Ep.19: Parental Alienation with Charlie McCready

In this incredibly educational and empowering episode, I talk to Charlie McCready, a parental alienation expert and coach. We explored the topic of parental alienation in depth, covering its dynamics, tactics, and emotional impact on both parents and children. The discussion concluded with insights on the challenges faced by narcissists and empaths in high-conflict situations, emphasizing the importance of self-care and personal growth for parents experiencing alienation. 

You can find Charlie on social media- @charliemccready1 or on his website at www.charliemccready.com. 

Visit: https://chantalcontorinescoaching.com to learn how to work with me.

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This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not legal advice.

Transcript

0:01

Welcome everybody to The Survivor's Playbook. I'm your host, Chantal Contorines, and this is the podcast for every survivor of abuse. If abusers can have a playbook, then why can't survivors also have a playbook so that you can learn to live lives you love despite what the abuser in your life does? Or doesn't do, and I'm so very excited to introduce our expert that I have on today. Charlie McCready is an amazing human who has a fantastic page. He is, just an all around amazing human who has so many great insights for all protective parents, but especially those who are navigating parental alienation. Every abuser to some extent, does this to their children. It's the easiest way to control and hurt their exes. And Charlie, thank you so much for being here today, for taking the time outta your full life and schedule to impart your knowledge to all of our listeners. It's a pleasure to be here, Chantal, and thank you very much for inviting me to come along and join you and to have the opportunity to to hear your expertise as well because this is part of a banter between us and that's what I found so interesting inside the membership. It's actually. I'm gonna rewind a little bit. When we first actually met zoom to Zoom and we found that we had a lot in common in terms of our beliefs and our values and how we approach this. And I found that was just really reassuring in the space to actually find an expert who was so much aligned with what I believe and my perspective and how I help my clients. But your niche. Is this, and it's a very needed niche because every client that I've ever worked with, every member that I've ever spoken to, every person that has reached out to me, this is always a red flag that I see. Because this is the easiest way to hurt a person who actually loves their children, is to intentionally fracture your child's bond with this parent. And this is not just a child who can see the abuse and is you know what? That person isn't safe. I don't wanna be with that parent. This is a child who historically has felt very connected to this parent, and this parent has been very loving and engaged and present in this child's life. So this is not a child who sees an abuser for who they are. This is a child who, for whatever reason, has been turned against a loving parent com completely. And this, in fact, is one of the. The tests that was developed by Amy Baker, who's written a lot on the subject she's a really good resource for everybody. Now. You can find her on, on, on Amazon really easily, but that was one of the five things that she said that, the psychologist and that the lead, the law should be more aware of why a child would suddenly turn on a previously loving parent, because that's very unnatural. It doesn't normally happen. And also. Yeah, so I was gonna say and also innately children want to have a relationship with both parents. It's like part of our DNA animals have the same stuff as we do, which is basically if the parents aren't looking after you at a very early age. You're not gonna survive. If they're not feeding you, sheltering you, protecting you. But then also, for us, we're a little bit more advanced. The unconditional love, the support that and the care that goes with it. It's completely unnatural for a kid to reject a parent who's doing all of those things for them, up until post-separation or post-divorce, or whenever the alienation begins. And oftentimes as we've talked, it seems to happen like that. I've seen it happen in my own two eyes. Within a couple of months. A child who was very securely attached to a parent all of a sudden no longer wants to see this parent. But as we discussed, it's been happening all along. It's just been, it's very covert. It doesn't have to be obvious. It can be simple digs like, oh, I'm so sorry. Your dad doesn't braid your hair the way that I do. He must not, care about you as much as I do. Or, I'm so sorry that your mom, doesn't feed you organic foods the way that I do. She must not be as worried as your health as I am. And you plant these seeds of doubt in children's mind, and then you keep watering them. And you water them and all of a sudden they bloom and they can be activated at any time for what? For any reason. And that is the scary thing, is to see a child who is being so tormented and all of a sudden they go from wanting to be with this parent to, and it's always seems like very superficial reasons. Yeah. And the, those are the reasons that the kids give. But we see, because we deal literally with hundreds of parents around the world, it's the same stuff everywhere. Some parents are more aware of what I call the pre alienations, that sort of, that exactly like narrative that you're talking about, where they're starting to undermine one parent. So sometimes the alienating parents will. Be very precious about the child and not allow the parent to have a full relationship with them. I know some parents who weren't even allowed to take their kids out, they weren't allowed to take them in the house, they weren't allowed to have'em in their car. And this was all setting kind of the narrative. O other instances parents were just oblivious to any sense of pre alienation going on because it was so covert. It took me personally quite some time to realize what was going on in my own situation. And when I stopped, I realized this had been going on for a decade. And I would never have known about it. And part of the problem is because there's so little awareness about parental alienation, you don't know what to look out for. Bit like narcissism, most people don't know what narcissism is until it hits you upside the head. Yeah. And then you suddenly become an expert in it. So on that note, what are some things for parents to look out for? If you are divorcing, if you have divorced, if you are separating, if you are thinking of separating, even if you're married to this person, this can happen. So what are the red flags to look out for? What are some of the key characteristics, be they covert or more overt that people can look to and pay attention to? I think one of the big ones is the alienating parent very often wants to have control, and this is where the covert overt thing comes into play because the covert parents are very subtly taking control. It they're quite uncompromising people. Most of the overt and the covert, but are both pretty uncompromising. But it's typically, it has to be their way and that they, they are rule with quietness or they rule through fury. So that's one of the big giveaways that you might be dealing with, a potential alienator. And it could be something as if they're very covert. It could actually sound like they're doing you a favor. Let me just take care of this. Let me take care of this.'cause you're so busy with work. Yeah. Or you are so busy with this, or you have a lot on your plate. So why don't I take this area? I can be the one who schedules all the children's activities and I'll, I'll be the one who books them in, pays for it. Does all this. Yeah. And that seems like it's helpful, especially for a person who is overworked. But it's the control. But it's the control. And then with the kids, one of the things, there's lots of different things that the kid, the kids exhibit as the early signs of pre alienation. But one of them is they'll stop sharing their life with you. So they'll stop giving you so much information about what they're doing. They might also do things like, they'll stop respecting your boundaries so much. They'll only expect the, they'll own, they'll look at the alienating parents' boundaries rather than yours. They might not do things that you enjoy doing. So they won't go along and participate in things where you would normally be able to say to a kid, oh, come along. I really love doing this. A kid who goes, sure, dad, or, sure mom, I'll come along with you. So things are associated with you. Start becoming negative in the eyes of the child. Yes. And they can start rejecting you. They can stop saying they love you. And most of us, especially when kids are teenagers, it's very difficult to tell what is the difference between a kid just being a teenager and hiding away in their bedroom and not really engaging with you because they do that anyway. Yep. Versus what is alienation? Absolutely. That can be very distressing for parents because when they're going through teen years, we now start having a fear of alienation. So we see everything as alienation, even though it's teen behavior. And a large part of the, the calming work that I do with parents is helping them to understand, and actually some of this is not alienation. Some of this is alienation. But don't tar everything with the same brush of alienation because you're gonna get really anxious about stuff that's just normal. Absolutely. And the other thing that I've noticed is that. The, a protective parent can do No. All of a sudden everything you do is wrong. Whereas the alienating parent can do no wrong. Everything they do, there's a justification. Oh, she wasn't able to come to the hospital'cause she was so busy. She tries or he tries so hard. Anything that they do is there's always an excuse or justification they can do no wrong. Whereas you, the protective parent can do no right. Yes. Cer certainly that's the narrative that the Alienator is is giving to the kids. Yeah. And it's, it. It's really interesting because the relationship the child has with the alienator is typically fear-based. Oh, absolutely. And one of the things I'm always trying to tease out to parents is what are the specific techniques or tactics that are being used by those alienating parents to, to have that sense of fear? And very often it'll be things like an aloofness. So narcissists, generally speaking, and a huge proportion of the people who alienate are narcissists they're not very emotional people. And so they, they don't have strong emotional relationships even with their own children. So the children want this relationship, this emotional relationship, because it's unavailable to them. And so when an alienator turns that on, and pays attention to them, that this is like the sun. Like the sun, yeah. The sun all of a sudden has, after years of torrential downpour, the sun has shown just on you. Yeah. And you want more of that warmth. Absolutely. So the kids are super attracted to, oh wow, my mom or my dad is suddenly paying attention to me. They get very bought into that. But what they don't realize is in fact, I think the kids do realize deep down it's all conditional, so it's transactional. Completely. So they'll use emotion as a mechanism. I'll give you love, providing you love me, or providing you do the things I ask you to do. Or they'll give them, support and encouragement or they'll give them money, but it's always. I'll give you these things, but if you don't do what I want, I'll take them away. And then also our kids can see an example of what happens to the people that are in the bad books of the alienating parent.'cause that's us. Yes, absolutely. And they, and then they can, because it's a bit like a cult. It's who's being kicked outta the cult? What happens to that member are they've been cast out, nobody's allowed to speak to them. They're a bad person, they're unsafe to be with, they're abusers. All the false allegations come out. And so the kids have this like terrifying experience of seeing what happens to us and think God, I don't want that to happen to me as well. So it's especially when the protective parent does start to, buy into that narrative because they're so stressed and they're so anxious and they're so depleted, and so they look to you and. They see two parents. One is very strong and powerful. And the other one is breaking before their eyes and is a shell of who they used to be. What as a child, which one is going to keep you safe? Yeah. I, and ironically, a lot of the time the person who's breaking down as you say that they are, they're the kind person. Oh they are always. Yeah, but the child goes, or the one who they are most worried about is going to cause the most mayhem in their life. And also, who is the who is the strongest seeming person? The protective parent is always the strongest person. Truthfully. They have to endure so much before they get to a point of despair. So they're mentally stronger than the narcissist. They're emotionally, psychologically, physically stronger. But you could only. Endure so much pressure and stress and abuse before you actually start to crack. But the children see you cracking and they go, who is gonna keep me safe? Children need safety and security. And so they look to the parent who is going to provide that, and it's more often than not, the abuse is parent. Yes, unfortunately, unfor, it is counterintuitive. It really is time. But there was some, there was something that you were saying about the speed at which alienation happens and now this is links back to that pre alienation. Awareness is that actually a lot of the time, this is happening quite slowly. It's just that the child isn't demonstrating all the signs of a fully alienated child until later on, and there is this thing called cognitive dissonance which basically means you can't understand. You can't have two belief systems in your mind at the same time. So when you get one belief system from the alienator and another belief system from the target parent it's the child would go psychotic as if they tried to manage having both of these things within them at the same time. But when the pressure becomes great enough that the alienating parent has persuaded the child to sign to side with them, that's when this cognitive dissonance becomes too much. And so we see the splitting. So they polarize and that's when they pick one parent over the other. But the process to get there can take years. But fr because we are not aware of it we see it just happen very quickly. And something else that you said, which was really key, is the excuses that are given to us, to the lawyers, to the therapists, to the judges, that they're always false. Yeah, and they're always ridiculous. They're always, yeah. There's nothing of any merit. It's Ooh, they didn't let me listen to music in the car on the drives, back to my mom's house. Okay. It's either something tiny like that, or it's something major I don't feel safe for them. They're an abuser or they're dangerous. And the real the real shame is that the the therapists who are out there at the moment, the counselors, the psychologists, they're not trained to ask the questions, which is. Tell me more about, why this person is unsafe. What experience did you actually have? Or, tell me more about the fact that they won't let you listen to the music in the car, how is this affecting you? How is having, why is this having such an impact on your relationship? Because it's all nonsense. And I think it would a well-trained therapist, psychologist, or counselor could easily detect alienation if they had the tools. But because the psychology profession hasn't yet recognized parental alienation as being a thing, nobody's getting trained up on it. Because it's not in the curriculum. And it's also being weaponized. That's the thing is abusers do both and this is where there's so much confusion. It's abusers can absolutely weaponize parental alienation and falsely a accuse protective parents of being alienators. When the children speak out and speak out about abuse, they absolutely do. I see it all the time. It's. The whole dvo thing, the parent comes to court, which is why so many lawyers like, please don't talk about abuse. If there's abuse, we don't even talk about it in court, which seems to so unfair to survivors of abuse. But the moment you talk about that, the go-to playbook for an abuser is to turn the tables and say, actually, you've turned the children against me. That's why they don't wanna come to me. Not because I'm unsafe, but because you've made them believe that I'm unsafe. And also abusers will. Fracture intentionally fracture the child's bond with their loving protective parent. They do both things maybe. Yeah. Complete co. Completely. And what is quite scary is that the abusers are often the people who make the false allegations about Oh, the innocent people. Yeah. Saying we, but this is classical narcissist trick, and it's something that's very helpful for parents to understand when a narcissist is accusing you of having an affair. Or being abusive or hiding money or whatever it is, they're telling you what they're up to. Listen very carefully, because that's the closest you're ever gonna get to a confession. Yeah, but it's, but we don't realize that, and so we are thinking be, because most of us tend to be quite empathetic people, and we're honest, right? Honest people assume that other people are honest, loyal people assume that people are loyal, kind people assume that most people are kind. The converse is also true. Liars believe that everyone's lying. Manipulators believe that. Everyone's manipulating cheaters believe that everyone's cheating. Absolutely. And this is one of the challenges for us because we really struggle to understand at a kind of a deep level why narcissists are capable of doing some of the things that they're doing to our kids. And so we are constantly trying to compromise, especially at the early stages of the ideation, the number of parents who are trying to intreat and plead and implore. The narcissist to, to start thinking about the kids and because it's a perfectly rational thing to do, and it's so frustrating being a parent, being just met with com, complete lack of compromise. And in fact, in. It gives the, it gives pleasure to the alienating parents to see us squirming around the place feeling so uncomfortable about what's happening to our kids. And it also gives them fodder because now they're like, wait a second. Yeah, this is exactly what I suspected and I'm gonna do more of what they don't want me to do. Yeah. The moment you tell them like the moment you tell them, please don't do this, or a little Katie told me that you called her a name at your house. What they're not going to change their behavior. They're going to not only do more of that'cause it hurts you, but also force the child into secrecy. So we, we have to really change our mindsets as, because typically we're quite empathetic people. So we really have to change our mindsets to, to put ourselves into the shoes of the alienator. And I often describe it as they're playing chess, we're playing checkers because they have this like whole game plan organized way before us. And then they were verse engineer, this is their end goal. Yeah. And they reverse engineer how to get to their end goal. They're like leaps and bounds away from us. Yeah. Just, they are we only know about stuff at the point in time. We go to the school and find out the school won't speak to us anymore, or the doctor won't speak to us anymore. Our friends don't speak to us anymore. Our family's been infected. Everybody. They've gone around to everybody, and it can be very covert again. Oh, I'm really concerned about their mental health. I think she's a little bit depressed. Or I think he has, some anxiety and people start, and that oftentimes starts while you're still in the relationship. It just becomes more apparent once the relationship ends. Yes but they've been planting these seeds not only to your children, but also to your community, your friends, your family, your colleagues, even everybody. Everybody. So we, and the unfortunate thing is once the narrative has been shared with other people believe it and it's virtually impossible to change their minds afterwards. And when we do, they think that we're, that there's something wrong with us. And that we're being manipulative and conniving. And because we feed right into their narrative. Oh, he did tell me she was gonna say that, he did tell me she was, high strung. And look at her being high strung as she tries to justify her behavior. Which is why when there's a smear campaign, the best thing to do is just to let the smear campaign run its course. Yeah. These people burn more bridges than a pyro. Your best, course of action is just to live your best life and let them hang themselves with the rope that they already have. People see them for who they are eventually. It's always, it just takes time. It. Yeah. And it's very, again, it's hugely frustrating for us because w we know who this person really is, but the rest of the world doesn't. I just wanna shout it from the rooftops. We just wanna be like, can't you see it for what it is? But if you do that both to your children and to the community at large, you actually painting yourself back into a corner and you're going to lose more respect and credibility with people. They will align further with this person. Yeah. And you were saying earlier that, that we are the strong people and that is the truth of it because we have to endure so much to get through this experience. And I'm sure a lot of the people who, who will be listening to this are. Likely to be in that very frustrated, angry state, wondering if they're ever gonna get their relationship back with their child wondering how they're gonna cope with all of this. And I think it's really important to say to the people who are in that space, don't worry. The vast majority of you are actually going to get through this. Most people do end up reuniting with your kids. You actually end up being a stronger person within yourself, oddly enough. Because you have to spend so much time on, on your own self-healing and also focused on yourself. This is the thing we're talking about this inside of the membership. Yeah. So many parents, especially nowadays, focus on their children. Their worlds revolve around their children. They forget who they are outside of being a mom or a dad. This unfortunately, but also fortunately, forces you to focus on you again. Who is Charlie? Who's Chantal without their children? Who are you? What are your passions? What are your joys? Sparks joy for you. And you learn to reconnect with just yourself. And when you focus on yourself, it's incredibly magnetic. It attracts the people that you want to attract into your life. Your children included, including your children. Yes. Yes. So I like to get people to look at the world through the lens of safety. Because it, it all starts making sense at this point in time. So if you think about who a narcissist is, it, it's generally somebody who's been traumatized. They, it's a nurtured condition. It's not a natural condition. They weren't born narcissists, at least most of'em weren't born narcissists, but as a narcissist. They're, now they basically shut down emotionally and they're just trying to protect themselves from the world around them. So the control, the manipulation, coercion, the lies that, those to me are all just techniques to control the environment. They're also very infantile, so this is where their lack of compromise comes from. But when you know, when you realize that this is what they're actually doing, they're just trying to protect themselves, it makes'em much easier people to understand. Also, this could be very difficult for parents at the early stages of alienation, but when you become a little bit more advanced in it, you learn to feel some compassion towards the narcissists because you recognize them for who they are. They're very distressed people who are never gonna change. These people will never, ever experience joy, happiness, genuine love, connection calm, peace, any of the things that we experience despite what they do to us. Yeah, they will never, despite all the stuff that they do, all the things they buy, all the trips they go on, all the children they turn against you, all the people they manipulate and abuse, they're constantly just looking for that genuine spark of joy and happiness, and it will always evade them. And it was always LD them. It's a living hell being a narcissist. Now they make our lives a living hell as well. But it's just helpful to put that within that context, if you also, if we also look at what children are doing. So when children are rejecting us, when they're being disrespectful, when they're being rude, when they're going no contact if they disagree of our boundaries, they tell lies about us. These are all just coping mechanisms as well. In the same way that the Alienator is using coercion and lies and manipulation, the children are using. Not having any contact with you as a mechanism to protect themselves. And again, it's really helpful for parents to say, ah, okay, I see what you're doing. You are going no contact with me because you're afraid. Yeah. So you have to protect yourself. I get it. I'm not gonna put pressure on you. Or I'm not gonna be angry with you'cause this is just something you have to do to look after yourself. And that's key right there. It's the pressure. These children are under a tremendous pressure and this is their only recourse. The only thing that they have learned that's going to keep them even for a brief. Moment safe from the abuse is by doing this, is by aligning with this parent against their protective parent. And so they have so much pressure and so little love in that other home. So in our homes, we have to be high love, low pressure. Absolutely. Yeah. And that's when we have contact with them. And we main, we have to maintain exactly that high level low pressure, even when we have no contact with them, as in when we're sending them. Emails and texts and we don't get responses. Keep doing that.'cause they, there's a lifeline for them. But then there's the empaths'cause there, so there's us and we are quite different. We're totally different to the narcissists. But we have our vulnerabilities as well because typically for a lot of us, when we were much younger and in our formative years, the people around us. Did not give us the support, the love, and the care that we needed. And I distinguish between those three things. So the support is, en encouragement and you know you are doing really well, encouraging us with our passions, making us feel self worthy, boosting our confidence. The care is more putting a roof over your head, putting food in your stomach, putting, keeping you warm, the physical things. Then of course there's unconditional love. And if we don't receive enough of that when we are young, especially from parents, a lot of the time the parents are not meaning to be they're not meaning to har harm or damage us. But if we have an aloof parent or a parent that's doing three jobs and has got four kids or a parent who is grieving something, the loss of a child Yeah. Or. They're just not available for us. Then we end up having to work really hard to try and get that parent to pay attention to us to give us the things we need. And so we're having to appease them again. And what happens is we bring that with us into our adult lives in the form of people pleasers. So a lot of the time we empaths have very poor personal boundaries and we're always trying to fix stuff and we're always trying to do stuff for other people. And it's a bit like the opposite end of the con, the spectrum from the narcissism because narcissists try to control the environment to keep themselves safe through lies and coercion and manipulation. We are doing the same thing, but we're doing it through people pleasing and making sure that everything's running smoothly and that everybody's okay because that's how we got. That's how we were made to feel secure when we were growing up. But when you put an empath with a narcissist, that's when it really starts going horribly wrong because the narcissist is all about take. And they're a bottomless pit of take take. Like nothing that living hell you're talking about where they're never gonna be happy, never enough. And then you've got the empaths who are give. And we are actually defenseless. Against somebody who is in take take because our coping mechanism stops working. So we are really screwed at that point in time. And then of course, the narcissists really play on our lack of confidence, our lack of self worthiness. They destroy us. Or they try to destroy us when we go through the alienation phase. But it's, I just think it's really helpful for people to see it with just a simple framework. You'll go, yeah, no wonder that's happening to me, and no wonder they're doing that. No one my child's doing that. Yeah. That all makes sense. And then you can, and it does make sense. So what do I do about it? Yeah. And what do you do about it? But the odd thing which we were talking about just a moment ago is most people think if I focus on the kid, this is gonna fix everything. Act actually, yes. Focusing on the kid will help. Focusing on you is the thing that's gonna fix everything. And I make an analogy with bereavement where when somebody dies the world around, you knows. What they understand that experience, so they're very good at understanding what you are going through, the emotional pain you're going through, how to help you and how to support you. Parental alienation is like the opposite end of that spectrum. Nobody around you understands what you are going through. So your family or friends, your normal support network, none of them get this. The professional classes don't understand it. The lawyers, the therapists, the council, none of them are judges. None of them get it either. So it's very isolating as a parent. And instead of receiving the support that you would hope to get from the people around you, not only do you not get it, you end up being the person who's got to help everybody else outta this hole. So first of all, you've got to pick yourself up out of the hole. Then you've got to bring your children outta the hole, and you've got to bring your wider family outta the hole. They will, the chances are they've also been alienated. Our own parents, our siblings are not seeing our children. And all of them are going through, grief and guilt and loss themselves. So we have to bring them along if we are in a new relationship. With somebody else at that point in time. And I hope people do go off and start new relationships.'cause we should be happy. That person watches the pain that we are going through, so we have to help them out to the whole as well. So we, we have to become this incredibly strong, resilient person to bring everybody outta this experience called alienation. So the bulk of the effort ends up being on us not the kids. If that makes any sense. It absolutely does. And it goes back to the testament again, that protective parents are some of the strongest people I've ever met. It, they keep getting hit, they keep getting blindsided. They new things keep popping up. It's whack-a-mole. It's every day there's something new and they, they do fall and they do grieve and they do cocoon but they always come back up. They do what I and what I find because I'm always looking for easy ways to explain complex things to people. Yeah. People tend to like that. Oh yeah. So I've found that there are and I think I've talked about this in in, in the club the other night. There are nine big emotions that, that parents seem to go through when they start having the experience of alienation. And so that's grief because it's like a sense of mourning and loss of the time you've lost to the kid. The time you're losing today, the time you're gonna lose in the future. There's guilt because we're empath. We will self criticize ourself for way more stuff than we have any responsibility for. We got to learn that the person who, who created all this, the Alienator, they are a train wreck. They were always gonna be a train wreck. We were just unfortunate enough we got on the wrong train. But they were always gonna create this. But our natural response is criticize ourself first. Then there's shame, which is something that's felt by women more than men because the other women around you, your social circle, look at the relationship, the damaged relationship for your kid, and they assume it has to be your fault.'cause you are the mom, of course, you've got a good relationship with your kid. How can it possibly be somebody else's fault that you don't see them anymore? So they judge you. Coming from a place of a lack of understanding, but in their judgment of you, then we feel shame. It comes on top of the guild. Then there's isolation, because as I was saying, nobody understands this stuff. So we feel incredibly alone and we are, not only do they not understand, but they don't wanna get involved. It's too messy. That's a very good point. Yeah. Lots of people don't wanna get involved, including some of the, schools in particular. Yeah. Don't wanna get involved. A lot of our friends don't wanna get involved. Yeah. Community. Even if they were supportive, they slowly start to back away. They don't answer your phone calls, they don't reach out to you as much because it's too complicated, it's too messy, and they just don't have the bandwidth to deal with it. Yeah. They've got they've got other things to focus on. Yeah. And they don't know what to say. What do you say to a parent who's lost their child? Either physically lost their child, as in the child is dead. Or this parent who's also lost their child, in all the other ways they're both grieving and you are grieving a child who's still alive, but like, how do you possibly. Connect with that parent and reach them. What kind of words do you have as a person who doesn't understand, like what can you say to make this better? Yeah. It's and it's, we end up educating, which is, again, hugely frustrating for us. We end up educating the people who are not experiencing alienation, trying to understand our experience of alienation. And the fifth one is powerlessness. And it comes back to something you said earlier, Chantal as well, which is, whatever we do is wrong and whatever we attempt to do with our kids will be twisted against us by the alienator. So that, that, and also the legal system doesn't work for us like nothing works. Which links to the sixth one, which is in injustice. It's like, why can't, the people whose jobs it is to protect my child, why can't they step in, be effective, recognize what's going on and rescue us all from this? But injustice goes deeper than that as well, because it's also a sense that your child doesn't understand you as a person. So you lose this bond and this desire for them to, be able to share in your wisdom, be able to share in your knowledge or worldliness. So we feel really bad on the injustice. Then there's anger, which is pretty self-explanatory. Then there's fear, which feeds all the other emotions. And I left anxiety till last.'Cause anxiety is one of the biggest ones. Ba basically, our subconscious doesn't recognize the difference between a thought you have in your head and an actual experience in real life. So if you sit there and you think, I wonder if my child is being beaten, or if I wonder if my child is being fed, are they getting sleep at night? Are they spending too much time on social media? All these things that you're naturally gonna be thinking about and the loss and everything else, you will start experiencing that emotionally as if each of those was real events in your life. To most parents you are self fatiguing yourself. So it's really crazy. So what I say to parents is, be very aware of what you're thinking. Because feed, feed your subconscious, the stuff you want it to work on, not the stuff you don't want it to work on because most people are caught in this loop and that this loop is whatever's going on in your kind of conscious mind drops into your subconscious mind. I'm never gonna see my child again. I'm never gonna see my child again. Yeah. My child hates me. That's it. They've totally ruined my relationship with my child. I've lost my child for good. If you say those words out loud literally don't even think them. You are feeding that to your subconscious and okay. And it'll take it and go, Shantal, you want me to think about loss of child and my child hates me? All these things. No problem. Give us a couple of hours. I'll get back to you. And then next thing you know you are woken up because your dreams are being disturbed or you can't sleep, or you wake up with the achy chest, or you wake up with your stomach feeling unsettled. Or you are at work, you are with a friend, you're watching television, you're driving your car. It's whatever. Time of day, your subconscious go back and say, there you go. I've thought about all these things for you. You're welcome. And your conscious mind. Yeah, you are welcome. And your conscious mind goes, is now thinking, oh, hang on a minute. I'm now thinking about all those themes again, my child hates me. I'm missing my child. And your subconscious goes fine. You want me to think about it a second time? Yeah. And then you just loop. Over and over again. Exactly. So you have to, and this is one of the most important parts about the healing process, is you have to start thinking, you have to be aware of what you're thinking and stop yourself. But then the other question is how do, not just, how do I stop myself, but how do I heal? And that's actually not rocket science either. For a lot of it. These feelings I was talking about, the grief, the guilt, the the powerlessness, the injustice. Most of these are insecurities and vulnerabilities that are unique to you. They're like words we all understand. Oh, grief, I get grief. But it's like your version of grief. Your version of guilt. And when you start tracking this stuff back and I use this, it's great they use this in business, but I use it to help parents, this concept of seven levels. So when you ask somebody a question first about something important, the first two answers are just. BS that you just get, your brain throws out some rubbish. Once you get below that and you start asking people why you are feeling this or why that's important for you, you really start getting into the nuts and bolts of what is genuinely sitting down beneath this, and when you start asking a lot of the questions of, talking about grief, when you start exploring that, you often go back to something that may be re related to rejection or loss or abandonment. Way, way back in, in that person's earlier life. And what they're doing is they're taking the current situation with the alienation of the kid. And they're taking their old insecurities and they're wrapping the two things together, and they have no place being connected together that they're two completely separate things. And so we have to start learning. To not allow these old memories and these old experiences to influence how we're feeling today. And so I use mind tricks on people. So I asked them to talk about in fact I showed them a, an emotional journey of it's bereavement again. I showed them in a bereavement emotional journey, say, where are you on this?'cause it's pretty much the same as parental alienation. Yeah. You are grieving the loss of a child who's still alive. Yes. Is shock, denial, bargaining acts or anger, bargaining, depression, commitment. Then you get on of your life. And so I say, where are you? Most people are moving around on this experience as well.'cause they, but they tend to be in one phase broadly. And then I ask them, what's blocking you from moving into the next phase?'cause the blockers can be very subtle. This can be stuff like I, I'm really struggling to accept that my kid is being alienated. I can't, I just can't like mentally get my head around that. I ask them a lot about triggers most people find easy. And it's when you start probing them, it's, and it'll be, I really can't stand the sound of my ex, or I can't stand the sound of my child parroting my ex. Or I can't stand my child being rude to me, or I don't, I can't stand when they don't respond to my messages. But when you probe it, it'll go like way deeper to things on television, things on the street, people ask you questions about your kid. Then I also talk about expectation gaps. So what was the stuff that you thought was gonna happen that's now not happening, because that's all in your blueprint. You. You have this strong sense of the way the world should be and now it's not. Not that way. I also get people to look at judgments, judgment of yourself, how other people have judged you, and all of these things combined. They give you this like really long list of all of these things, like literally 50 to a hundred of them. Most people come up with a good list, 50 to a hundred. Those are all the things that are upsetting for me. That's when you go off and you do that seven level inquiry. Okay? So pick one of them, go through it. What is it that's really upsetting you and you, it's mind, it's just mind altering almost. It's like being on psychedelics. You suddenly realize that, that all these experiences you're having today have got so many of their roots in the past. And so what I'm trying to do is I help people to close down the old conversation about these insecurities that have been, they've always been there. We drag them around of us for decades, but close that conversation down and put something new in. Feed your subconscious, the stuff you want to be focusing on. I am a great dad. I am gonna support my kid. I am worthy. And it's it, and when you do that stuff that is probably the most powerful thing you can do to start helping your kids. Absolutely. It always starts because you're ular person with you. Yeah, and we always, most parents, especially parents who are divorced, oh, I've, ruined my child's life. Divorce is gonna ruin them, then this parent is not parenting the way that they should be parenting. And so we focus so much around our children. But it's like the old saying, when you're in a plane, you put your own oxygen mask on first, and then you put your childs on and it's counterintuitive and it goes against, if you have been with this type of person, you are more than likely conditioned to put everybody else's needs before your own, which means that you're running on empty. So your goal now is to really focus all of your energy and tension on yourself, on taking care of yourself, on replenishing what has been taken on healing the parts of you that need healing. And when you do that, not only do you start to live a great life, but your children can also see what's possible on the other side of escaping. Completely. Completely. Yeah. Because I and that's, that has a link, a beautiful segue link with the injustice theme. Because we want the children to know who we are, but you can't tell the children in the same way. You used to be able to sit them down and inform them that they learn who you are experientially by how you conduct yourself. So all the stuff you're talking about Chantalle, that once you are in a good state, it sets that role model for the kids. And just to give an example of this, so if somebody is stuck very much in grief it could be as a result of rejection or abandonment from some experience they've had earlier on, that's the sort of stuff that triggers you to overwhelm your kids with lots of text messages. And I miss you and. Yeah, and you're unintentionally doing what the other parent does, which is, guilting your children and your children already have so much guilt and they already have so much shame. And you'll put lots of pressure on the kids, which is exactly what you were talking about as well. You wanna be the household that is high love, low pressure, but if you're constantly feeling yourself that you have needs as a parent. But if your needs, you want to have a good relationship with a kid, but. If you are so focused on the things that are causing you pain because you're not healed, that's gonna translate directly into how you interact with your kid. And one of the big things for kids is this thing, the loyalty conflict. Because the alienator has basically said, you must choose me over the other parent. And of course we find that really difficult to accept and we feel this great sense of injustice again'cause we wanna set the record straight. We want the kid to know who we really are and we didn't do all these things. And I'm a safe person and I've done all these things for you and nobody seems to take any, take this into consideration at all, but. If we play the same game as the Alienator, our kid will never break out of the loyalty conflict. So somebody's got to break that cycle, which is they're stuck between two parents who are saying Yeah, completely different things. And so who do they believe? Who do they believe? Yes. They have two people that they trust telling them polar opposite narratives. And it's just too confusing for children completely. And this is the cognitive dissonance stuff again. Yeah. So it's not a, it feels like we are giving up by not fighting the other parent, but we are breaking the cycle and what we're doing is we're then putting the child in a situation where at first they're not gonna see us because it's the whole alienation thing. They just don't wanna see us because they're so terrified of the other parent. But it's become more independent, more able to decide for themselves that yes, they do want to come along and see us. Then what they want to know when they, they do get together with us is two things. Can I trust you? So are you still angry with me?'cause I was really nasty to you and I've made you feel awful and I know that. And are you healed? And the, are you healed? Is, are you going to just be full of your own needs? Or can I, are you gonna be my parent again? Basically, because when they meet us and if we are the destroyed version of ourselves, then it's all about our needs. We're not thinking about the kid.'cause we can't, we're so caught up in, in our own sense of insecurity. We get very defensive. Defensive, this stuff is so subtle. Defensive is not just criticizing the other parent, which you should never talk about. Alienation never to criticize the other parent. But defensive is you trying to set the record straight and basically it's putting the kid back in the loyalty conflict, but it's also they can detect if you are feeling insecure. Because you'll be doing things like your body language will change, your facial expression will change. You might go deadpan you, you might go completely quiet. You might change your tone of voice. All of these things is basically saying to your kid, mom or dad's not in a good space. I'm already not in a good space as the child. You are now making me feel worse. Okay, I'm out of here. Absolutely. And so they can only really work with you when you're in a good space yourself, which is the stuff that's all completely counterintuitive.'cause parents who are listening to this go will be saying, yeah, that all makes complete sense at this point in time. But, when they were thinking about doing stuff for themselves, they would've felt incredibly guilty and not seen the connection of why it was so important. We are the foundation of our children's happiness. Full stop and stop. They only have one healthy parent that's us. They don't have the luxury of two healthy parents who are doing the work to heal their old trauma and show up as the best parents. They just have one. And that's a big burden, but that's our burden that we have to carry and it ends up being a win-win.'cause when we do the hard work. We can then create lives that we actually love and our children can see us thriving and they can be drawn to that at what's possible on the other side of escaping this abusive relationship that they're also in. Yes. And that's us. And as you say, we set the example for them as to what a healthy relationship looks like. Especially if we get remarried and we have a happy marriage, and they'll go, wow. Okay. You are still the same mom or you are still the same dad. But the experience you're having now is completely different. Yeah. And all the relationships that we have are more authentic and more genuine connections, and they can feel that our bodies pick up on all the subtle cues that our brain sometimes rationalize out. Thank you so much Charlie, for being on today. I really appreciate it. A pleasure, Chantal. You're doing such a wonderful job with all the parents that you're helping and the wide community and thank goodness we have people like you with your passion, your knowledge, your understanding, your commitment. It's wonderful. Likewise, I feel the same. That's why I think we connected so well. And why we're gonna continue bringing more light to the underbelly of divorcing a narcissist. Really, this is what this is, right? Thank you for listening to The Survivor's Playbook. If today's episode helped you feel less alone, more confident, more empowered, and more educated, please share it with somebody else who may also need this. And if you're ready for deeper support, you can join my monthly membership or grab free tools on my website, all links for today's episode, including our expert guest speaker, are in my show notes. Remember, your clarity is your power. Your calm is your resistance. You are not crazy. You are not alone, and you are not powerless. Until next time, keep going. I see you.