

Speaker 2:

Sounds freeing, amazing.

Speaker 1:

All right, I'm going to link those two here.

Speaker 2:

I'm going to link those two here. Oh, I cannot thank you enough. I feel truly blessed that you would spend an hour with us, and your energy is amazing. Your journey is so inspiring and you said a lot of things that definitely touched me with some of the things that have happened in my past. So I hate to say this, but it's always nice to connect with someone that I'm like oh, I get her, yeah.

Speaker 1:

From the upside down.

Speaker 2:

I was like, yeah, okay, I get her.

Speaker 1:

Don't you love? It's called stranger things. Like we are, you and I would be stranger things.

Speaker 2:

We would be yeah, yeah, so yeah, when you tell people that you don't talk to your mother, they look at you like, or you get the flip side and people say, oh my goodness, you're like me, me too, and I do get a lot of that. I do get a lot of that. I think there is a larger community than people think, because they don't talk about it as much.

Speaker 1:

So I thank you for that. I had no idea and you're welcome and I loved being on your show. Thank, I had no idea and you're welcome and I loved being on your show.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much. Thank you, thank you so much. I hope you have a beautiful weekend and I look forward to staying connected with you, and I hope you have a great rest of your day, thank you.

Speaker 1:

Bye.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for joining the show you bet. Thank you for joining us for another episode of the House of Germar podcast, where wellness starts within. We appreciate you being a part of our community and hope you felt inspired and motivated by our guest. If you enjoyed this episode, please write us a review and share it with friends. Building our reach on YouTube and Apple podcasts will help us get closer to our mission to empower 1 million women to live all in. You can also follow us on Instagram at House of Jermar and sign up to be a part of our monthly inspiration newsletter through our website, houseofjermarcom. If you or someone you know would be a good guest on the show, please reach out to us at podcast at houseofjermarcom. This has been a House of Jermar production with your host, Jean Collins. Thank you for joining our house.