DDLJ and Adult Child - Parent Relationship

A lot of us grew up thinking a “good family” means staying close no matter what, but nobody teaches you how to stay connected without swallowing your own truth. We pick up our DDLJ thread and use Simran’s family to talk about something bigger: healthy family dynamics, unhealthy patterns that get normalised, and what mental health awareness can look like inside real Desi homes. 

We break down a continuum of parenting styles in simple terms: the healthy parent who leads without fear, the good enough parent who makes mistakes and repairs, and the emotionally immature or emotionally unaware parent whose unprocessed trauma or overwhelm makes everything revolve around their feelings. We get specific about the difference between “I’ll miss you” and “you’re abandoning me”, and why that distinction matters when adult children are choosing education, work, marriage, or any life that doesn’t match the family script. Along the way, we name how immigrant grief and identity pressure can quietly shape control, rules, and conditional love. 

Then we pivot to practical tools for adult children who want a relationship but also want peace. We share a mature awareness approach from clinical work: express and let go, focus on the outcome not the emotional derailment, and manage not engage by choosing safer topics and time limits. We also keep it honest: this takes nervous system regulation and internal work, not a one-time “boundary talk”. If you’ve ever wondered how to be authentic without burning bridges, press play, then subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find the conversation.

Thanks for listening! we would love to hear from you, write to us, 

Your hosts, 

Malika & Gitika 

Malika is the Founder of Ik Aas Counseling, know more at https://malikabains.com/ 

Gitika is the Founder of Pranh Healing & Wellness, know more at https://www.pranhwellness.com/

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 1:05

Hi Malika. Hi, Kitaka. Yal. Ah, we are here today. We made it to almost almost the end of our podcast. Yes. Almost. Like always, just two, three episodes away from the end end. But yes, we are more than halfway through. And it was really fun actually talking about Dilwale Dul Hania Leja ing last time. Henceforth, only called DDLJ.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

Yeah. So I'm really excited about continuing that conversation today. I agree. It was so much fun. And even like after we had recorded the episode, I continued to just kind of reflect on all the conversations we had. And I felt like, okay, you know, we were able to kind of talk about a lot of nuances. Who knew? From DDLJ, we were able to kind of view it in a different lens and then sprinkle some of the psychology

Greetings And DDLJ Momentum

SPEAKER_01 2:03

based on the characters and whatnot. It was really fun. I enjoyed that. Same, same. And I know we had been thinking of actually building on that today, but maybe even coming up with our own version of DDLJ, maybe people will find it too healthy to be seen on TV. But we had really wanted to continue talking a little bit more about what we had been observing in those family dynamics. So we invite you all into this conversation about healthy family dynamics, unhealthy family dynamics, and also family dynamics that have the potential to become more mental health aware and how you could actually do that in your family, whether you are an adult child or you are a parent yourself. So I guess let's get started. I think that was very well described, and it was a great segue. And yeah, like let's try and can I do our best because it's sometimes it's hard to, you know, do just like 30 to 40 minutes and then try and include all the information that we know of in this chunk of time. So let's try our best to fit in all the clinically relevant information that we want to in context of

Why Family Dynamics Matter

SPEAKER_01 3:32

DTLJ? Yeah. Well, where would we like to start? Yeah, okay. I think yes. So I think the question that comes to my mind is how do we describe Kajol's dad? So how do we describe Simran's dad when it comes to is this a dad that is a healthy parent? Is this a dad who is a good enough parent? Or is this a dad who is like emotionally immature or he is this abusive parent? You know, how do we where does he fit on this continuum? I know like that language of emotionally immature parent is something that is sometimes discussed in the in the West. I wonder if before we go into classifying him, can you tell people a little bit about what you mean by healthy parent, good enough parent, emotionally immature parent, and abusive parent. So then we can come up with a daty version of all these concepts. Okay. I think that sounds great. Okay, so let's see. I think I would like you to speak more on healthy parent because I know there's references that you would also like to share. And then I'll go into the good enough parent. Yeah. So a healthy parent is at the heart of

Defining Healthy To Abusive Parenting

SPEAKER_01 4:52

it someone who recognizes what their role is, that they are the adult in the room who has more access to whatever the child needs, and they are someone who is taking care of the child's needs and taking care of preparing the child for surviving in this world on their own. And the healthy parent also recognizes what work they have to do on themselves in order to support the child. Sometimes parents don't realize that their own pain is translating into expectations for the child. For example, we sometimes have dreams for our children that, oh, I really want my child to become, let's say, a doctor, an engineer. Okay, this is a dream. But sometimes when we

Healthy Parenting And Positive Discipline

SPEAKER_01 5:47

get really hooked up on that dream and we don't recognize that I want my child to become a doctor engineer because I dealt with so much money problems growing up, and I don't want my children to go through those money problems. So you end up forcing your dreams onto the child instead of recognizing that the child has their own dreams. A healthy parent will recognize that, hey, I have some dreams for my child, but I also want to hear what the child wants. And a healthy parent has space for both guiding the child, but also recognizing that the child might have their own views. So they are in that sense fostering their own health and the health of the child. They're not trying to make the child responsible for the health of the parent. They're recognizing that the parent has more power and resources to take care of themselves. So there are also other resources I will share about in a bit. Like, you know, there is this person, Dr. Jane Nelson, who talks about positive discipline, where they are, of course, you know, recognizing that the parent is teaching a child about how to survive in the world, but they are doing it in a way that actually also helps the child feel like their parent is someone they can talk to and feel safe around. So when I think about a friend of mine whose child was asked, Who are you most scared of, mommy or papa? And the child said, Why should I be scared of any of my parents? And I feel like that's such a sign of a child of healthy parents that he recognizes his relationship with his parents doesn't need to have fear in it. Your parents can discipline you without evoking fear. So that's what I would say about healthy parents. But what about emotionally immature parents? I think that was like such a good outline of what a healthy parent could look like. And thank you so much for just you know, you contain it so well. So containing the whole description so well, and you touched on all the like main points of things. So okay, let me start with like emotionally immature parents. So on that continuum that I was talking about, emotionally immature parents say before that there is that good enough parents, and that good enough parents came out I think decades ago. It was by this guy like Pennicott. And you know, the whole concept is that a parent doesn't have to be perfect to raise a healthy child. If they're like good enough, like that is good enough for them to raise a healthy child. And a good enough parent is considered as someone who is willing to learn, willing to acknowledge their mistakes. So good enough parent is not who's always going to have the right answer, who's always going to perfectly say things the right way, who will always have the perfect response. You know, this is a parent who will make mistakes, who may snap at their kid, who may be rude at times, who may engage in those some of the guilt

Good Enough Parenting Explained

SPEAKER_01 9:02

tripping or emotional burdened conversation with their child where they want to seek the comfort from the child. However, the difference lies here is that the parent will then later on reflect on that conversation, on that event, and recognize what they could have done differently. If they're not just reflecting themselves, they may have a source in their life that they're able to talk to about what's going on with their child and how can they improve themselves. And that source could be another parent, or it could be a therapist, it could be a teacher, it could be a coach, books, whatever that is, that this parent is willing to learn. And a lot of the times, I think even in research, they have mentioned that having just one healthy parent, it leads to higher outcomes of a child growing up to be a healthy child with self-regulation strategies, you know, healthy self-esteem and whatnot. When it comes to emotionally immature parents, that one is a concept that is more pervasive right now because emotionally immature parents does not mean that your parent is a toxic, dysfunctional person, and then you're just gonna, you know, you're gonna be estranged from them or you don't want to have any relationship with them. So this term was I read a book about it, which was Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, and that's my favorite book to always refer back to. I have all my clients read it just to get an understanding of where they fit because it really talks about how the dynamic at home with an emotionally immature parent can impact you. So the client first learns what are the behaviors in themselves that may have originated when they were a kid because of their interaction with an emotionally immature parent. So when we talk about this emotionally immature parent, a lot of the time this is a parent who is dealing a lot with their own personal stuff. So there is either a history of mental health diagnosis, there is history of trauma,

Emotionally Immature Parents And Key Signs

SPEAKER_01 11:12

there is history of medical diagnosis that affects their ability to be able to be present with their child and take care of the child's need. An emotionally immature parent is the one who focuses on their own needs and they really believe that the child is present to serve their unmet emotional needs or physical needs. Physically taking care of them, the child cooking for them, cleaning the home, taking care of the parent. Even the lack of empathy is highly reflective of a emotionally immature parent where they have a hard time considering someone else's emotions because their emotions are so big, there's no space left for someone else's, and the child does become a part of that bubble where there's not a lot of emotions left for the child. And I think the big part of it is there is that concept where the parent believes that the child is an extension of me. Now, we will talk about that, how that this is even more significant when it's abusive parents, but there is some sort of element present in emotionally immature parents as well, where this parent has a hard time accepting no from the child. If a child has to go out of city, out of state, out of country for their education, and they really, really want to go to that particular school and they express that to their parent. The parent who is emotionally immature may perceive that as abandonment or rejection. So that feeling of abandonment and rejection are so big that they're not able to focus on the child's passion and excitement and openness to experiences and adventures and whatnot, right? The parent is more consumed by, oh my God, I'm gonna be left alone. They don't like me, they don't love me. So the lack of self-regulation from their own traumas, their own upbringing, their own background, it affects them to have this connection with the child where the child feels heard and seen, and the and the parent's empathy can be felt by the child. So that's something that's really missing from the whole dynamic with an emotionally immature parent. Yeah, because I'm also realizing that a lot of times the emotionally immature parents can end up saying a lot of, but what about me? And a lot of centering themselves in the whole dynamic. So, you know, I mean, I I do want to like uh I loved how you describe the details of like emotional immaturity. And I could also imagine people in in their own mind being like, but isn't this just typical? Like it of course parents will be affected if you want to leave the state or you want to go out abroad and you want to leave the house and go somewhere. It really felt like, yeah, I want to name that difference between missing your child and taking your child's decisions personally. That oh, I miss my child, but I'll really miss you when you leave and I wish you didn't have to leave. Or, oh, you're abandoning me. You don't even care about what happens to me. You just want to do whatever you want to do. You know, so there is that distinction. Like, I I think, especially those of us who may have grown up around a lot of um emotional guilting, we can end up finding it difficult to distinguish between parent expressing care and parent actually being so dysregulated by dysregulated being more like emotionally like overwhelmed by our actions that they are not able to take care of themselves and we end up having to sometimes, you know, take care of that person. I'm reminded so much of this poem by Khalil Gibran. Malika, have you read the work of Khalil Gibran?

Missing Your Child Versus Guilt

SPEAKER_01 15:07

But he talks so in whole detail. I don't think I happened. There's this really beautiful poem of his where I think there may so the book is called The Prophet, and he is asked to talk about different things, talk about lovers, talk about this and that, and then somebody asks him, Can you talk about children? And he says this thing about remember that your children come from you, but they are not yours. You know, they are the divine really manifesting through you. And I think that's one of the distinctions I think between a healthy or good enough parent and an emotionally mature parent, that one is able to recognize that this child has come with his own destiny and I'm here to support this child versus this child is an extension of me, you know, like you were saying, Malika. This child is an extension of me. So you are supposed to do what I want you to do because you are an extension of me. So how do you, you know, like continuing to I think distinguish between love? Because Sharuk Khan, to bring it back to DDLJ, Sharuk Khan said this about being a dad. He said being a dad is about recognizing that a part of your heart is always walking outside you. Sharuk, seriously, man, you always get me. But you know, still, like Sharuk, okay, I I don't know him personally, but he always seems like even though his children he describes as, you know, part of your heart walking outside you, he doesn't stop his children from doing what they dream of doing. So, anyway, emotionally mature parents, that was like really insightful. Thank you so much for sharing that. It was really getting me thinking. Of course. Yeah. I love that because, in so many simple words, literally, he was able to really just, you know, put that concept on the table and be like, hey, this is as simple as it. The child will have their own dreams, their own preferences, their own likes and dislikes, and that's okay. They don't have to be punished for that, they don't have to be rejected for that, they don't have to be shunned and shamed for wanting something different than what you did as a parent. And that's the hardest for the emotionally immature parent to tolerate and to accept that the child is gonna be different from who they are. Yeah. Yeah. I was just gonna say that I agree with the term, right? The emotionally immature parent is not a term that I would use in the very first session, even in the very honest gekitika, even in the very first four to eight sessions, the very first two months with my clients, I am not going to label their parents in any of these clinically theoretical labels that we read about. Because again, the population that we work with, the family is very sacred. The parents are very sacred. So I will never go ahead and, you know, narrow down the parents' existence into one of these boxes. My again, the goal that we both, I'm pretty sure, have is to get to understand the client, get to understand the parents too, you know, rather than just instinctively, you know, shun off the parents at, oh my god, they're like emotionally immature,

Why We Avoid Labels In Therapy

SPEAKER_01 18:22

oh my gosh, you need to do this, this, and this. That's never a first line of approach when we are working a self-ist with our clients. The first line of approach is to understand the nuance that the client is bringing into the session where the parent said something and the client had a reaction. It's as simple as that. And we really just explore what did the parent say and how did the client react? What were the client's emotions and thoughts and behavior? Hey client, what was your parents' thoughts on emotions and behavior? Where do you think that came from? How often does this happen for you? So there's a lot more exploration that happens in our sessions and all these books and stuff. This is something that helps us build a framework. Ki conversation kaha ja sakti. And how am I going to help my clients if the conversation ends up being in the category of an abuse or emotionally immature? Like how I can support my clients. But it's definitely not the first thing that we are, you know, telling our clients and empowering, quote unquote, empowering them to assert boundaries and say no or put them against their parents. Totally, totally. Because at the heart of it, what we are here to do as mental health professionals is help people get a clearer understanding of what are my thoughts and feelings and actions, and what are someone else's thoughts, feelings, and actions, and how are these two things interacting? So I feel guilty about leaving. Let's say I feel guilty about leaving my parents to study somewhere else. But how do you feel about it for your own self? I'm actually very excited. Okay, and this guilt, where is this coming from? Like understanding it more. Again, not to label the parents, but to understand someone's context. Because our parents are an important part of our context. They are a part of how we became who we are. But how do we also continue to differentiate between my feelings and my parents' feelings? So that, like, you know, emotions are here to basically tell us what's important to us. And our emotions are here to also guide us about what is important to us, what is important to our parents, and how are our feelings in reaction to something that we are hearing. So I love that you name that this is not something in the first two months we'll suddenly go like, label, your parents are emotionally immature. Uh, boundaries. So boundaries is I think this, Malika, we will do a whole other episode on boundaries. Because I'm not saying I'm angry with boundaries, boundaries, it's not that. I think boundaries are so nuanced, and we need to understand what is the meaning of boundaries and how do we really recognize boundaries are about protecting the relationship, not ending it. Ending relationships is also a whole other episode. But right. All of this is okay. Under certain circumstances, termination with parents is okay, boundary setting is okay, not setting boundaries okay, everything is okay. But it depends on context of what's going on. Main thing, context. Understanding context, and that all that we are doing is highlighting different contexts and ways that we try to make sense of things and support clients in making sense of things. And I think you know, coming back to emotionally immature parents and the question of whether Amrishpuri, whose name I of course, what is his name in DDLJ? I don't know. He's Amrishpuri in D DLJ. Oh no, Kitika, I know. Baldav. Baldiv Singh. Baldav. Baldeev in DDLJ. Also, Amrishpuri, everybody, in case you also don't remember who is who's Baldeev. But you know, I mean, coming back to that topic of emotionally immature parents, wondering, are emotionally immature parents also some people who may not realize their emotions are playing a role and they think they're because I think that's the category Baldeev G falls under. See Baldeev G. I can't even say Baldev. Anyway, a lot of respect. But you know, but Baldev G like has no idea. Okay, Uncle G, this is your trauma speaking. I'm dying laughing. Like simran ni karig, simran won't be. But it is like hello.

Baldev’s Immigrant Grief And Control

SPEAKER_01 22:52

So I think emotionally immature could also be. Emotionally unaware parents? What do you think? Oh yes, yes, yes. That's another way to describe that parent emotionally unaware. That they they are not able to tell the difference between this is an emotion that I just need to sit with and I don't have to be so loud and volcanic. Like it's okay. If Simran marries, you know, Raj, who is an American-born kid, so my daughter is not just going to become American. My daughter has stayed with me for so many years. So Indianess coffee haired Indianist continue. It's okay. Yeah. Or she grows into an American-born me, UK-born. Correct? UK, they were in UK. Oh yeah, they were. They were they were in Europe. Yes. But aha, but that you know that she will also integrate to different cultures. That in Indian culture and the other culture, and integration is not a loss. It is growth only. Pardevji, it's growth. It's growth. Lose it. Every time you say Pardevji, because again this is a tangent. Because when I started seeing up Indian clients and Punjabi clients in my private practice, and these are clients who are like, you know, 55 plus. I'm not gonna call them by names. Like, excuse me. No, it's not happening. And you can't call them uncle auntie Jibki. But then I had to find a middle ground. So this is what I've landed on, Bildepji. So it's name and then G. Like I even like Mr. Something feels not very daisy. So at least personally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, yeah, I can't do that. Mr. something, you know, Mr. Mrs. I'm just like nam and G. I don't feel like I'm in an interview. I'm the person being interviewed. So no. No, and also like hey, I've realized I dodge name only. I say up. So any coming back. This is us. See, Malika, we were told podcasting is supposed to be fun. Ha, we are having fun. Very good. Emotionally mature parents, and Amari will countertransfer. So I'm baselaging. Okay, so I will say this. If we could find a different term for emotionally mature parents, sorry, Dr. Lindsay Gibson, who came up with emotionally mature parents. I think the the term itself maybe you know is neutral, but uh she doesn't know they see people. Okay. So this can be a very difficult term to use. So I can say, like, okay, emotionally mature parents uh is the term we use in the West, but at the heart of it, parents who have difficulty with recognizing their own emotions or tolerating them by that token find it hard to support the emotions of their children. So we'll have to come up with a different term, but maybe not today.

unknown 26:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:05

I think Malevji unfortunately will fall in this category. I think so too. I think so too. I think he was a little But then I also see that he was like good enough because he let quote unquote he let Simrin go to the trip, solar trip, you know. He was able to empathize Mahape, he was able to connect with Simran there, he was able to put his anxiety aside and he was like, okay, chalo, you know, go do what you need to do. So I think he falls in between good enough and that emotionally immature. But okay, I think Bildeji may be a good example of how his own mental health and his own background information and maybe some traumatic events and unhealed, unresolved, traumatic thoughts and experiences impacted his ability to clearly see Simraniya, what does she need, or what does she want? His own that again, immigrant story, right? He he had to leave his country behind. So there was a lot of grief about leaving his country. So all those emotions were overwhelming for him, and he was putting no, my child needs to be completely Indian because that's what I wanted for me, and I didn't get it. So now my child needs to get it. Yeah. However, he understood, you know, at the end of the day, he recognized whatever I'm doing, I'm being stubborn and I need to grow, and I need to let my child grow, and he lets her go with Raj. Yeah, and that he recognizes that love matters too as a child is choosing a partner. Love matters. So a lot of times people have these uh restrictions based on religion, based on caste, based on ethnicity or language, and and sometimes gender. Like there are all these restrictions that our children are expected to choose a partner of like exactly this form. And when you recognize the values that the child is placing on certain qualities in their partner, that is one very important way that you are recognizing the child as their own adult and they are making their own choices. So eventually Baldevji could recognize that Simran is has chosen someone who really loves her, and that matters. And you know, that he's able to grow in that moment. So, and I think like I like what you mentioned about there might be some emotional immaturity, but there was also good enough parenting that there were things that he cared about, and he may have forced a few things onto Simran that I have always wanted to retain my Indian culture identity, blah, blah, blah. And I want you to keep that. Because one thing it reminds me of is this other movie, The Namesake. Uh, it was starring Tabbu and Erfankhan and Kalpen, and uh, there is this scene in it where Tabbu is yelling at her adult kids and saying, Sometimes I feel like I have given birth to strangers because her children were born and raised in the US and she had migrated after she got married, she migrated from India. And there are so many times that the way the kids talk, and I think the kids call the parents at one point, they say, you guys. And she's like, We are not you guys, we are your parents. And she's so frustrated, and she's like, I feel like we've given birth to strangers. And I think that's one of the things that I'm thinking about right now that is sometimes the parent who's trying to hold on to their child fearful of the child becoming some kind of a stranger. And maybe that's also a part of the healthy parents dynamic that children have become their own people. They're not strangers, they're still your children, but them becoming their own person doesn't make them strangers. They're just their own people. I love that. That's so true, you know. Like, how do we continue to love the child for whoever they grew up to be? How does the parent's love not become conditional because the child is maybe speaking a different language or they have different preferences, they have different friends or different habits that they are not aware of, they are not familiar with? Like, how does the love not fall short because of what the child is growing to be as a person? And as soon as I use the word ketchup, there shouldn't be any conditions. Again, nuanced, right? Nuanced. There are families where adult children are highly, highly abusive towards their parents. And in that context, the parents' love for the child should not be conditional. Parents need to take care of themselves. It's an adult child who's both the age of 18, the child can take care of themselves. Just a little asterisk. We don't have to derail completely. Sure. No, that's a helpful asterisk. Thank you for naming that. And wondering also if this might be a good time to also pivot to the experience of this and the adult children. Like, you know, we've been talking more about parenting styles and ways in which parents can show up and alternative ways of being. But if we are looking at it from the view of the adult children, ways to navigate their parents now that they're adults. I remember you were once talking about something called what is it, maturity awareness approach? Is it? Yeah. Like I wonder if we can talk about that actually. I remembered loving hearing about it. Right. Thanks for bringing that up. So the book that I love, again by Dr. Lindsay Gibson, she half of the book is about, you know, exploring your dynamics with your parents and what encompasses a parent who is emotionally immature. Like, what does that look like? And then next half of her book is really focused on repairing. Like, okay, even if you have a parent who is emotionally immature, it does not mean that you are doomed, that your relationship

Mature Awareness For Adult Children

SPEAKER_01 31:52

is doomed, or you have to be estranged from them, you have to, you know, just disconnect from them, and you have to now figure out how to be just on your own without having this family of origin. She says that, well, if you want to, if you feel that's the only option that you have to be estranged from your parents, okay, here is how you can do it. However, just know that there is a way that you can still create a connection with your parents and have a relationship with your parents, despite the fact that they may not be emotionally mature or completely there. So she talks about how there are three ways to relate to a parent who is emotionally immature. And this is the parent who is not open to improving themselves, who is not open to repairing the relationship with the child. This parent is not open to learning about empathy and emotional immaturity. So this parent is very kind of like, you know, accepting of who they are and they have no intention of changing. So this is very important to know because if you feel that your parent is growing and changing, you will have to adapt to that parent's changed behavior. So the whole this mature awareness approach may not be transferable to a parent who is willing to grow and learn. This approach is specifically for the parents who are not willing to grow and learn for whatever reason, they are not able to open themselves up to accountability, to learning new things about their child, and they're not able to hold a lot of emotions in their heart. So, according to Dr. Gibson, she talks about the first way is expressing and then letting go. So, a lot of the children who grew up with emotionally immature parents lack that agency to express what they want to. They have low self-esteem, they don't have a lot of confidence, they really don't think that their needs matter. So, one way to relate with a parent who is emotionally immature is to have a goal in your mind that my goal is to express. My goal is to express in a calm and respectful manner to what I would like to do. So there may be a topic of conversation going on with the parent. You are not going to be, again, married to what you want your parent to respond after you express to them. You're just supposed to express for the sake of your own healing, for the sake of your own empowerment, for the sake of your feeling, what I want my mom or dad to know about me, I have let them know. Now, what they do with that information is for them to decide. You express and you let it go, you let it go. Okay. Then the second is focusing on the outcome, not the relationship. Now, what she means by that is sometimes having a conversation with a parent who is emotionally immature is really hard because emotions take a big toll on a conversation, which has to be practical. The conversation becomes about helping the parent deal with their emotions. Then the actual topic gets lost in that conversation because everything is about, oh my god, I'm so sorry I've hurt you. It becomes like how the parent is hurt by whatever you have said. Now, sometimes maybe the adult child has the time and bandwidth to really sit down and have that emotional conversation. And there are other times that the topic is so important to the adult child that they just want to make sure that the parent heard what they're saying. And one of the topics that she gives an example is what if your emotionally immature parent is being mean, rude, emotionally toxic towards your children? So how are you as an adult child going to set a boundary with your parent who's emotionally mature about how to treat your own children? So now the outcome that you want is to really let and communicate, to let your parent know that this is not okay, to let the parent know that this is hurtful for my child. So how do you, you know, orchestrate that conversation that you keep returning to that same point versus getting derailed into your parent thinking, oh my god, so you think I'm a bad grandparent, you're you think the worse of me, I can never do anything right. Okay, that's fine, you don't have to bring the kids to my home. That's okay if you know better. So rather than engaging in that emotional conversation, the adult child's focus could be, Mom, I understand you're hurt. However, I really want to share that I want to continue bringing the child to spend time with the grandparents. And at the same time, these are the things that are not okay to do with my child. And that could be spanking, hitting, or shaming the child for whatever reasons. Commenting on that and this is common, I've noticed in Desi families, I'm sorry. But this whole commenting on a child's body, this child is not eating enough, too skinny, too fat, something nonsense always comes. Commentary on children's bodies, like ah, snip that in the bud. So yeah. So that's where you know Dr. Gibson says, like, focus on the outcome, not on the relationship, because that's not the time to focus on the relationship. Another example she gave was like if you are not able to come home for Diwali. She talks about Christmas, but I'm like, hey, Diwali. So, like, if you're not gonna be able to visit your parents for Diwali, maybe you're visiting your husband's parents for Diwali, like trying to focus on communicating that rather than engaging in the emotional aftermath that comes. And the last one is managing, not engaging. And what she means by that is with emotionally immature people, you have to set a goal of managing the interaction, which includes duration and topic. There are only certain topics that are safe enough to be talked with that parent. You can focus on how much time do you want to spend with them on the phone, in person, vacation, them coming over, you going over to their home. So there are some things that you can manage when you're trying to have a conversation with them. And the thing is that I love about Dr. Gibson is that she always talks about being polite and respectful towards the parents when you're communicating your own concerns or addressing certain things with them. And sometimes when you feel that the parent is kind of, you know, derailing the conversation because emotions are getting big, you continue to redirect the parent until you get the answer that you were trying to have a conclusion to. Not engaging in that emotional chaos, emotional hurt, continuing to manage the conversation, bringing the parent back to like, hey, I understand this is hurtful. I really would like to know if we are going blah, blah, blah, if we're going to someplace on the weekend or not. I really would like to know if we will be able to spend time with my kid on this particular date. Yeah. Yeah, I know I love it. I love it. And I love that at the heart of it, there is that effort to protect the relationship in these different ways. Where I think sometimes our community can struggle is that showing respect and feeling respect can be two different things. You can show respect to someone while internally you are really angry with them, maybe resentful. So our relationships sometimes run the risk of breaking down from inside our hearts, while outside it can look like everything is fine. And I think there is some room for really protecting the relationship in a good way that does not cause harm to the adult child. And it can be difficult, of course, for the uh parent who is now dealing with their emotions in a new way because the child is the adult child is no longer engaging in that same way. The parent will have a reaction, but at the heart of it, you are protecting the relationship in the long term.

The Nervous System Work Comes First

SPEAKER_01 39:52

And that is one of the things that I really feel comes up quite a bit in Malika and my work that we meet a lot of people who want to find a way to remain in a good relationship with their parents while having really struggled with a lot of different things. There is conversation about, you know, this concept of estrangement. So we'll talk about it in a different episode. This is not to criticize people for wanting to, you know, disconnect from their parents and absolutely hold a boundary where they are like, no, I don't want to talk to them. And there is the reality that boundaries are also a way to foster relationships in a good way. It's not just who you keep out, it's who you keep in and how do you, at the heart of it, uh, protect what is valuable. So I really like you know the steps you laid out, Malika. And I think like the the it's such a big body of work, and I love how you summarized it because it gives people like really some things to think about that hey, you don't have to disconnect from your parents, you can be real with them by actually naming specific things and focusing on them. Yeah, and I think the really big part comes from when the child is learning, the adult child is learning how to be honest with their parents about certain things because they haven't been allowed to be honest and transparent with the parents because of how dysregulated the parent can get, and then the child feels responsible for those feelings and they feel like they have disappointed the parents and they feel bad and the shame comes over, right? So before you even get to this place of communicating with your parents using this approach, know that there is a lot more internal work that you will have to do as an adult child. Like there is a a lot more understanding that you will need to have about your responses and your triggers when you're talking to the parent. This communicating with the parent is not going to happen even within two months of you going to therapy. Maybe six to ten months or even in years sometimes, depending on the dynamics in the family. The client is just working on calming down their nervous system when they think about even opening up to their parents. Or sometimes they try and communicate and they get angry, and then it's just like a verbal, you know, aggressive match with the parents. And they don't like that either because that leaves them feeling worse about themselves as the child. So before, and the reason I'm saying this is because we understand that this is a very hard thing to do. We're not saying that this is something you can just do right away, and oh my gosh, you're gonna have like a great relationship with the parents. This is a whole journey and a process that you go through, and it starts with you understanding your response, your nervous system, how are you gonna regulate your anxiety and fear as you prepare to maybe have some. You need to learn about calming your nervous system and dealing with anxiety and fear as you work on finally communicating with the parents about maybe some sort of boundary setting, or you want to just express and let it go, don't have to worry about outcome. But there's a lot more internal work that this explains. Yeah, yeah. Because, you know, as we are like coming to the you know, end of this episode, uh, joking, not joking, like returning to how it worked in TDLJ, then at the heart of it, Raj, Sharukhan's character, was trying to find a way for both Simran and Raj to express themselves to the family. Like, how can we be, let them see us for who we are, and that overall Simran had a dynamic that she had had for years with her family. So the only way out was what Simran's mother was also suggesting that both of you run away. You know, like so, in some subtle way, the mother was saying, Estrangement is the only option, run away. And Raj was saying no, because Raj is from a different ecosystem. So he's just like, no, there has to be a way for the family to remain connected, for us to be authentic and for us to express ourselves. But of course, you know, if you see the movie, the plot thickens in a particular way, and Raj is like, oh God, there's no time for authenticity. What do we do? So then there's a big fight. But either ways, eventually,

DDLJ Takeaways On Authenticity

SPEAKER_01 44:13

authenticity won, you know, and Baldeevji eventually sees love is real and love is great. So I think again, there was somewhere, there was a lot of orchestrating happening. You know, there was a lot of focusing on the outcome. There was some relationship building also. Like there were all those scenes with Raj standing next to Baldeevji feeding pigeons. It's such a sweet, such a sweet thing. But you know, that he knew that was one way where that's when Baldeevji's nervous system is really calm. So they could co regulate together. Raj is standing next to Baldeevji and they're feeding pigeons, so they are like co regulating together, which was so lovely. And again, he's orchestrating all of this. He's he's having these in experiences with. Even Simran and all those scenes of her praying and being a good girl, that's the risk, right? One moment it is fawning, one moment it is about trying to meet the parent in their really regulated nervous system. So an emotionally immature parent can sometimes need a lot of like that hand holding. How do I get you to like regulate your nervous system first? And then I'll ask for what I need. But from what you were sharing about, you know, the uh maturity awareness approach where an adult child at the heart of it names the outcome they want and leaves the parent to regulate in their own time. So we do see mixes of all of these approaches, though DDLJ people did not know what they were doing, of course, because they don't know psychology. But I'm recognizing now that oh, okay, there was a bit of all of this happening. And I'm really glad we talked about it. I love your brain, Gitika. I love that some may say that you were able to, and you're so right, you know. Simran was thinking about oh, a strange wind, and mummy is like a strange man, and Sharuk is saying, Nayah, like we can be authentic and you know, transparent, and they will have to give us the blessings, and that's so true. Yes, and that was doable at the heart of it because Baldevji was not an abusive parent. He was at the heart of it. His heart was you knew his heart was in the right place. He needed to get over himself a little bit. That is so true. So he was not a cold psychopathic man, you know, he was not an abusive man. He just, Kachary, you know, he was going through stuff. And he just needed to clear the fog and then able to actually see, like, oh, wait a second, my child is getting hurt, so I really need to, you know, let the child fly away and go live her life. So yeah, ja it's similar. Totally. Oh my god. This is so fun. See, DDLJ, man, it's a gift that keeps on giving.

SPEAKER_00 47:03

I just did not realize that this is how much we're gonna talk about DDLJ today as well. And it's great. It's been so helpful.

SPEAKER_01 47:14

And also it's easier to talk about DDLJ because DDLJ and us don't have a HIPAA contract. That's so true. HIPAA, for those of you listening, is a confidentiality clause in the medical systems in the US, and you have to be really careful that you don't by any chance disclose client information when you're discussing anything. So, yeah, anyway. That was an academic joke. But anyway, this was great, Malika. I really enjoyed this conversation. Let's have more of this, let's watch more movies, let's drag them all into this. I already have in my mind, I'll tell you after we stop recording, like already have in mind a series that we want to that we should watch for a second season podcast and play. It's all about generational healing in Whatran. So correct. Correct. Anyway, off we were now. Yeah, if there's anything that you have learned from the podcast, it's be authentic. Yes. Yes, so thanks everyone. Thanks so much for listening. And please hit like, subscribe to this podcast, leave us a comment, leave us a review. Actually, please leave us reviews. It lets people know you're actually listening to this podcast and it really helps us expand our reach. We would love for you to support this podcast by liking, subscribing, sending us reviews. And yes, let us know what you're thinking. This is Kitaka signing off. And Malika signing off. Bye.

SPEAKER_00 48:41

Bye.