Asshole Parents

Narcissistic Parents, Emotional Abuse, and Unconventional Divorce

June 03, 2020 Christian Family, Esq.
Asshole Parents
Narcissistic Parents, Emotional Abuse, and Unconventional Divorce
Show Notes Transcript

"A lot of people have narcissistic parents in the sense that they care more about what the kid does for them than they care about actually nurturing the kid."- Shay Rowbottom

This interview with Shay Rowbottom, LinkedIn Content Guru, delves into growing up with narcissistic parents, unhealthy relationships, reasons not be a mother, and divorcing your toxic family. 

There is so much value and strength to be garnered from this discussion. I suggest you do like me and  listen to it a FEW times.  Recorded May 26, 2020

Speaker 1:

Well, welcome. Welcome. Welcome to asshole parents with Christian family. I am a twice divorce adult, child of divorce, proud mother of three former divorce lawyer for nearly 20 years. And my divorce parents live with me. Yes, I am truly all things divorce. The title of this podcast, a asshole parents comes from my life with my own parents who I guess said live with me and they both think the other's an asshole. And I think they're both assholes and it led me to believe that I'm probably also an asshole. And as a result here we are with this podcast. Today's guest is Shane RO bottom is my first celebrity guest. I say I'm so excited to be interviewing her. I've been following her content on LinkedIn. So engaging, just really engaging. I love your message or point of view, just everything about you. Um, I was reading an article that you posted on LinkedIn called the divorce is your fault, and I knew immediately that you needed to be a guest on the show. And so with no further ado, Shea, please introduce yourself and let's just

Speaker 2:

talk. Thank you. Yes. Thank you so much for having me here. Certainly a topic I'm very passionate about having grown up in it myself. Um, but today what I do is I help businesses create video content on LinkedIn to attract their target market and close more deals. So I first got into digital marketing a few years ago. I started working on Facebook editing video content, working with some of these huge blogs. It was really humbling. I learned a lot about how to grow a following and how to get attention online, specifically using video as a tool. And, um, once I realized there was such an opportunity on LinkedIn for video, very little competition, very little business owners utilizing it. I decided to pivot and start a LinkedIn agency. So I've been in the industry for just four years now, but I've really gone all in and it's just been an incredibly humbling experience to get to learn all this knowledge about digital marketing and share it with others and also share it with myself because I also always wanted to be a performer. I've always wanted to be an entertainer. And that goes back to my childhood, which I'm sure we'll talk about, you know, needed that need for attention, kind of developing that. Um, so yeah, I'm really excited to be here today. And then in addition to all of the marketing knowledge and everything I share on my blog, I am very open about, you know, my history. I'm very open about my vulnerabilities, my shortcomings, my mental health struggles. And I also talk a lot about family and family dynamics and how that plays into the mental health aspect. So thank you. I'm honored to be here.

Speaker 1:

Oh, thanks so much, Brian. And I can't say enough how much I love your content on LinkedIn. I made it like, they're the best videos out there. I always watched them. I always stop. I always learn something. I laugh while I'm like, this girl really knows what she's

Speaker 2:

doing. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. And that's, that's exactly it, right? People are like, how are you getting all this attention? How are you doing this? And, uh, they don't always see the background that I've had in video licensing. You know, I literally curated thousands of video clips at one point. My last agency was doing a billion views a month on Facebook. Yeah. So it's not just the personality. I mean, it's certainly helps that I've always had an inclination, uh, to entertain and kind of have that natural personality, but it's really the marketing and all of the logic that I learned behind it. Um, so to anyone listening, who's like, Oh, I want videos like that. How do you get attention like that? Um, it's totally possible. You just have to study and learn. Awesome. Awesome. I'll probably reach out. Cause Lord knows. Let me know. Yes. Sweet. But yes, the deal is you are very open about who you are and how you came to become who you are. And so like you started to touch on it. Like you were always were interested in entertainment and this came from your childhood. Let's let's hear about that. Yes. Um, so I grew up in a really rough terrain. Um, it's actually not something I've, I've come forward fully about, uh, the abuse of my childhood. It, uh, took me a lot of time to actually process what had happened to me as a little girl and why I developed the patterns and the personalities and, um, the coping mechanisms that I had developed, you know, for a long time, I just didn't really even know I was pretty unconscious to it. But now looking back on the childhood, it's a pretty natural response for a child to wants attention if they're being neglected. So I took on that role, I took on that archetype. Like I was just always entertaining, always doing whatever I could to get attention, to be liked, to be valued. Um, and it, it never left me. You know, I grew up, I decided I wanted to be a musician, but it was really hard. You know, like when you grow up with narcissistic parents, the kids usually will not get along. And that's my design. Um, it's that classic divide and conquer mentality. And I'm not saying that these parents are conscious of what they're doing. In fact, many of them are not conscious. That's the problem in the first place. That's what creates narcissism? Is it just a complete denial of self, your unconscious to the reality, but that's what happened in my household. You know, I have four sisters and they're very lovely people, but unfortunately we were kind of naturally pitted against one another from the start, you know, uh, I don't have resentment for my sisters or for the lack of support I got, they made fun of me a lot for wanting attention, but that was just their trauma response. You know, that was just their reaction. It was a very competitive household. And, um, it was a really sad, uh, divorce, which you touched on. I mean, it really, I resonate with everything you say 100% because when my parents finally got a divorce, I 18 and they just completely would, uh, paint the other one in a negative light blame, the other one, you know, talk to their kids about the other one. Um, it's kind of that classic, like parent alienation syndrome that can occur in a lot of divorces. Yeah. That happened a hard for me. And especially cause I was one of the kids who was still talking to both parents, you know, I was trying to go back and forth trying to mitigate. And it was like every time I hung out with my mom, she was telling me how much of a piece of shit my dad was. And every time I hung out with my dad, he was telling me how much a piece of shit my mom was. And I did the exact same thing that you'd mentioned earlier where you come to realize like, well, am I just, this is 50% of me. This is 50% of me. Am I just a hundred percent piece of shit? And that stuck with me, like, you know, thankfully within it all, I always had an aspect of my higher self that just knew something was seriously wrong here. But you know, as kids, we, we want to love our parents. We want to not see the darkness. We want to idealize them and only see the good qualities and keep making excuses for having them in our lives. Even if they are toxic. I just, I cut the cords. I mean, it took many years. I eventually realized like, you know, this family, they, they are in a very unconscious on healed state, not living in reality, living in denial, victim mentality, blaming setting a bad example for their kids. You know, I just realized this environment is not conducive to me reaching the goals that I know I want to achieve in life. And it's a hard pill for a lot of people to swallow. You know, they have all these big goals, these dreams, but they can't get past the reality. Oftentimes that can't take your family with you. I know they're your loved ones. I know you want them to heal with you and like be on the same path, but it's just not the reality. You have to cut these people out, even if they are family. Um, so in my case, yeah, a lot of abuse, a lot of narcissism, a lot of just, you know, living through the kids, caring more about what the kids do for us and how they make us look then about their actual needs and, and what they're feeling. Um, it just really motivated me to want to talk to people about it because I started to notice not everyone grows up with the extremities that I did, but like a lot of people have narcissistic parents in the sense that they care more about what the kid does for them than they care about actually nurturing the kid. So that has become a big focus of mine as well. Helping educate people, educating parents around, you know, their own tendencies. How can you become conscious of this dark programming? That's kind of been ingrained in society generation after generation. Like it's all about how we look. We all have family secrets that were kind of like programmed not to reveal. And if we get too raw and vulnerable, our family shames us, no, like it's none of that. I believe in living out in the open and that was not going to fly with my family. So I left and, uh, my life has continually improved by miles and milestones ever since, Oh my God. There was so juiciness in there and packet for me, a lot of juiciness in there. Um, yeah, like I'm with you on this. Like I grew up experiencing emotional neglect, right? So it's childhood emotional neglect and emotional neglect is really hard to identify because it's something that didn't happened. You know, when this had this, like there's riots and then, and then people challenge it a lot of times when you say like, Oh, I was abusive. Like, no, you weren't on the surface. Everything looks fine. You had food, you had this, like, what are you talking about? The emotional stuff is really subtle and covert like that as the truth. And like my parents, like they did the best they could. You know what I mean? I know that about them a hundred percent, but they were unconscious it's like you were saying, like they weren't, there was only so much they were able to give is the statement. My mother says, you know, they did their drunk ass best, you know what I mean? Like yes. And the drinking. Yeah. Right. And at some point you, you make the movement that you do, you accept them for who they are. Right. You look at the effect that they've had on your life and you make a decision. Right. Am I going to be this person? I'm not going to be somebody else. Yes. Right. And I think a lot of people think they make that decision, but they don't, you know, they attribute like being different than their parents and being a better parent than their parents. They attribute it to like personality traits or even, um, even things that on the surface look like they're doing a better job. Like, Oh, for example, growing up, my dad was never around. He never went to my soccer games. I go to every single one of my son's soccer games. So I'm different. I've clear. I've cleared the family line. Like it's changed. It's like if you have an underlying programming that you just care about what your kid does for you, more than caring about their actual needs and what's good for them, it doesn't matter how many soccer games you go to. Like, you're still your dad, you know, it's just coming out in a different form. It might even be coming out in a more manipulative form now where all the friends see the data's present. They're like, what are you talking about your dad? So, I mean, I know for me, that's true. Like I had the mom that all my friends were like, your mom's so cool. She's so amazing. I wish I had your mom, but I'm like, you don't see what goes on behind these closed doors. My mom was really good at putting on a show and that's part of the design. Right? So that when you go outside the family to kind of inquire question or you have concerns for the way you're being treated, everyone's like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Don't complain. You know, you're, you're white middle class privilege. Like you have nothing to complain about. And that's also a really dangerous aspect to this narcissistic parenting epidemic. Hmm. Oh my God. I love it. You hear people talking about a lot getting divorced from a narcissistic spouse. Oh yes it is. It's rough. Yeah. Oh my God. But your angle of being the child of a narcissistic parent, I promise I've never heard this story from anybody. You that's crazy. No, it's, it's out there. I mean, I first started learning about narcissism because of narcissistic parenting. Like that was actually how I got into the rabbit hole of narcissism, but you're right. A lot of times people don't recognize their own parents as having these dark qualities. And then they grow up and they manifest a narcissistic spouse and they don't know why, but it's, they're replaying a patterning from their childhood. What they just thought was normal. What they just thought was love. But it was actually narcissistic abuse and control. You know, I control you, therefore. I love you. Um, so I went through the same thing. I, I was in a relationship with an intellectual narcissist for four years. It ended ugly. Yes. Like you, if someone is truly a narcissist and deep in that darkness, I'm breaking away from them. It's going to be really hard. You know, they're going to fight it. They're going to battle you. And that's exactly what happened with my dad. You know, when my mom decided to pull the plug and say, I can't do this anymore. Um, and they were both narcissistic, but he was definitely the ringleader. I mean, she was, uh, as, as much as she's guilty, she was a victim. Like I want to be clear, like he like this, this man was very, very dark and manipulative. And that's what happened when she got a divorce. He like freeze. The bank accounts, like took money. She had to like borrow money from my sister just to pay a lawyer. I mean, it gets nasty. It's like a lot of nasty energy and it just comes back to the narcissist losing control. They don't like it. They've had control of this woman for X amount of years. You start to set boundaries. You start to honor yourself for once. Because typically when you're with a narcissist, it's probably all about serving them. They'll punish you, you know, they'll attack you for that. And that's exactly what I went through with my ex. And it really actually, I noticed through the breakup and I had already cut out my parents at this time. Hadn't talked to my family for years, but my mom came back in the light for me during my own breakup because of I realized what she'd gone through, uh, way, way, way closer now, because I had gone through the same thing and I started to have a lot more compassion for her, like, wow, how difficult it got over time. Um, as this man sort of indoctrinated me into his ways and brainwashed me into being more and more dependent on him, how difficult it was for me to break away from him after that, and end to end to form my own voice again, and to follow my God of like deep down, something's wrong, deep down. I know that this man, like there's something off here. I mean, that was a huge process for me. And we were only together for four years. We're not married and did not even have kids together. Thank God. So yeah. So I look at my mom like, Oh gosh. And you know, even some of these more powerful women who maybe their husband makes a lot of money and takes care of the kids and you know what I mean? So it gets, you stuck in this place of feeling like you really need them. But at the end of the day, if we truly tune into our intuition and tap into our gut and listen to that, which I feel so many humans are disconnected from now, and we'll find this is not living, you know, this is not life. It doesn't matter how much money they make. It doesn't matter how charming they are to everyone else in your life. And everyone else going to say, like, it seems like you're with a great guy, you know, it seems like your parents are great. What do you feel in your gut is good for your soul and go with that. Oh my God. Yes, yes, yes, yes. That really is a hundred percent my message about divorce. And so I'd like to talk about it. Like, was there an incident that let you know that this isn't right. Was there a person that came in like, like how did you get the strength and the self perception to know it's time to get out of here? Yeah. Um, good question. I definitely started to figure it out in my teen years. You know, once I started hanging out with a lot of friends, saw different family dynamics versus mine. Um, you know, I, I, I would say that it started with my mom because my dad wasn't, um, as active as a parent, like just wasn't around as much. It was usually my mom who was like running the show. Like you had to ask her permission for things, not him. Um, and she just treated me very poorly. You know, like I was a good kid. I was a straight a student. I played soccer. I worked a part time job. You know, it was like, I checked all the boxes of being a really good kid who should just kind of be allowed some freedom, but she was very, very controlling of me. I mean, like, it was an to an unhealthy degree and I am also one of the younger siblings. So I think when the older siblings started to move out of the house for focus, really, she really got laser focused in on me. And, um, I just started to call her out. I just said it like, you know, this is wrong. Like why I would challenge her, I would say like, what, but why do I need to do that mom? But like, what is the, you know, like, and, and I look back on it. I didn't even know what I was doing, but I was calling her out on her own shame. Things that she deep down knew was bullshit, but she couldn't face it. So when I would trigger that and cause her brain to question things and go down that path of looking at herself, it was like shame, you know? And that, and that's a big thing I talk about is shame. I mean, that's how narcissists are created is shame. Shame is a great way to control people. Shame is also the lowest of all human vibrations. So when you're shaming someone, there's nowhere to go, but down, and this is what's happening in society. We just shame each other. There's nowhere to go, but down, we're just killing each other when we're, when we do the shaming, instead of trying to actually be open and see people's perspective no much, no matter how much you think you disagree with it. Um, shame is not the way. And this is the way in narcissistic households. You know, they shame the kids into being who they want. And, uh, I just wasn't having it. You know, I think my other sisters were just more obedient personality types, naturally a little easier to control a little, just like, okay, I don't want to rock the boat. Um, I was the outspoken child. I just was like, something's wrong here? I want freedom. You know, I want to be an artist. Like, I don't think I need college. I saw a different path for myself in life and my mom was very against it. Cause she wanted all of us to go to college. You know, she wanted us to have our degrees. So I would say that was definitely the turning point for me was high school. And it's funny because I had a few girlfriends over this past week and then they were both complaining to me about their families. And one of the things they both said was I am a completely different person around my family. And I was like, Oh no, no, no. Like the alarms went off for me. That's why I couldn't stay with my family because I refuse to be anyone, but who I really was. And they couldn't accept it. It was, I was too grounded in reality. I was to looking at like the stats of like college degree, like this, the debt, like doesn't add up for me going to art school and wanting to be an artist. I can do it about it. You know what I mean? Like I was just forming my own conclusions to things and that's a big, no, no right. To control someone. You better hope that they are not critically thinking. And I just became very analytical. I just started to look at reality. And that's when the tension between me and my mom got like really bad. And if you see on my LinkedIn, this article I wrote about the divorce is your fault. That's that period of time in my life, like she did end up divorcing my father, blamed it on me being such a rebellious child. Um, I can even see some truth in that my behavior was the catalyst for them getting a divorce only in the sense that I forced them to look at how dysfunctional their relationship was because they couldn't unite to parent me. They couldn't agree. Like I was acting out. So like, yeah, there's some logic behind. If I would have just been a good obedient kid, maybe they wouldn't have gotten divorced as soon as they did. But the divorce, like your marriage is that has nothing to do with me. You know what I mean? Like your marriage is bad because your marriage is bad blaming the kid. And I was 18 when I was 17 or yeah, I was 18 when she had said this to me about, you know, the divorce is your fault. And I just knew in my gut, I'm not, I wasn't a psych major. I wasn't like even studying the narcissistic family dynamics at this point, but I just knew that is so messed up. That you would say that to me, like I know that's the last thing that a parent should say to their kid when they're going through a divorce and I was 18 then, and that was the start of me really cutting out my mom. I, I cut her out for about six months, my senior year. Let her back in, you know, realized she's toxic again, caught her out again. Let her back in. I did this dance for a few years where you kind of tell yourself, well, maybe it'll be different this time with my mom. You know, maybe she'll really be a mom and maybe she'll love me. Oh man. I definitely went back and forth for years before. Just finally realizing, you know what, it's painful Shay, but you got to pull this plug. Oh my God, it's painful, but I got to do it. Yes, yes it is. I mean, it's like divorce. It's um, part of my message in my Ted talk is that relationships and you know, most of them do and it doesn't necessarily mean that somebody did something wrong, but relationships in nothing is forever. Not even family relationships, you know, and people put all this shame and guilt on you when a marriage ends. What, when marriage, when relationships and it's usually for the best. I mean, it just, yeah, it is, you know, this is a hard thing to do. It's hard for people to wrap their minds around. And I want people to hear that, that you were to divorce for all intents and purposes yourself from your family, from your mom. And that is major. You got big time guts, big[inaudible] and it opens you up for way stronger relationships. You know, like it might seem innocent like, Oh, I still, you know, hanging out with these people. Uh, they're not really going where I want to go in life. You know, they have different goals like that rubs off on you. You know, you, you, you really can't attract the relationships that you want if you're still constantly going back and hanging out in that low vibration. So that's one thing I've found is like all of my friends now they're just so conscious. So self aware of their wounds of their own insecurity and their own darkness, you know, willing to talk about it. That's, that's the kind of friendship I have with people. You know, I have a friend who said to me the other day, Hey, I'm noticing, um, she has a girlfriend they're really close. And she's like, I'm noticing as she's growing and building new relationships, I'm not happy for her. Even though I know objectively, it's good for her. I'm a little insecure about losing her as a friend and my abandonment issues are coming up. I'm like, wow, how great that we've just formed a community where we can openly talk about that. Darkness, not shame her, not say, Oh, that's manipulative of you to not want your friend to have a good life. Cause you want to keep her close to you. It's like, no, this is what exposes our wounds. This is what takes us back to our childhood and allows us to actually get to the point where we can do some digging where we say, well, why do I have this abandonment issue? Why do I feel like, uh, if my friend grows and actually becomes a more evolved person, she's gonna leave me. You know? Um, so it's just one example of like the relationships you can cultivate. Once you cut out those relationships who are not able to do that, people start showing up and showing up. And now the energy of my family, I mean, it was still difficult. Cutting them out. I still had doubt, you know of like, am I doing the right thing? Am I going to regret this later? Is my family really? Right? And I'm just crazy. No, no, no, no. None of that at all anymore. Because with the community I'm surrounded with now and the way we interact and talk openly about our wounds and live in reality. I mean, even just like a text from a family member, I'll feel that energy like through the phone, I'll feel that like, I'm like, I don't like compute anymore. Like I'm just not on that. Wavelength. Everything is like an underlying manipulation. Everything is living on the surface and it's also finding compassion for them. You know, people will heal when they're ready. Hey, you're just on this journey right now. You don't want to face reality. That's fine. I'm I'm over here. I'm facing it whenever you're ready. Give me a call. I love it. I feel that way. Like with my ex husband who was a major negative energy stuck energy suck. Yeah. That's the term they use for narcissists too. Yes. And, and um, yeah. I don't know exactly what his drama is, but he's got drama and throughout the marriage, she had me in such an abused state until I have like PTSD in relation to the phone. Cause it would be this thing where if phone rang, I had to answer it. You know what I mean? Like, like you had to be trained, you know, you have to answer my calls, you have to respond to my texts. He will call, call, call, call, call. And then when I would call her, if I didn't answer, you know what I mean? I'm going to get cussed out. It's going to be nasty at home. Like there was all of this. And so like the phone, like, you know what, I have me on edge. Like he was gone out of my house for probably about a year before I was able to turn my ringer back on. Wow. Ingrained. And even now, and he sends the text message, just what you're saying. I can feel the energy, energy through it. And I'm just like, Oh my God, I don't believe I was married to you for saving years. Isn't it crazy? And that's the thing when people are in the relationship, it's kind of like taking an object like this note pad right here. And like having someone close their eyes, but then putting it right here and then saying open your eyes. What is it? You're in the relationship. You're like, I don't, you know, but then you get out of the relationship. You're like, Oh, this is actually a notepad. And I can see clearly there's writing on the lines. You know? Like you, you don't see it until you're out of it. And that's what happened to me too. Like I had doubts about starting to set boundaries with my acts, like off just felt so dependent on this man. So trained by him, as you said, like I had this programming in my head, um, of all of these things that would just strategically make me feel, uh, incapable and that I needed him. And a few months out of the relationship, it is a complete like I am like, how was I even with this person? How, but that's what it is. People can't see it when they're in the relationship. And that's where friends come into play, having good friends who can see it, who artists and say, Hey, I feel like, you know, your relationship is a little toxic. I, Hey, I feel like he's like pretty controlling of you. That's often not allowed in with narcissistic partners because they tailor pick who they want you to hang out with. And they're very selective. I know in my last relationship it was like, no one was good enough to hang out with us. You know, nobody had our ideals or had our values and it was this whole brainwashing of if they get close to us, we're not going to be able to reach our goals, which there's truth in that. I just got done saying that, right? It's all who you surround yourself with. But these people will use that personal development jargon as manipulation. And I found myself with no friends. I had no girlfriends for years. I was just like a slave to this man, just living with him. Once I started to let girlfriends in this was right before the breakup occurred right away. These girls that I started to get close with. I'm here in my new hometown. It was like, they were like, he something's off shit. And then the separation happened shortly after that. So that's the proof is if you have friends, um, you know, ask their opinion, genuinely ask a lot of times friends won't outwardly give their honest feedback because they don't want to hurt you. They, you know, uh, don't want you to feel like they are being controlling, but just ask, just be honest, like, Hey, what do you think of this new guy I'm dating? Do you see the I've? My behavior has changed at all. Am my acting differently? Do you feel like I'm losing myself to this man? Good friends will know, you know, and good friends will keep you grounded. And that is what I did not have in the time dating that, man. I completely had cut out all my friends pretty early on in the beginning, in the name of, you know, progress and the name of, okay, he's saying this is what's good for me. So I'm going to do it. I'm totally catastrophic. You know, just, just totally left me broken and alone. And uh, somehow, you know, I mustered the courage to get out, but it really was because things had just gotten so bad year after year, I was like, this is, this is not panning out the way that I envisioned or the way that he had convinced me it was going to be. And that's when like the inner intuition in me kicked in again, like something in me, a woken again thing. Thank God. You know? Cause I see so many women, they never even get to that point. They just stay stuck. Um, I broke through it, you know, I questioned, I was really scared. I had a business with him. So I thought like, am I going to have to go waitress again? Like, I've start my business all over. How could I make money without him? It's like, no, like I had it in me the whole time. He didn't want me to know that I had it in me the whole time. You didn't want me to know that I had that strength, those smarts, that power to leave. Um, but shortly after it was over, I realized I'm so much stronger without him. But you do have to get through that discomfort, that rough turbulent period where you feel, you feel like you're dying, like leaving your comfort zone and setting these boundaries for the first time it's Sox. I was heartbroken and the things ended very poorly between us. He hurt me, you know, just intentionally tried to hurt me. Uh, one last like grasp that control of me during the breakup. But um, yeah, it doesn't affect me at all anymore. I made it through and now my vibration is so high that like, I just don't resonate with any of that drama. You know? I don't like, there's nothing in me that wants to reconnect with this man or like even ever talk to him again unless he decides to heal. Um, but yeah, just save yourself. You know, at the end of the day, we are conditioned. A lot of times we are programmed to take care of other people. And that comes from narcissistic parenting that comes from the parents, putting their need before the child kind of subconsciously programming children to anticipate their needs as the adults instead of the other way around. So to get back to that true self and understand, it's not selfish for you to put yourself first, it's not selfish to set boundaries and take care of your own needs. This is what makes a healthy human. And once you're in that place where you are healthy and evolved and healed, that's when you're going to attract the partner, who's not going to abuse you and who's not going to come into this relationship with the belief that love is control or manipulation. Emotional abuse. Love is just pure acceptance and no fear of rejection or being abandoned by this person. Oh my God. I love that so much. I am as a divorce lawyer, right? I say to people that if you're in a custody fight with somebody, even though you haven't been married, you're still going through a divorce. It's just a divorce without a marriage. Yes. And listening to you, even with you and this gentleman, not having kids together and that having a marriage that was still a divorce, right. That's a business. So it was still a divorce. And just sometimes let people understand that because they feel like, Oh, I don't, I don't. They feel like they don't understand a divorce, so they don't resonate with it, but that's not true. You don't have to be married to have experienced that. My foolish self, if I hadn't been in your place, I have just started having babies with a man. Hoping that would've changed it. How am I? Gosh, I know. Right? And that's the thing. A lot of people have kids from a very, they go into having kids with the wrong energy. They go into it thinking like, I want to have a lot of women, especially, they're like, I want to get pregnant. I want someone to love me. I want this baby. So that they'll love me. It's like, okay, you're not qualified to be a mother, but it's, it's honestly really common. Um, I think that we're waking up now to realize like, you know, the way we've been raising our children for so long, it's just really off, you know, you can't deny the statistics, that generation after generation we've gotten sicker mentally. Um, more and more women. Uh, I believe the range is like age 16 to 24 women age 16 to 24 suicide is, is, has shot up over the yeah. Like the, the way that we are raising our children is, um, not conducive to them having a healthy self esteem and loving themselves. And I think parents struggled to own that because they didn't recognize it in their parents. You know, they thought their parents were just normal and then they do the same thing with their kid. And when anyone challenges them with like, Hey, I think you're really messing up your kid. They get really defensive. Was it like what? You know, like I'm doing exactly. Like they just, they can't own that. You know, I know a woman whose daughter died of heroin overdose when she was 18. It was her first time trying heroin and she died. And this was a single mom, her only child. This was like the love of her life. Her daughter, where on the surface, it looks like, Oh, she's such a killer mom. She loves her kids so much, but it was still abuse. How much she spoiled this girl was abuse. You know what I mean? It comes from the same place. It comes from. I'm going to give the girl anything she wants so that she just loves me. And she sees me as this cool parent. Who's just, it's again, the mother operating from a place of, I want your approval. I want you to love me. Not objectively looking at Hey, sometimes saying no to your kid is the thing you need to do. Sometimes giving them boundaries, giving them curfews is the loving thing to do. Um, so there's so many different examples, you know, like it can show up in many ways. And that's where I say the narcissistic parenting people don't always see it as like, Oh, but your dad didn't hit you. You know, like it's so much more than that. This woman's spoiled her daughter to death, but she spoiled her to the point where she was doing drugs on supervise. And I mean, I still, I know this woman and I still see her having a really hard time taking any accountability for being involved in that death. You know what I mean? Just kind of like, Oh, I'm a victim. My, my one and only child died. It's like, you need to look at yourself. How are you parenting her for 18 years? Like what was really the intention behind the relationship? Um, so on the bright side, whether she's seeing it, uh, from the angle, I'm seeing it yet or not, this woman did finally have to face herself, you know? And it came through the form of her daughter dying. And then it was like, wow, I have abandonment issues. I need to work on myself. And I think that children can just be a distraction from that. You know, people have kids and they don't ever do the inner work. And that kid is going to end up being your teacher, man. Like that kid is going to end up being the one to show you where you're still holding onto the trauma. You're still holding on to bitterness, resentment, whatever. Um, it all comes out in our children. You know, kids are a reflection of their parents. I really believe that. I understand that there's exceptions and certain things, especially if like you adopted a kid and you took on some other family's energy, it might not be your fault. You know? So there's different cases, but which 99.9% of the time your kid is doing drugs, your kid is prostituting themselves. Your kid has got like, it is, what did you do? You know? And I think that it's just hard for parents to look at that. And I want to, uh, open up a conversation and create a community, create a world where it's safe for these parents to start to own their own shortcomings and not get shamed for it. Like I mentioned before, we tend to like shame each other. No, you know, if you are starting to come, uh, it starting to come into your awareness that you are manipulative, that you have dark intentions. Um, and you can't voice that to your friend to work through it. Like your friends just shaming you for even bringing it up or even having it. That's not a friend. You know, you need to find people that aren't going to shame you for having dark qualities. It's a human element. Humans are always going to struggle with, you know, should I manipulate this person right now? Should I do the wrong thing? Should I do the right thing? That's part of our human experience, you know? So to deny it in ourselves and just walk around, like we're all holier than now. And anything that comes up that's the darkness is so shameful, you know, shame it out of you. It just perpetuates it. You know, it just makes it worse. And that's what I saw in my parents was like, they just couldn't own any of their darkness. It was always someone else's fault. It was always, um, uh, there were always a victim that mentality gets you. Nowhere. Nowhere, the people who grow in life are the people who take a hundred percent accountability for as, you know, as much as they can, no matter how much they feel like they're the victim, no matter how much they feel like they're just innocent. And they were wronged. Look at yourself. Even me, look at myself. What did I do to attract a narcissistic partner? Well, I wasn't honoring myself. I had a low self esteem. Um, you know, I was, uh, I didn't have a strong foundation within me. And that's why I attracted that. So always focus on, you know, I get it. It's healthy to be like angry. And when you realize you've been victimized, like you can be in that place for a little bit. That's part of the healing, but it's staying there. That's the problem. I mean, how many people do we know that I've gotten divorced and it's been like 10 years and they're still talking about there. It's like, it's been 10 years. You know, like I get it. You can be there for a little bit, like get like do your thing, boom, like go through it. But you have got to get past that. Otherwise you're just never going to grow and how, and that really is my message. Right? Let's take responsibility and get unstuck when divorce comes in. So now here's going to be my controversial question that we're going to controversial question. Let's do it. I guess the backstory would be, I don't know if you've ever seen the movie Idiocracy I have, I love this one of my favorites. Right? Having a reality, but conceptually all the wrong people, so to speak are appropriating and the people who really would be able to raise kids. Right. Aren't doing it. And yes and no part of your message is you are not really sure if you want to have kids, but listening to you with all of this emotional intelligence and development you're doing, and this self-awareness seems to me, like you'd be a great parent and talk about it. Yeah. So thank you for that. Um, a couple of things to unpack there, you know, when I was a kid and in that abusive situation, I made a pact to myself that I would never have kids. I just said, you know what? Like this, this lineage ends with me. It wasn't like a sad thing. I was not, um, uh, just not in touch with my, my motherly side. Like, I, I couldn't even look at kids for years. Couldn't even look at them. I mean, my ex you know, as damaged as he was, he had quite the intuition too. And he said to me, like, it's really bizarre that you like, won't look at kids Shay, like we're in the elevator. You're like a fertile 25 year old woman. Like why? Like you don't even like, look twice at this adorable baby that normal women would be, you know? But that was my trauma. That was my, like, I hated my childhood. I hated it. So I just rejected children altogether. And, um, I didn't want to end up like my parents. That's why I made the pact to myself. I said, literally, I remember in my bedroom, the moment I said to myself, I will never make another kid feel the way that you have made me to feel. Even if that means I will never have my own children, like, fuck it. Like, I am not doing it. And I have four sisters and they're all the same. None of them, none of them have kids. I mean, I'm not close with them. I don't really associate with them. So it could be changing. But you know, we're all well into our late twenties, thirties, and no, no one, no one is thinking about having children. To me, that alone is a sign of serious abuse. How can you have five daughters? And none of them are like, I can't wait to have my own kids it's because what we went through, whether they're owning it on a conscious level or not, it's, it's, it's a subconscious, like, don't do it. You know, just don't have kids. So it's funny because now I'm to the point where I'm healing a lot of that, that wound trauma on getting in touch with my maternal side, because that's also a beautiful part of the divine feminine. You have to have a little bit of those maternal qualities to really be in your divine, healthy, feminine, like to give selflessly, to want to nurture people. These are beautiful things and things that I, along with saying, you know, screw parenting, I'm never going to do it. I also shut down a part of myself that was just giving, you know, and, and I, I became kind of a self absorbed individual, which also I think did help me in business to like, not ever focus on anyone but me. But at the end of the day, as a woman, it's going to catch up with you. As a woman, I felt really unfulfilled. I felt like, okay, I have all this money in my bank account. I'm doing all these masculine energy things all the time. I'm producing for society. But like, where's my feminine side. You know, where's my motherly side. Where is that? And I do see that coming out more and more, not that I want to have kids now. Um, but it's a consideration finally, which I consider like a big healing step for me to even consider that because it means I'm starting to heal some of that bitterness toward children and toward my own childhood. However, all that being said, you know, my life coach, he has a quote. I love it so simple, but true. He said, Shay, the only thing that kids need is a hundred percent of your attention. That's. Yeah. So, so when you think about it, for someone like myself, who's done a lot of work on the childhood wounds. Who's come to understand narcissistic parenting and it's prevalent in our society and it's negative impact. You know, why would I just like go have my own kid that I can raise, you know, perfectly with all the lessons I've acquired? Why not? Because that's going to take away my energy. You know, I would rather be a platform to educate all parents, to create organizations and foundations, to help all children before just pumping out my own. And I think that's a key thing in our society that people just don't do. They just think I want my own kids. It's like, you really care about kids. I mean, look at all these kids in the orphanage, look at them, you know, go create programs to help their childhood because this is all of us, you know, just focusing on your own bloodline. It's a little like narrow-minded, you're not being a global citizen. You're not like contributing to the greater good of all children. So I do think there's an element of selfishness with having your own kids. I say, you know, like, okay, you're really itching to have your own kids. You want to start your family. How about this for five? You're going to wait five years before starting your own family. And in those five years, you're still going to pour all of that energy that you would have to pour into your kids. Should you have it now, you're going to instead pour all that energy for the next five years into creating organizations for helping already existing kids on this planet. You know, how much more beautiful of a place would this be? What if everyone who had one kid, if they want a second kid, there was a law. And you know, I'm not really into the government getting into our, our stuff at all, but just hypothetically like a law where you adopt one kid, you want a second or third, like you have to adopt the second or third kid now, like, you ha you can have your own, but then you should adopt. And there's a lot that goes into adoption. Like I understand that's a personal choice, but to me, it's just sad that all of these people claim, Oh, I really, really want to be a parent. I'm so nurturing. I'm so loving, but they don't consider all of the who need that

Speaker 1:

already, who are existing on this planet and how, Oh my God. So this that resonated with me in two places are related or unrelated. That's how my mind works, right? Yes. So I was 36 years old when I had my very first child. Yeah. That's old. Right? So to recognize, you know what I mean? Um, I had run for judge when I was 34 domestic and juvenile court judge. Wow. After my first divorce. And when that marriage ended with no kids, I was pretty confident that I was never going to have any children. Um, also some shame associated with an abortion I had when I was 21. Oh, leave that I probably could never have kids. That was my chance. You're not going to have them. It's just not something that's in your future. Don't even want it. Wow. Wow. Right. So not as bad quite as you as not looking at kids, but very similar. Like I didn't engage with other people's babies and stuff. Like I just, I didn't feel like it was something I would have yeah. Air for. I didn't want it. So I thought, you know, so after the run for judge, I get a foster care license because while I was on the campaign trail, I ran in all these foster kids. And what their story was is to be a foster parent. All you need is love. You know, you don't have to be perfect. You don't have to have anything can you love so I can love, then you can be a foster parent. And so I thought, okay, here's my chance. Right. To really make a difference in the world because I'm not going to have my own bloodline being a foster parent and amazing time. And then I find myself pregnant. Wow. All that happens. Do you know what I mean? And so I know how it happens, you know, they do have an idea. Yeah. Like registering to be the foster parent. They're all like, what's this about now? Like, can you not have kids? You know, there's all these questions. And I'm just like, no, I don't know. Whatever. Just seems like the right thing to do. So when I, I find myself pregnant, when I found out I was pregnant pretty early in something happened. And I thought that I had lost the baby.

Speaker 3:

Hmm.

Speaker 1:

And that moment I was so devastated and hurt and I experienced a kind of loss and a longing that it was like, Oh shit, I do want to be a mom. Wow. Like I didn't even know or conceptualize that until there was actually a baby in my stomach that I thought I had lost. So it was a very, it was an interesting place to end up, but I know what you're saying. There's so much love to give, you know, and, and, and, and there's other ways to do it. So that made that stuck out to me. And then the other thing was about how limiting it is to just be focused on kind of that one narrow area in this case, when you can have a global impact. And that was the message that resonated with me, because this is why I shut down my law firm, because it was very limited and narrow, almost selfish that I could only help one person at a time, you know? And just with this one small area of their divorce, when really divorces all of these areas, right. That comes from thinking about divorce to actually getting divorced. People who need a divorce and are actually in a marriage. Like I couldn't help them. And so the way to really make an impact globally, to remove the stigma from divorce, to remove the fear, the guilt, and the shame associated with it so that people can be their best and highest selves. I had to completely separate myself. You know what I mean? From that thing, which kind of, it was kind of selfish. Like I know how to make money like that. I know how to do it. It's relatively easy. Yeah. But am I really making an impact on the world? Am I really being my best self? Am I doing what God called me to do? Yeah, exactly. I do think a lot of

Speaker 2:

people have kids from a really unhealed place. It's just like, Idiocracy what you said. You know, if you're, uh, more conscious about what it really takes to raise a child, how much of an investment that really is because it's about them. You know, it's not about you, you're your life and not to sound dark, but like your life kinda ends in a sense when you have your own kids, I mean, it becomes about them. Um, so just like I said, focusing that energy somewhere else, you're, you're inevitably, if you become a parent, you're going to exert so much energy raising that one, that, to those three kids. Um, I just challenge people, you know, like, can, you can do it. You can still have killed kids, your own kids and build a healing empire around parenting to help other parents, you know, there there's people out there like that, but just consider how much time and energy it's going to take away from everything else you're doing. And, you know, if you really, really, truly in your gut want to help kids look around, that's all you have to do is look around. I mean, really you think bringing your own kid into this world is going to, is going to help. Like, you're just magically gonna raise this Messiah and he'll fix everything. You know, it's just, it's silly. It's like we should fix what we already have. And, um, you know, it, it also comes down to, um, it is biological people want, there, there's a, there's a primal need to want to recreate your own bloodline. Like I get that. And in even like a, like a natural narcissistic of like, I want to see if they look like me kind of thing, you know, I get that. That's a real thing. That's a human like, like biology. Like I'm not going to deny science. However, we have to look at one. Science is no longer conducive to the current environment. We were no longer primal beings in the wild that need to produce our own bloodline to create a team. And Hey, we're all of this bloodline where together, we're a force. It's like, that's not necessary anymore. We're all intertwined. And, um, it doesn't necessarily have to be your same, your same bloodline. So I think the biology is a big part to kind of like understand that, Hey, if you're wanting your own kids more than adopting or helping others, that's natural to, you know, like not, not totally shaming. It like that, that really does come from a real biological place. I just think that biological programming doesn't actually serve as much anymore in the modern world.

Speaker 1:

And how, Ooh, Oh, that's so heavy Shea. Oh my God. I'm so glad. You're my guest today. I don't like

Speaker 2:

it. Bad enough. There was so much juiciness in here for the people to learn for them to get. And I think I'm going to leave you with, I'm going to let you leave us with a few parting words. I'd like, um, actually, I guess there's a lot of stuff I want you to say, cause you're just going to talk us on out, but definitely how we can get in contact with you. Um, you know, people need your help, but also just some advice or I don't know, resources, people to talk to because your emotional intelligence and mindset girls and personal transformation, like help us get some of what you got. Girl. Yes. Watch, watch Gaia. Have you heard of Gaia? Gaia? Yeah. It's like G a I a it's like a conscious Netflix. There's so much good stuff on there. If everyone turned off Netflix and turned on Gaia, that that would help. Uh, but just reading books, you know, for me, the, the book that I started down this journey with when I was first really making the decision to fully cut out, my mom was a book by Susan forward. It's called mothers who can't love it is so deep. I feel like every daughter who's struggling with a mother daughter dynamic needs to read that book. Um, another great one is the narcissistic family model by Stephanie Donaldson that is actually written for therapists, but it's, it's easy enough to digest. I got a lot from that. A lot of understanding, a lot of clarity around my own family. Um, but you know, just to end, I would say my parting words for anyone out there, going through anything, you know, looking to level up, looking to rise, looking to meet your goals is just focus on yourself as much as you can control, what can I control? And any time you get triggered, you know, like they say, triggers are bad, you know, trigger warning. You know, you got to be safe, not to trigger people, screw that triggers are good. You know, triggers teach us what we're still holding onto that we need to work. You know what I mean? Like imagine if, imagine if we never got triggered, like we wouldn't grow triggers something like, Oh, I'm jealous of that girl. Or, Oh, like, I feel disrespected by that guy. All of those triggers are teaching you something about yourself. What are you still holding onto? And I think when you turn the attention inward, that's when you really start to do the growth work. So if you're someone who's easily triggered by relationships around you, by the environment, you know, go inward, go inward, go inward. As much as you can ask, what am I doing to create this? We are sourced. You know, we are God, but we're not separate from godly. Lots of churches to teach. Like God's here. You're, it's like, no, we are God. Like we all have it in us. We have the power. Um, but it's not going to come from trying to control external things. You know, blaming Trump, blaming the Democrats, whatever it might be like, you have to go inward. And I think this, uh, Corona virus and everything that's shaken up in the world right now is a great opportunity for people to do that because a lot of people are being triggered by the virus either. You know, they're afraid they're going to get infected by it, or they're triggered by the way it's being handled by the government. Even something like that, where you really feel like, Oh God, I got to do something. I got to have a voice. I got to go inward. You know what I mean, control yourself. What can you control and everything, all of the healing starts there. So just turn it in word as much as you can stop controlling other people and learn how to generate the love and validation in on yourself so that you're not seeking it externally. Ooh. So that you're not seeking it externally. Like we could have a whole episode just on that. Oh my gosh. Yes. About my LinkedIn. Yeah. Seeking it. Well, that's what happened. You know, I went down the path of, I want to be an entertainer. I want to be an entertainer. I didn't realize I was seeking externally. That's why I wasn't, I could never really fully evolve or thrive as an entertainer because I was doing it from a place of need rather than a place of like I'm evolved. And I genuinely want to share this information with people. I just genuinely want to provide this value. Oh. And a perk is intern. I get attention, but it's not attention that I need any more to feel good and okay. About myself. And actually one last thing I'll end. I will sometimes just do that exercise of myself, of, Hey, if your entire following disappeared tomorrow, how good would you feel about yourself? Shay? Like, would you still love and appreciate yourself as much as you are now having that following and having that cloud, you know, that business it's like just practice in your mind. Like if I lost my job, if I lost all the money in my bank account, if I lost anything, how would I feel about myself right now? That's the core that you got to build? Yeah. Love it. How would I feel about myself right now? Oh my God. Thank you so much. So you have to run, so I'm not going to hold you past your time. Just thank you so much. Thank you all for listening to asshole parents with Christian family and our first celebrity guest today. Shay robots home, please like share, subscribe and thanks again. Yes. Thank you so much. All right. Thank you.