September 23, 2025 • 63 mins
In this episode of The I Matter Mindset, James and Gail delve into the concept of emotional immaturity, exploring its roots in childhood experiences and its impact on adult life and behavior. They discuss how emotionally immature parenting can create deep-seated wounds that affect self-worth and relationships. The conversation highlights the importance of recognizing these patterns, understanding their origins, and taking intentional steps toward healing and personal growth. Through awareness, self-nurturing, and healthy boundaries, individuals can begin addressing their emotional challenges, developing regulation skills, and building a healthier mindset.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Ever replay a conversation worrying you've said too much or said something wrong.
Ever feel like you're always there for everybody else and no one shows up for you.
Ever find yourself scrolling on social media and feel like everyone else has it alltogether and is so much more happy.
Ever catch yourself obsessing over a mistake long after everyone else has forgotten it.
(00:25):
Ever find yourself noticing
someone's tone or change of behavior and wonder whether you said something wrong orwhether they're upset with you.
Do you know, feeling this way doesn't mean you're broken or that something is wrong withyou.
It's often showing us that it's a wound or a deficiency that's deep within us that goesall the way back to our childhood.
(00:51):
And most importantly,
It often reveals that in our childhood, and especially in infancy, we were raised with aphenomena that is called emotionally immature parenting.
And emotionally immature parenting is something that we experience when we're younger, andit brings feelings that may be at odds with ourself, but they point really to something
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deeper, a yearning to find our truth self-worth.
for finding wholeness in our lives.
The truth is that most of this is not from obvious trauma, although much of it is.
A lot of the time, these feelings are from an invisible emotional gap that we carry deepdown inside of us, a wound, something that just cannot be filled or distracted by
(01:48):
achievements or the things around us in this world.
Because it's unseen, it's often unspoken, and sadly, it goes unhealed and unaddressed.
That's why we want to bring to you some good news today that this isn't permanent, thatthis is a common thought pattern that many people carry, and that with awareness, with
(02:13):
healing, and with the right tools,
these symptoms can be treated, we can find that wholeness that we're seeking.
That's why today we have tackled a subject that we think is really important.
It's our second episode of The I Matter Mindset, but we are starting off with something sofoundational to us as human beings and so prevalent in our society that we can't not start
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here.
We want to address it with you.
And we're hoping that as you watch and as you listen, that you will resonate.
with some of these idiosyncrasies in your life and realize that they're not just aboutstress or about the difficulties of life, but these are patterns of thought and patterns
of behavior that could come back to this issue of immature parenting in our childhood.
(03:02):
So we've entitled this episode, Why Emotional Immaturity Could Be Ruining Your Life andHow Recognizing It Could Be the First Step Towards Finally.
breaking free and a real shift in our journey.
We'd like to welcome you to The I Matter Mindset with James and Gail.
We are so happy to be with you today and we are so deeply passionate about this theme thatwe're going to be sharing with you.
(03:30):
I'd to welcome my wife Gail to the podcast.
She has so much to share, so much wisdom that she has not only brought to the table, butthings that she's experienced in her life as well.
So Gail, let me start with the big question for this podcast, the starting point.
What is emotional immaturity?
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For some people that may not have heard of it before, it might be a brand new concept.
What is it and why does it matter?
Why should it matter?
Well, emotional immaturity is the failure to express your feelings and emotions in an ageappropriate.
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way conducive to the situation.
And the reason it matters is
If you are not able to regulate, can affect you throughout your life in every situation.
So the story behind this topic and why it's so close to us is about two and a half yearsago, I was seeking some counseling online and the counselor, I was sharing a lot of the
(04:40):
things that I was going through and I hadn't connected the dots and the counselor that Iwas seeing across
uh on video shared with me a book called The Adult Children of Emotionally ImmatureParents.
And, you know, I'm not unaware of, you know, people pointing to parents or blaming parentsor sometimes even being resentful of parents.
(05:04):
Exactly.
But this was a different angle altogether.
And it wasn't so much about uh blaming anybody, but recognizing a reality.
that existed in most households and exists in most households even today.
And that's emotional immaturity.
So you said it was the inability to handle emotions in healthy ways, to regulate ouremotions.
(05:28):
So tell us in your experience, what things have you noticed in adulthood, in highlyfunctioning adulthood sometimes, what are those subtle things?
You mentioned some of them already.
What are some of the symptoms?
What are some of the things that
play out.
Maybe thinking about what you've seen in me and you know some of these dysregulations.
(05:49):
Well in my own life I've seen shyness.
I've seen anger and didn't know where it came from.
I was very unregulated with my anger for years and I also found
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that I made myself very small because I didn't think that my voice mattered.
I attribute that, everything, back to childhood and the way I grew up in a very toxichousehold.
Yeah.
And, you know, I was thinking when we were talking about it in preparation that maybe it'sabout when we're 12 or eight or even five, but you were telling me that it can start even
(06:33):
earlier than that.
was shocked.
Yes, it can actually start in the womb.
The baby can take on the stresses outside the womb the baby is hearing things and willabsorb that stress before it's even born.
And, so it starts at infancy.
It starts when we're babies.
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And it's something that is such a yearning inside uh
the mind and heart of a newborn of an infant looking for that security and reassurancethat these deficiencies, and we're going to explore them a little more in a minute, they
can create such a deep, deep hole that can stay into adulthood.
(07:20):
And what's interesting as we've discussed this, it isn't just that it is a symptom thatplays out in adulthood.
But it is so hard to spot.
It is.
Why?
because people can mask it.
People can be hiding in the shadows with it, with depression.
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They can be highly functioning.
The Diary Of A CEO, Stephen Bartlett, he grew up in toxic household, but he is driven.
Yes.
um His parents fought all the time.
They had financial difficulties and he decided, um I'm going to make millions.
And he's driven.
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So he's a workaholic.
um Others, it's more obvious.
They are addicted to um substances or something like that.
It can play out, like I was saying with me being very shy and...
painfully scared to speak out or be the center of attention.
(08:24):
Yes.
And, um you know, there are a couple of examples that I found just recently that I'vereflected on that, um one, it was so surprising to realize how it played out when I was
getting married.
I had asked that
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everybody stay seated with my first marriage.
Everybody stay seated while I walk down the aisle.
Yes.
Because the idea of everybody standing up and me being the center of attention made me soanxious and I cried the entire ceremony because I was so
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nervous at being the center of attention.
And then fast forward years later, after I had my babies, I'm sitting in church and I wantto raise my hand to ask for prayer And I start crying because all eyes are on me again.
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I was so uncomfortable with, with that and that blew my mind.
And, but it made perfect sense because it goes back.
When I reflect on that, it goes back to my childhood because in my childhood, kids were tobe seen and not heard.
When adults were over, you were not to be seen.
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were to stay in your room or stay outside or whatever.
And it wasn't unusual for that generation.
was.
That was the generation.
I just talked to someone and mentioned this particular subject we were going to be talkingabout.
And the first thing she said was, oh, you know, seen and not heard, 70s and 80s.
(10:21):
And I said, yes, that's exactly it.
I said, that is what I was telling my husband.
And he was shocked because he grew up in Australia.
Yeah.
And that's what
is so shocking about this.
uh Maybe you're watching and you've never thought about this before.
And then just connecting those dots in Gail's experience from that wedding ceremony tothen raising her hand in church.
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Someone may have thought, OK, she's just emotional over something she's going through orthe wedding or something she's asking for prayer.
mean, she's a functioning woman.
She's a working woman.
With two kids.
Yeah, you were in the corporate world, fully grown.
And who would have thought that deep down were these thought patterns and deep down wasthis this kind of broken emotional brain.
(11:15):
Right.
This emotional um dysregulation deep down inside that went all the way back to not feelingseen.
when you were a kid and not being able to, I guess, have that voice.
And not wanting to be seen as an adult.
So as a result, you carried this this intrinsic shyness and not feeling like your voicekind of had value or your presence.
(11:43):
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah, absolutely.
And so you recoiled back as a result.
So that's why this is so common.
That's why it exists in in many households.
In fact, in most households, because
At some point or another, in every household, there was some level of immaturity inparents, if not one parent, both, or maybe with a guardian or grandparent, anyone of
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influence over a child's life.
Right.
If they were still dealing with their own immaturity and dysregulation, then oftenunwittingly they passed it.
mean, if you could pass it with the stress of a parent when the baby is still in the womb.
Imagine that load and that brokenness and deficiency that can impact that child so early.
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So when we look at so many things that can impact a child, this emotional aspect is sofoundational.
We have development in so many other areas of life, physical development, characterdevelopment.
We develop in skills and abilities.
But we can do all of that and leave emotional uh maturity lagging behind so that you couldbe an adult in every way, fully developed and highly successful, like the example uh Gail
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gave from Stephen Bartlett and many other people that are in the media or doing well,successful millionaires, billionaires, and still be lagging in emotional maturity.
And have no idea about it.
Yeah.
Because it's not necessarily talked about.
Yeah.
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Do remember those those paintings back in the 80s where they had all these patterns andwhen you would stand back, you'd have to kind of cross your eyes a little bit.
And all of a sudden a picture would emerge from.
Yeah.
From the paintings.
It's like it was right there, but you didn't know it was there.
And then once you see it.
You can't unsee it.
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Well, that's the same with this emotionally immature parenting and childhood and emotionalimmaturity in people.
Once you see it, you can't unsee it.
For example, just this week, I was talking to my boss at work, my supervisor, and we had asituation where when we had a meeting, uh he came away feeling a little bit unsettled.
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And we noticed that after the meeting, he sent something out.
And we noticed that something wasn't right with our supervisor.
And then when I had a talk to him, had a talk with some other teammates, I realized veryquickly that he had been watching our cues in the meeting.
And he was being hypersensitive and misreading our cues.
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And he had reacted, I guess in an emotional way, to something that wasn't even there andit wasn't even rooted in reality.
but it had its roots in his own insecurity.
And, you know, as I've been preparing for this podcast, I could see it.
Right.
I could see it.
And suddenly something that may have been threatening to me that a superior at work wasbehaving that way.
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Suddenly I could step back and go, wow, maybe he also had emotional immaturity in hisupbringing.
So once you see it,
You can't unsee it and it will answer so many things that will connect so many dots.
And I guess the obvious, uh Gail so when you have this wound, this gap, this hole that'sin adulthood, um why does it cause so much damage?
(15:28):
How much damage can it cause, I guess?
And why is it so damaging in someone's life being invisible and being so insidious at thesame time?
Well,
There are certain things um essential and Gabor Mate says it, he explains it so well.
(15:50):
love how he explains it.
He is Hungarian-Canadian psychologist and author.
And I find a of his stuff very, very helpful.
he says that the the most essential needs of a baby and child is to get secure attachmentand unconditional acceptance from their parents.
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And there are four core essentials, secure attachment.
And that is the nurturing relationship with their primary caregiver.
um
The baby's brain is programmed to seek and attach to an adult for care and protection.
for, rest within the relationship.
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A child needs to feel that they do not have to work for their parents' attention orregulate their emotions.
So they need to have the freedom to
just exist.
Full emotional expression.
A baby or a child needs to be able to fully from zero to 10 be able to express all oftheir emotions, anger, sadness, frustration, happiness, and also creative spontaneous
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play, free imaginative
imaginative and child led play is a biological need for proper brain development.
This unstructured play time where there is no goal or purpose other than interaction, ithelps for the child to regulate their own emotions.
So they can work on it themselves when they have unstructured play.
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So these are the ideals.
And I just want you to read just those four things, just the titles, because I want toreinforce.
These would be the ideals for optimum uh emotional growth in a child.
They should be in play.
But what he is saying, I guess, through his writings is that this is what's often missing.
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Maybe one or more of these things is missing and can create that handicap.
What was the first one?
But you need all four.
You need all four.
You need all four.
Secure attachment.
OK, so we need to know that we have security in that attachment with the parent, that theparent isn't absent or isn't
in some way rejecting.
Right.
If the child does not have secure attachment, then they will forgo their authenticity.
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If they lose that attachment, their authenticity, their self is lost.
Their sense of self is lost.
Yes.
And what was the second one?
So the second one is rest within the relationship, just the freedom to exist.
This is unconditional love.
They need to know that their acceptance is unconditional and they don't have to regulatetheir parents' emotions.
(18:47):
Okay.
So that would be related to kind of anxiety.
If you don't have that rest, that security, it can make a very anxious child.
Is that what he's saying?
Well, it's not only anxious.
It's just the child should be in their own emotions, not...
Not saying, mommy, I'm sorry you're sad.
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Yes.
Yes.
No kind of thing or, or I'm scared because you're angry.
Yes.
They need to just be able to exist.
Yes.
In of themselves.
And often it's like a role reversal, especially as a child is growing up.
They start kind of being the parent.
Exactly.
The parent is starting to offload some things off to the child.
Absolutely.
three.
Number three is full emotional expression.
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Okay.
So they need to, they need to be able to be in
their emotion, if they're feeling angry, they need to see that through.
They need to feel all the ebbs and flows of the anger.
So if a parent is stifling that saying, be quiet or don't cry or anything that stops thatchild from feeling the full gamut of emotions, that does not allow them Then they suppress
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their emotions and they are not in touch with their true self.
So that's another way they can lose self.
last one to do with play.
Right.
Creative spontaneous play.
Yeah.
So that's where they use their imagination and imagination is very, very important.
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And that's where they can practice you know, using their emotions.
And so how is that hindered by a parent?
In what way does a parent hinder that spontaneous play?
Well, there are some there are some parents that think that
play is not important or they don't know how to play with their child.
They weren't played with.
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So they don't know how to play with their children and role play and you know, with dollsor tell stories or anything and engage in that imagination of the child's imagination.
or they're too driven.
I know in some cultures they're very driven to
(21:04):
You know success is from the get-go success is very important.
So the children are not allowed to be children.
They're not allowed to be children.
you know um as Gail was sharing this I was thinking how how insidious this is but alsowhat a fine line we need to walk especially as parents ourselves and For you as a parent
(21:28):
perhaps as a parent watching this or or parent that's already older
that, uh you know, a lot of these things we may have already made mistakes in, you know,and it's not it's not something where there's any healing in just heaping on guilt and
shame for these things.
I guess there are two aspects of it.
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One, we're all children of parents, no matter how old you are, even if parents have havepassed away We're still children of parents and there's still always an opportunity for
growth.
for healing, to find that wholeness with this knowledge.
But also as parents, even if we're parents with adult children or young children, webelieve that there's still an opportunity for us to shift our behaviors.
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As we become more aware of this, we start noticing it in ourselves.
And I truly believe that we are able to change as long as we take
called it like that self agency.
What was that term you used when we own our own healing?
Yes, own your agency.
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Own your agency.
Yes.
Own your agency.
It means not victimizing ourselves and saying, poor me, this is the way I am.
I can't help the way I am.
No, this is about recognition that if we've developed in other areas, there's no reasonwhy we can't develop in our emotions as well.
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Well, if you don't, then you stay stuck.
You stay stuck in the past where your parents left you.
Yes.
And it's important to own your agency and move forward.
That's it.
And heal from all of that.
Leave the past in the past and own your agency so that you can move forward into healthierum emotional regulations and thought patterns.
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You create better pathways in your mind.
You don't default back to those, those negative things that kept you stuck.
And that was going to be my question.
What is the price of ignoring this?
Well, you know, you can go away from this video and just think to yourself, well, that wasinteresting.
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That's for somebody else.
That's for my husband or my, for my wife or that that's about my mom or my dad, or that'sfor my child.
This is this information is only useful.
It's only as good as we allow it to speak to us individually.
Exactly.
And it's only as uh useful as we recognize that with this information, it can really be agame changer for our lives and our thought patterns.
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I mean, all the things that we mentioned at the start of the of the program today, it'ssurprising how many people walk around thinking those things, but we may not say it.
We may not tell people, hey, I'm always feeling like I say the wrong things or no one islistening to me or I'm always feeling unseen in a social situation, like I don't have a
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voice or I tell everybody that I never go on Facebook, but secretly I go on Facebook allthe time and I obsess watching other people's success in their lives and I feel the sense
of jealousy.
Or how about the common one where we just don't take joy for other people's achievements?
Cause deep down we're feeling like, you know, it puts us down or we feel somewhat enviousof other people's successes.
(25:03):
These are things that we don't talk about.
don't verbalize, but yet they're definitely thought patterns that go on in our minds.
your, parents may have acted in one way, but it is displaying in your life.
You have internalized and it's displaying in your life in different ways.
Yes.
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It may not be exactly the way you were treated.
know, your parent may have been an angry person and yelling.
So therefore you are quiet and you hide away when there is any kind of discourse in your,life.
It can, it can be the opposite, but it's going to show up because you may not even realizethat you are damaged in that way until you do some self reflection.
(25:51):
uh
And that is important to your own personal growth.
it shows up in our human relationships.
All the time, especially with those who are closest to us and needless Careers.
Yeah, sorry.
Your careers also.
I those are relationships with superiors, with workmates.
The way we filter everything is through these lenses that we carry into adulthood.
(26:17):
So that leads really well.
into the big question, how do I know?
Like someone may be watching going, now that's not me.
How do I know that I have hidden emotional wounds ah without even realizing it?
How can I be sure?
What are the signs?
What are the symptoms?
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How can I spot them in myself and others?
um So we've already touched on some of these.
I want to unpack some more.
because there's quite a list.
Now this list has been compiled from research, but mostly from research in our own lives.
Self reflection.
Yeah.
We both, recognize right off the bat that these, uh, this is a particular area of growthfor us.
(27:05):
And if you didn't hear our first episode, we encourage you to, to watch it episode one,because we tell the story of how we came to start this podcast.
And it really is.
from our journey, from my journey, from your journey, and the things that we've learnedcoupled with, I guess, the years that we've lived and our desire to want to break free
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from that, to grow and change and really take a hold of life.
And then coming from our Christian background, we're people of faith, we carry such astrong burden that we don't only want to keep that.
that sense of healing and wholeness to ourselves, we want other people to experience thatas well.
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We see the world around us so broken right now, even as we go to air, this week has beenhorrendous with violence and with horrible things on the news.
And a lot of people are affected.
And some people just don't know how to regulate those emotions.
They don't have the hooks how to negotiate these really
(28:12):
difficult situation.
there's a lot of anger on the streets right now.
And people are in camp in different camps.
So much, so much anger, so much vitriol.
And it gives me pause to think, you know, a lot of that might be, might be, you know, aresponse to what's going on.
But much of that could be coming from everyone's different levels of deficiency withemotional regulation.
(28:40):
Exactly.
And that's why it spills over.
So let's talk about some of these symptoms.
uh People pleasing.
Have you heard of people pleasing?
Yes, I've lived people pleasing.
So what in our in our common day conversational explanation, how would we see peoplepleasing?
What what is that?
(29:01):
How do you see it in you and me and others?
You are forgoing.
what you like or what you need and putting the needs of others um in place of yours.
Yes.
You know, putting it first, which, you know, can in and of itself be a very good thing.
(29:23):
If you are a person who is hospitable or you love to serve, or you see the needs of othersand you want to help.
However, it can, it can be just plain old people pleasing.
You don't know what you like or what you need.
Yes.
And it's easier to, to suppress your emotions, your feelings and put others first.
(29:46):
Yeah.
This is an interesting one because yeah, in, in some beliefs and philosophies servingothers is a very high virtue and a high value.
ah Not living for yourself, not being selfish, but serving God, serving people.
And so it seems on the surface that it is something honorable to do, to put others beforeyourself.
(30:08):
And like you said, yes, it is.
Yes, it is.
But it has to come from a place of security and wholeness I heard once a counselor say uhto me that you can't, uh you cannot help others.
You can't spill over to other people's lives if your cup isn't full in the first place.
(30:30):
And so if you are deficient, if your cup is empty and yet you want to help others, whatyou're going to be doing is using that as a crutch to kind of fill a wound.
Right.
And I can tell you from a firsthand experience since I worked in ministry for many yearsand uh as a church pastor, that is my calling, that remains my calling to this day.
(30:54):
And I love being there for people and so do you.
But I noticed the nuance of that.
and how it becomes enmeshed in your lack of self-worth and how it can become unhealthy insome ways.
Like we're talking about people pleasing.
Unhealthy ways of people pleasing is when you forego, like you said, your own self, yourown healing, your own interest, your own likes and dislikes.
(31:20):
Often I would suppress things that I enjoyed for the sake of others, only to become veryresentful.
I also was constantly worrying about what people thought of me and I'm being very candidbecause I know it can help others.
Um, it may have been subtle in the back of my mind, but it was always like a, casting ashadow over things because it's constantly misreading people's cues, hyper vigilance, uh,
(31:49):
kind of watching my back, uh, you know, uh, fearing people's displeasure or people'srejection.
or people's uh emotional abandonment.
And so I know full well the destructive aspects of people pleasing.
Absolutely.
When it's healthy, I believe that's what the mandate is all about, to flow into people'slives from an area of security and health and wholeness.
(32:16):
But when it's not healthy, can lead to just very destructive.
Very destructive.
patterns of behavior that end up sweeping the problem under the rug.
Tell me about, we talked about shyness earlier and how you suppressed yourself.
How about the pressure to perform?
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If you've got a parent who was like you said, very driven or you were clamoring for theirattention and their approval, how can that be a negative when it comes to performing?
Now religious
speak, people call it works sometimes.
How does that play out and how can that be a negative?
(32:57):
can be really, really detrimental to you and your relationships.
If you are work-based, performance-driven, and you've got goals and you're trying to reachthose goals, that's not a bad thing.
Yes.
But if you set aside
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your relationship with your spouse, your children, family, friends, just for that goal.
That's going to be a temporary win.
What are you hoping to get?
Because material things can never fill that void.
(33:40):
That money can never fill that void.
And you're not
filling anything inside.
Everything is all external.
It's going to be the accolades.
It's going to be, yay, you just got a million subscribers.
just sold your first book.
You just got a job at the greatest company.
(34:03):
What is it going to cost you, though?
Yeah, and it comes back to what we spoke about last time when we spoke about self-worthversus self-esteem.
Self-esteem, we said, was something external.
And if you're trying to chase the approval, because works is often related to gettingapproval, external approval.
uh When you fall short of that approval, not only do you feel like you were unsuccessful,but you feel like you are no good.
(34:32):
You feel like you're not enough.
That you're not enough.
You're not good.
And so if you're continually doing works to chase approval, if you're continually doingworks to fill that
um that self-worth hole that you have, then when that's not there, it's going to havecataclysmic results on you as a person because you're going to feel less than for not
(34:56):
achieving what you wanted to achieve.
Right.
There's a perfect example of that.
uh can't remember the guy's name, but I saw an interview and he reached the highest peak.
yes.
um
Mount think it was one of those big ones.
It was the highest mountain, whatever it was.
(35:19):
He reached it and that was his goal.
And he speaks of this being a very traumatic experience after he came off the mountainbecause he did not feel it inside.
And he actually thought about unaliving himself.
(35:40):
Unaliving.
taking his own.
Yes.
Wow.
That, um, that is crazy that someone could achieve something so great.
And as I'm saying it, I'm hearing the words that I'm saying, you can achieve something soamazingly great.
And then the next moment feel so deflated, deflated, depressed that you don't even want tocontinue living.
(36:06):
Wow.
Wow.
And I mean that
speaks to me because in my experience I certainly was able to do a lot of things uh interms of my work, uh upfront work in the media, with music uh often in front of people.
And I guess in some respects I feel like I did some amazing things, had great privileges.
(36:33):
Only too often at the end of it be left uh
with some severe self-criticism, often empty, because it just doesn't fill it.
And some people that are celebrities, they have this constant need for this drug to fueltheir self-worth.
And no matter how hard they try, it just doesn't cut it.
(36:59):
that performance, external performance to try.
to fill the hole just doesn't work.
And other things, guess, insecurity that you bring from childhood, mood swings, impostersyndrome, where you are in a position, but you deep down feel like you're not worthy of it
if people only knew how ill equipped or how hopeless you are.
(37:22):
That is pretty common, especially in the corporate world.
uh Shame, anger, uh loneliness, emotional loneliness is a big one.
Yes, that's so huge.
you have been left devoid of that security in childhood, you carry this sense of isolationwhere you may be even in a room full of people, or you may belong to a church, or you
(37:50):
might come from a big family, and still you feel this sense of emptiness or this lack ofbelonging, this emotional loneliness, and
And again, it's one of these insidious, invisible symptoms that can come from those veryearly years in infancy where there was this lack of attention, perhaps, from a parent that
(38:17):
didn't have the maturity or the understanding, this lack of attunement to the feelings ofthat child, this lack of emotional empathy and sensitivity.
and a security where the child knew that it was safe, that the child could come to theparent for comfort and for unconditional love.
(38:38):
If those things are missing, it's amazing how they can carry over to adulthood.
And you have experience with that.
Yes, yes, I do have experience with that.
We grew up uh in an immigrant household in Australia.
Both my parents migrated from Chile to Australia back in the early 70s.
(38:59):
And so we were raised, and this is where it's interesting that you can have, you can comefrom a home where there's a lot of visible trauma or toxicity or maybe shouting or a lot
of visible issues.
I came from a middle-class home where we went to church.
My parents worked a lot.
They had multiple jobs.
(39:20):
They put food on the table.
They...
They showed their love in very physical ways.
but when it came to emotional connection, it wasn't always there.
Sometimes it was because they were just physically not present.
We were latch-key kids, so we would let ourselves out to go to school with our parents hadgone already to work uh in the afternoons.
(39:43):
We would come home and watch cartoons and let ourselves in.
And my parents would often work.
into the evening, my dad would have a part-time job on the weekends, a side hustle as theycall it now.
And so physically, I guess they weren't there, but also there was some brokenness that wasbrought from their childhood, especially my mom coming from a very uh broken home.
(40:11):
There was a lot of poverty from where she came.
There was a lot of abuse in very different ways.
So she came to parenting, not that young actually, she was close to her 30s, but withtremendous uh deficiencies when it came to emotional maturity and security in her life.
(40:33):
uh I know that she herself is very protective over not wanting to speak ill of herparents, but in reality, there was no real normality in her upbringing.
I think there were
12 kids in the home at different ages.
And there was alcoholism and there was physical violence, emotional, what would you callit, manipulation and things like that.
(41:00):
And so when she came to have children and I was the first born, she just didn't, for lackof, you know, for no lack of want.
She just didn't have the hooks to know how to do that.
And so she has told me in recent years that she even struggled to want to pick me up as achild, to embrace me as a child, as an infant, as a baby.
(41:25):
And sometimes there were other family members that would come and would pick me up becausemy mom didn't know how to connect at that level, though she clearly loved me.
And then because she had to go out to work, she would leave me with babysitters as aninfant.
And I don't know who these people were.
have this, this vague feeling that there was a lot of anger as a child there.
(41:50):
And, and all of that put together meant that little James, although he came from a prettystable home, there wasn't any major, major trauma with a capital T.
In fact, on that score, you know, that score, the ACE,
I would probably score pretty low and yet the deficiency was super deep.
(42:11):
Tremendous, yes.
And here I am now in my early 50s and still working through a lot of these things andthose patterns played out in my first marriage.
They played out in my parenting with my kids.
They have played out in our home.
Still working on those and they go all the way back.
What is that?
(42:32):
Five decades?
And still working on these things.
goes to show how, how deep these things are.
But you're just now acknowledging because you didn't have the tools.
You didn't know what you didn't know.
And that's, that's why it's so important.
Once you find out these things and acknowledge, um, these, these deficiencies and namethem, then you can do something about them.
(43:01):
And you can.
own your agency.
Absolutely.
And like I said earlier, it's not because we don't want to know.
It's just so hard to pinpoint.
right.
You think it's all within you, but oh you carried what she carried.
You carried her wounds into your adulthood.
Yes.
(43:21):
but they were connected to me.
Right.
So I tend to- your self-worth.
Yeah.
I tended to blame me.
Exactly.
And I was enmeshed with that idea.
So I wasn't able to detach from it and look at it in front of me and go, wow, this is athing.
And that doesn't define my person.
(43:43):
I've always seen it as just me.
So this brings us to another thing that we want to say here So uh could your parents havestruggled with emotional immaturity?
And Gail's already shared uh what it looked like in infancy.
So think about that.
know, babies need uh food and safety and shelter, but they need more than that.
(44:07):
They need emotional connection.
As you've said, they need caregivers that comfort, acknowledge feelings, respondconsistently.
Emotionally immature parents often fail to do that and they leave children feelingemotionally unsafe.
And with responses that overreact, parents can overreact.
(44:28):
They can withdraw, they can dismiss, or they can even be very inconsistent with theiremotions.
So I want to ask you a couple of questions.
I just want to do a self-assessment for this episode in trying to think whether this couldbe you.
And Gail, I guess for you as well, even though we've talked about it.
(44:48):
how would you answer these questions?
That's a rhetorical question.
Um, number one, my parent often overreacted to small problems.
Number two, my parents struggled to understand or care about my feelings.
Number three, emotional closeness felt uncomfortable and unavailable.
(45:13):
Number four, I often took care of my parents needs, what we talking about earlier, butthey didn't support me or at least I didn't feel like they supported me.
And number five, sharing my successes or feelings didn't seem to matter to them.
So in those five very simple questions, how many of those
(45:37):
would you agree was your experience in infancy or in early childhood?
Even if there was one that could be a sign, but if there was more than one, maybe allfive, it is odds on that you also went through this childhood uh experience with an
immature parent, one, or maybe both parents, which would be compounding to any child.
(46:05):
And you know, in our research, we talked about that book.
What was the author's name who wrote the book?
Lindsay C.
Gibson.
Lindsay C.
Gibson.
And the name of the book again, because it's an awesome book.
Yes, we highly recommend it.
Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents.
Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents.
(46:27):
In that book, in chapter four, she talks about four different types of emotional,emotionally immature parents.
One uh is the emotional parent.
This is the parent that's run by his or her feelings and is highly unstable.
lot of mood swings, a lot of inconsistency in feelings, maybe a lot of meltdowns andanger, a lot of impulsiveness, not a lot of deliberate action or rational decision making,
(46:57):
but everything made on emotions and feelings.
So that's called the emotional parent.
How would you respond to that?
Does that ring a bell for you?
Was there emotions in your childhood?
there were lots of emotions.
um My grandparents were alcoholics and we stayed with them on the weekends.
(47:18):
Yes.
So there were a lot of emotions flying there.
At home, my parents fought a lot.
My dad worked a lot, but when he was home, they fought a lot.
It was very emotional all the time.
And you were telling me that that has played out in your experience somewhat as well withemotional dysregulation in parenting?
(47:41):
absolutely.
Absolutely.
I will put my hand up to that as well.
Absolutely.
So I certainly see uh this category in my experience, the emotional fluctuations.
The second one is the driven parent.
This is the parent that is compulsively
goal oriented and controlling.
(48:02):
This is the parent that wants their children to achieve certain things and perhaps doesnot come across as unconditional in their love and approval unless they see achievements
or certain standards or certain things done with career, with studies, with grades andthat sort of thing.
(48:25):
And that was not in my household?
Yeah.
So that one you don't count.
cannot relate to that one.
I can relate to control.
Yes.
But in a very different way.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I think, I think for me as well, it's not a major one, but there are, you know, wetalk our parents and especially, you one of each of our parents, in your case, your dad,
(48:49):
and in my case, my mom, um you know, in terms of career and achievement.
Even though they may not want to admit it, will show a favor or, you know, when we'reachieving and maybe doubt if we're not achieving.
So it's kind of subtle, but I think there's a little bit of drive there more about, youknow, success or I don't know.
(49:11):
So it's not a big The third one is the passive parent.
Sometimes this may be coupled with a driven parent or an emotional parent.
where one is driven, one is uh one is driven or emotional and the other one is justpassive.
They avoid conflict as much as they can and they withdraw, especially when they're understress.
(49:34):
Can you relate to this one?
Did you see this in your family home?
Well, the the passive part, absolutely with my mother, but she was passive aggressive.
OK, well, what is passive aggressive?
How do we explain that?
Well, I can give you examples.
For instance, my girlfriend was moving and this was our last night for us to see herbefore she was going to be going to another school.
(50:08):
So I asked my mother, I go out with them to dinner?
these friends to say goodbye for farewell.
And she said, you'll have to ask your dad.
And I said, daddy's at work.
He doesn't get off work until six o'clock in the morning.
(50:33):
Well, I can't answer them.
And I did not get to go.
or.
Can we go across the street and play?
um No.
Why not?
Because they have to come over here.
My friend would have to come across the street because our friends, we only played in theneighborhood.
(50:57):
um So those are two examples.
Or she would just ignore when I would talk to her.
She would not.
answer me.
So, yeah.
So that, that passivity is not uncommon.
I've heard that before, you know, go and ask your dad or go and ask your mom.
(51:18):
And that also is a form of withdrawal from the child.
Right, right.
Because the child is looking for something from you.
And, and then there are other spouses that there may be issues in the marriage and the,you know,
Go and talk to your mom or go and talk to your dad.
this is like this deflection from the passive parent.
that's played out in my previous marriage.
(51:40):
Yes.
Number four is the straight out rejecting parent.
And as extreme as this sounds, it can happen.
This can be one or even both parents where they are completely disconnected, cold andunempathetic with their children, where children are seen as a disruption, as an
interruption.
(52:02):
A parent can be reading the newspaper while that's in the olden days.
And like you said, children need to get out of the room, not be heard.
Or often there's like this level of impatience with kids because they're just in the way.
Right.
Right.
My dad was big into television when we were growing up.
(52:22):
And if his show was on, you'd better not make a noise.
And it's funny because he's like that with
Judge Judy now.
yeah, during Judge Judy, you've got to be quiet if daddy is watching his show.
And my mother, not, she did not, she was very cold to me.
(52:47):
She did not hug me or anything.
And I don't know if some people can relate, but when I was a kid,
uh My mother would clean out my ears with a q-tip and I would long for her to clean out myears so I could be close to her because there were no hugs.
(53:09):
There was no warmth and just putting my head in her lap was very very comforting
Soothing.
Yeah, because I didn't get that except for when she cleaned out my ears, which is soweird.
But it goes to show when we're children, we can be so vulnerable and so needy becausewe're little and we look to our parents or our first caregivers for fulfillment in all
(53:37):
these areas.
And it goes to show how much just even to clean your ears.
You were just wanting to be close to your mom.
Right.
And um
And you told me also that you really valued when your dad did give you some affection,even though he wasn't overly affectionate as a child, you really received every bit of
(53:59):
affection that you could get from him.
right.
So so if I had a nightmare, my dad was my go to parent.
Yes.
And so when I would have a nightmare, I would go to him and in his
slumber, he would, you know, put his arm around me ah baby, it's okay.
(54:19):
And so, you know, it made the nightmare not so bad, you that wasn't his baseline.
But when he did that, it meant a lot.
Oh, it meant the world.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's, it's important to realize that even on this, even doing small things can make a hugeimpact on a child.
Right.
(54:43):
so whose fault is it?
I wrote a few thoughts down, you know, understanding your parents limits, isn't blamingthem.
It's seeing why some struggles aren't your fault and why, uh, these things need attention.
Most emotional immaturity is unintentional beyond the parents awareness.
The goal isn't betrayal of the parent.
It's clarity.
It's understanding, the.
(55:04):
patterns to be able to start your own healing.
Does this mean that they didn't love us?
Of course, our parents loved us.
And the fact that they provided in all the other areas means that there was love there.
Yes.
They just didn't know or they loved us to the best of their capacity.
Yes, that's what it is.
(55:25):
And they just didn't know how to do it.
If it wasn't shown to them, how could they show it to us?
So.
How can we heal and rewrite the emotional patterns from childhood?
I want to leave you with these four things.
First of all, awareness.
This whole episode has been about awareness, um about recognizing this, that this exists,that this is a real thing that's actually more prevalent than we even think.
(55:56):
And that these patterns occur in ourselves and in others.
We're all about awareness and naming it, naming it.
This is a reality.
Emotional immaturity is a reality.
It isn't us.
It was something that was handed to us very early before we even had a language to to nameit then and even capacity to understand it.
(56:19):
Exactly.
So awareness.
Number two, this is a big one.
I've called it auto nurturing.
or self-parenting.
ah is not easy to do, but we have to try to envision ourselves as little children, asinfants, little Gail, little James, little you, maybe provide that support and validation
(56:47):
that you missed as a child.
Gail, you had a good suggestion that...
could involve a photo of little you?
Yes, get a photo of you as a child and talk to that child and tell that child that it wasnot their fault.
It was not your fault.
That child did not have the capacity for it to be uh their fault.
(57:14):
Yeah.
And they didn't receive what they needed and it's
tell yourself inside, it's okay.
And you're going to be okay because now you have recognized that it wasn't your fault andyour parents did not do this intentionally, usually, most likely, but you can heal from
(57:38):
it.
Yeah.
There is healing.
So auto-nurturing, being aware, maybe even
you know, verbalizing it out loud, saying that uh you matter.
I love you, and validating.
Validation is so important.
So awareness, auto nurturing.
Number three is affirmation.
(57:59):
uh I want you to say this whenever you encounter it with a parent or uh in maybe someoneelse that might be speaking to you and offloading on you.
You can say,
I won't take it on as my own.
This isn't about me.
It's about them.
I'm not going to receive it.
(58:20):
I'm not going to internalize this.
This is not about me.
This is about that person.
They're obviously deficient emotionally and I'm going to place it where it belongs.
It's clear to me and I'm not going to make this or take it on for myself.
Again, not an easy thing to do.
(58:42):
with the awareness and the auto-nurturing comes that next step where you refuse to acceptit.
You refuse to accept it and internalize it.
It was never yours to hold.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was never yours to hold.
And lastly is action step.
And that is to set boundaries with compassion to detach.
(59:03):
It may require physical detachment from people in your life that are
offloading on you, that they're passing on these stressors that are, treating you lessthan that are just negative influences.
Sometimes that may require boundaries with compassion to not allow even physically thesepeople to bring you down.
(59:27):
Right.
Yeah.
And ironically, tonight, before we started taping,
Ironically, I got a drunk dial call from my dad.
um I get that weekly and I see it as a loving gesture because that's when he is his mostauthentic self.
(59:51):
I feel like so I get the soft side of daddy he asked what we were doing and I said we werepreparing to tape for the podcast and he explained that my
Stepmother had told him about it and he doesn't know what a podcast he is, but he said hewas not interested in watching it.
(01:00:16):
And I did not receive it.
I did not receive that.
I know that even if he knew what it was and he chose not to watch it, he chose not tosupport.
It is okay.
I give him grace because I love him and it doesn't define me.
(01:00:37):
It doesn't define what we're doing and I don't receive the negativity.
He is giving me his max capacity and I'm okay with that and I can detach and not let ithurt me.
And I think that's very, very important.
for you to do with someone in your life if they seemingly bringing negativity, it is notabout you, it's about them and you don't have to receive it.
(01:01:09):
So awareness, auto nurturing, affirmation, action steps, setting boundaries withcompassion.
So emotional wounds may be invisible, but they're not untreatable.
They're a signal pointing back to your desire for self-worth or to your actual self-worthIt may have shaped your story up until this point, but it doesn't have to define your
(01:01:36):
future.
It doesn't have to define your future.
Healing begins.
When you stop carrying the responsibility for something that was not yours and you placeit over here and recognize it for what it is, emotional immaturity that exists, but it was
(01:01:56):
not your fault.
It is not that you were broken.
It was a wound, a deficiency that was left inside of you.
I did come up with a term called emotional miswiring.
or a distorted script, we're gonna unpack that a bit more later, but that's all that'sbeen going on.
(01:02:17):
It's not you that's broken.
It was a wound that went back to childhood.
So that is our episode for today.
I hope that you found it helpful.
If you've reached this far, we thank you for sticking with us.
We are trying to be as raw and authentic as we can, as honest with everything about us,because we want to help you to break free and to achieve a breakthrough in your life.
(01:02:40):
We believe that it is possible.
We care about you.
We're doing this because we extend love to you.
We extend grace.
We believe that God loves you and wants something better for you.
And next time when we come together again, we'll be exploring how kids adapt and survivein these environments.
And of course, we're going to be looking more at the hidden cost of the roles that we playin adulthood as a result of emotionally immature parenting.
(01:03:08):
We're going to launch second part of this series next time.
I've called the series Invisible No More because we are going to be invisible no more.
invite you to join us again next time on The I Matter Mindset podcast with James and Gail.
Bye from me.
Bye for now.
And we'll see you next time.
Ever replay a conversation worrying you've said too much or said something wrong.
Ever feel like you're always there for everybody else and no one shows up for you.
Ever find yourself scrolling on social media and feel like everyone else has it alltogether and is so much more happy.
Ever catch yourself obsessing over a mistake long after everyone else has forgotten it.
(00:25):
Ever find yourself noticing
someone's tone or change of behavior and wonder whether you said something wrong orwhether they're upset with you.
Do you know, feeling this way doesn't mean you're broken or that something is wrong withyou.
It's often showing us that it's a wound or a deficiency that's deep within us that goesall the way back to our childhood.
(00:51):
And most importantly,
It often reveals that in our childhood, and especially in infancy, we were raised with aphenomena that is called emotionally immature parenting.
And emotionally immature parenting is something that we experience when we're younger, andit brings feelings that may be at odds with ourself, but they point really to something
(01:18):
deeper, a yearning to find our truth self-worth.
for finding wholeness in our lives.
The truth is that most of this is not from obvious trauma, although much of it is.
A lot of the time, these feelings are from an invisible emotional gap that we carry deepdown inside of us, a wound, something that just cannot be filled or distracted by
(01:48):
achievements or the things around us in this world.
Because it's unseen, it's often unspoken, and sadly, it goes unhealed and unaddressed.
That's why we want to bring to you some good news today that this isn't permanent, thatthis is a common thought pattern that many people carry, and that with awareness, with
(02:13):
healing, and with the right tools,
these symptoms can be treated, we can find that wholeness that we're seeking.
That's why today we have tackled a subject that we think is really important.
It's our second episode of The I Matter Mindset, but we are starting off with something sofoundational to us as human beings and so prevalent in our society that we can't not start
(02:38):
here.
We want to address it with you.
And we're hoping that as you watch and as you listen, that you will resonate.
with some of these idiosyncrasies in your life and realize that they're not just aboutstress or about the difficulties of life, but these are patterns of thought and patterns
of behavior that could come back to this issue of immature parenting in our childhood.
(03:02):
So we've entitled this episode, Why Emotional Immaturity Could Be Ruining Your Life andHow Recognizing It Could Be the First Step Towards Finally.
breaking free and a real shift in our journey.
We'd like to welcome you to The I Matter Mindset with James and Gail.
We are so happy to be with you today and we are so deeply passionate about this theme thatwe're going to be sharing with you.
(03:30):
I'd to welcome my wife Gail to the podcast.
She has so much to share, so much wisdom that she has not only brought to the table, butthings that she's experienced in her life as well.
So Gail, let me start with the big question for this podcast, the starting point.
What is emotional immaturity?
(03:53):
For some people that may not have heard of it before, it might be a brand new concept.
What is it and why does it matter?
Why should it matter?
Well, emotional immaturity is the failure to express your feelings and emotions in an ageappropriate.
(04:13):
way conducive to the situation.
And the reason it matters is
If you are not able to regulate, can affect you throughout your life in every situation.
So the story behind this topic and why it's so close to us is about two and a half yearsago, I was seeking some counseling online and the counselor, I was sharing a lot of the
(04:40):
things that I was going through and I hadn't connected the dots and the counselor that Iwas seeing across
uh on video shared with me a book called The Adult Children of Emotionally ImmatureParents.
And, you know, I'm not unaware of, you know, people pointing to parents or blaming parentsor sometimes even being resentful of parents.
(05:04):
Exactly.
But this was a different angle altogether.
And it wasn't so much about uh blaming anybody, but recognizing a reality.
that existed in most households and exists in most households even today.
And that's emotional immaturity.
So you said it was the inability to handle emotions in healthy ways, to regulate ouremotions.
(05:28):
So tell us in your experience, what things have you noticed in adulthood, in highlyfunctioning adulthood sometimes, what are those subtle things?
You mentioned some of them already.
What are some of the symptoms?
What are some of the things that
play out.
Maybe thinking about what you've seen in me and you know some of these dysregulations.
(05:49):
Well in my own life I've seen shyness.
I've seen anger and didn't know where it came from.
I was very unregulated with my anger for years and I also found
(06:09):
that I made myself very small because I didn't think that my voice mattered.
I attribute that, everything, back to childhood and the way I grew up in a very toxichousehold.
Yeah.
And, you know, I was thinking when we were talking about it in preparation that maybe it'sabout when we're 12 or eight or even five, but you were telling me that it can start even
(06:33):
earlier than that.
was shocked.
Yes, it can actually start in the womb.
The baby can take on the stresses outside the womb the baby is hearing things and willabsorb that stress before it's even born.
And, so it starts at infancy.
It starts when we're babies.
(06:56):
And it's something that is such a yearning inside uh
the mind and heart of a newborn of an infant looking for that security and reassurancethat these deficiencies, and we're going to explore them a little more in a minute, they
can create such a deep, deep hole that can stay into adulthood.
(07:20):
And what's interesting as we've discussed this, it isn't just that it is a symptom thatplays out in adulthood.
But it is so hard to spot.
It is.
Why?
because people can mask it.
People can be hiding in the shadows with it, with depression.
(07:42):
They can be highly functioning.
The Diary Of A CEO, Stephen Bartlett, he grew up in toxic household, but he is driven.
Yes.
um His parents fought all the time.
They had financial difficulties and he decided, um I'm going to make millions.
And he's driven.
(08:02):
So he's a workaholic.
um Others, it's more obvious.
They are addicted to um substances or something like that.
It can play out, like I was saying with me being very shy and...
painfully scared to speak out or be the center of attention.
(08:24):
Yes.
And, um you know, there are a couple of examples that I found just recently that I'vereflected on that, um one, it was so surprising to realize how it played out when I was
getting married.
I had asked that
(08:46):
everybody stay seated with my first marriage.
Everybody stay seated while I walk down the aisle.
Yes.
Because the idea of everybody standing up and me being the center of attention made me soanxious and I cried the entire ceremony because I was so
(09:12):
nervous at being the center of attention.
And then fast forward years later, after I had my babies, I'm sitting in church and I wantto raise my hand to ask for prayer And I start crying because all eyes are on me again.
(09:37):
I was so uncomfortable with, with that and that blew my mind.
And, but it made perfect sense because it goes back.
When I reflect on that, it goes back to my childhood because in my childhood, kids were tobe seen and not heard.
When adults were over, you were not to be seen.
(09:59):
were to stay in your room or stay outside or whatever.
And it wasn't unusual for that generation.
was.
That was the generation.
I just talked to someone and mentioned this particular subject we were going to be talkingabout.
And the first thing she said was, oh, you know, seen and not heard, 70s and 80s.
(10:21):
And I said, yes, that's exactly it.
I said, that is what I was telling my husband.
And he was shocked because he grew up in Australia.
Yeah.
And that's what
is so shocking about this.
uh Maybe you're watching and you've never thought about this before.
And then just connecting those dots in Gail's experience from that wedding ceremony tothen raising her hand in church.
(10:46):
Someone may have thought, OK, she's just emotional over something she's going through orthe wedding or something she's asking for prayer.
mean, she's a functioning woman.
She's a working woman.
With two kids.
Yeah, you were in the corporate world, fully grown.
And who would have thought that deep down were these thought patterns and deep down wasthis this kind of broken emotional brain.
(11:15):
Right.
This emotional um dysregulation deep down inside that went all the way back to not feelingseen.
when you were a kid and not being able to, I guess, have that voice.
And not wanting to be seen as an adult.
So as a result, you carried this this intrinsic shyness and not feeling like your voicekind of had value or your presence.
(11:43):
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah, absolutely.
And so you recoiled back as a result.
So that's why this is so common.
That's why it exists in in many households.
In fact, in most households, because
At some point or another, in every household, there was some level of immaturity inparents, if not one parent, both, or maybe with a guardian or grandparent, anyone of
(12:06):
influence over a child's life.
Right.
If they were still dealing with their own immaturity and dysregulation, then oftenunwittingly they passed it.
mean, if you could pass it with the stress of a parent when the baby is still in the womb.
Imagine that load and that brokenness and deficiency that can impact that child so early.
(12:32):
So when we look at so many things that can impact a child, this emotional aspect is sofoundational.
We have development in so many other areas of life, physical development, characterdevelopment.
We develop in skills and abilities.
But we can do all of that and leave emotional uh maturity lagging behind so that you couldbe an adult in every way, fully developed and highly successful, like the example uh Gail
(13:08):
gave from Stephen Bartlett and many other people that are in the media or doing well,successful millionaires, billionaires, and still be lagging in emotional maturity.
And have no idea about it.
Yeah.
Because it's not necessarily talked about.
Yeah.
(13:28):
Do remember those those paintings back in the 80s where they had all these patterns andwhen you would stand back, you'd have to kind of cross your eyes a little bit.
And all of a sudden a picture would emerge from.
Yeah.
From the paintings.
It's like it was right there, but you didn't know it was there.
And then once you see it.
You can't unsee it.
(13:48):
Well, that's the same with this emotionally immature parenting and childhood and emotionalimmaturity in people.
Once you see it, you can't unsee it.
For example, just this week, I was talking to my boss at work, my supervisor, and we had asituation where when we had a meeting, uh he came away feeling a little bit unsettled.
(14:10):
And we noticed that after the meeting, he sent something out.
And we noticed that something wasn't right with our supervisor.
And then when I had a talk to him, had a talk with some other teammates, I realized veryquickly that he had been watching our cues in the meeting.
And he was being hypersensitive and misreading our cues.
(14:33):
And he had reacted, I guess in an emotional way, to something that wasn't even there andit wasn't even rooted in reality.
but it had its roots in his own insecurity.
And, you know, as I've been preparing for this podcast, I could see it.
Right.
I could see it.
And suddenly something that may have been threatening to me that a superior at work wasbehaving that way.
(15:00):
Suddenly I could step back and go, wow, maybe he also had emotional immaturity in hisupbringing.
So once you see it,
You can't unsee it and it will answer so many things that will connect so many dots.
And I guess the obvious, uh Gail so when you have this wound, this gap, this hole that'sin adulthood, um why does it cause so much damage?
(15:28):
How much damage can it cause, I guess?
And why is it so damaging in someone's life being invisible and being so insidious at thesame time?
Well,
There are certain things um essential and Gabor Mate says it, he explains it so well.
(15:50):
love how he explains it.
He is Hungarian-Canadian psychologist and author.
And I find a of his stuff very, very helpful.
he says that the the most essential needs of a baby and child is to get secure attachmentand unconditional acceptance from their parents.
(16:20):
And there are four core essentials, secure attachment.
And that is the nurturing relationship with their primary caregiver.
um
The baby's brain is programmed to seek and attach to an adult for care and protection.
for, rest within the relationship.
(16:42):
A child needs to feel that they do not have to work for their parents' attention orregulate their emotions.
So they need to have the freedom to
just exist.
Full emotional expression.
A baby or a child needs to be able to fully from zero to 10 be able to express all oftheir emotions, anger, sadness, frustration, happiness, and also creative spontaneous
(17:13):
play, free imaginative
imaginative and child led play is a biological need for proper brain development.
This unstructured play time where there is no goal or purpose other than interaction, ithelps for the child to regulate their own emotions.
So they can work on it themselves when they have unstructured play.
(17:35):
So these are the ideals.
And I just want you to read just those four things, just the titles, because I want toreinforce.
These would be the ideals for optimum uh emotional growth in a child.
They should be in play.
But what he is saying, I guess, through his writings is that this is what's often missing.
(17:56):
Maybe one or more of these things is missing and can create that handicap.
What was the first one?
But you need all four.
You need all four.
You need all four.
Secure attachment.
OK, so we need to know that we have security in that attachment with the parent, that theparent isn't absent or isn't
in some way rejecting.
Right.
If the child does not have secure attachment, then they will forgo their authenticity.
(18:23):
If they lose that attachment, their authenticity, their self is lost.
Their sense of self is lost.
Yes.
And what was the second one?
So the second one is rest within the relationship, just the freedom to exist.
This is unconditional love.
They need to know that their acceptance is unconditional and they don't have to regulatetheir parents' emotions.
(18:47):
Okay.
So that would be related to kind of anxiety.
If you don't have that rest, that security, it can make a very anxious child.
Is that what he's saying?
Well, it's not only anxious.
It's just the child should be in their own emotions, not...
Not saying, mommy, I'm sorry you're sad.
(19:08):
Yes.
Yes.
No kind of thing or, or I'm scared because you're angry.
Yes.
They need to just be able to exist.
Yes.
In of themselves.
And often it's like a role reversal, especially as a child is growing up.
They start kind of being the parent.
Exactly.
The parent is starting to offload some things off to the child.
Absolutely.
three.
Number three is full emotional expression.
(19:29):
Okay.
So they need to, they need to be able to be in
their emotion, if they're feeling angry, they need to see that through.
They need to feel all the ebbs and flows of the anger.
So if a parent is stifling that saying, be quiet or don't cry or anything that stops thatchild from feeling the full gamut of emotions, that does not allow them Then they suppress
(19:59):
their emotions and they are not in touch with their true self.
So that's another way they can lose self.
last one to do with play.
Right.
Creative spontaneous play.
Yeah.
So that's where they use their imagination and imagination is very, very important.
(20:20):
And that's where they can practice you know, using their emotions.
And so how is that hindered by a parent?
In what way does a parent hinder that spontaneous play?
Well, there are some there are some parents that think that
play is not important or they don't know how to play with their child.
They weren't played with.
(20:41):
So they don't know how to play with their children and role play and you know, with dollsor tell stories or anything and engage in that imagination of the child's imagination.
or they're too driven.
I know in some cultures they're very driven to
(21:04):
You know success is from the get-go success is very important.
So the children are not allowed to be children.
They're not allowed to be children.
you know um as Gail was sharing this I was thinking how how insidious this is but alsowhat a fine line we need to walk especially as parents ourselves and For you as a parent
(21:28):
perhaps as a parent watching this or or parent that's already older
that, uh you know, a lot of these things we may have already made mistakes in, you know,and it's not it's not something where there's any healing in just heaping on guilt and
shame for these things.
I guess there are two aspects of it.
(21:49):
One, we're all children of parents, no matter how old you are, even if parents have havepassed away We're still children of parents and there's still always an opportunity for
growth.
for healing, to find that wholeness with this knowledge.
But also as parents, even if we're parents with adult children or young children, webelieve that there's still an opportunity for us to shift our behaviors.
(22:18):
As we become more aware of this, we start noticing it in ourselves.
And I truly believe that we are able to change as long as we take
called it like that self agency.
What was that term you used when we own our own healing?
Yes, own your agency.
(22:39):
Own your agency.
Yes.
Own your agency.
It means not victimizing ourselves and saying, poor me, this is the way I am.
I can't help the way I am.
No, this is about recognition that if we've developed in other areas, there's no reasonwhy we can't develop in our emotions as well.
(23:00):
Well, if you don't, then you stay stuck.
You stay stuck in the past where your parents left you.
Yes.
And it's important to own your agency and move forward.
That's it.
And heal from all of that.
Leave the past in the past and own your agency so that you can move forward into healthierum emotional regulations and thought patterns.
(23:25):
You create better pathways in your mind.
You don't default back to those, those negative things that kept you stuck.
And that was going to be my question.
What is the price of ignoring this?
Well, you know, you can go away from this video and just think to yourself, well, that wasinteresting.
(23:47):
That's for somebody else.
That's for my husband or my, for my wife or that that's about my mom or my dad, or that'sfor my child.
This is this information is only useful.
It's only as good as we allow it to speak to us individually.
Exactly.
And it's only as uh useful as we recognize that with this information, it can really be agame changer for our lives and our thought patterns.
(24:15):
I mean, all the things that we mentioned at the start of the of the program today, it'ssurprising how many people walk around thinking those things, but we may not say it.
We may not tell people, hey, I'm always feeling like I say the wrong things or no one islistening to me or I'm always feeling unseen in a social situation, like I don't have a
(24:37):
voice or I tell everybody that I never go on Facebook, but secretly I go on Facebook allthe time and I obsess watching other people's success in their lives and I feel the sense
of jealousy.
Or how about the common one where we just don't take joy for other people's achievements?
Cause deep down we're feeling like, you know, it puts us down or we feel somewhat enviousof other people's successes.
(25:03):
These are things that we don't talk about.
don't verbalize, but yet they're definitely thought patterns that go on in our minds.
your, parents may have acted in one way, but it is displaying in your life.
You have internalized and it's displaying in your life in different ways.
Yes.
(25:23):
It may not be exactly the way you were treated.
know, your parent may have been an angry person and yelling.
So therefore you are quiet and you hide away when there is any kind of discourse in your,life.
It can, it can be the opposite, but it's going to show up because you may not even realizethat you are damaged in that way until you do some self reflection.
(25:51):
uh
And that is important to your own personal growth.
it shows up in our human relationships.
All the time, especially with those who are closest to us and needless Careers.
Yeah, sorry.
Your careers also.
I those are relationships with superiors, with workmates.
The way we filter everything is through these lenses that we carry into adulthood.
(26:17):
So that leads really well.
into the big question, how do I know?
Like someone may be watching going, now that's not me.
How do I know that I have hidden emotional wounds ah without even realizing it?
How can I be sure?
What are the signs?
What are the symptoms?
(26:37):
How can I spot them in myself and others?
um So we've already touched on some of these.
I want to unpack some more.
because there's quite a list.
Now this list has been compiled from research, but mostly from research in our own lives.
Self reflection.
Yeah.
We both, recognize right off the bat that these, uh, this is a particular area of growthfor us.
(27:05):
And if you didn't hear our first episode, we encourage you to, to watch it episode one,because we tell the story of how we came to start this podcast.
And it really is.
from our journey, from my journey, from your journey, and the things that we've learnedcoupled with, I guess, the years that we've lived and our desire to want to break free
(27:29):
from that, to grow and change and really take a hold of life.
And then coming from our Christian background, we're people of faith, we carry such astrong burden that we don't only want to keep that.
that sense of healing and wholeness to ourselves, we want other people to experience thatas well.
(27:50):
We see the world around us so broken right now, even as we go to air, this week has beenhorrendous with violence and with horrible things on the news.
And a lot of people are affected.
And some people just don't know how to regulate those emotions.
They don't have the hooks how to negotiate these really
(28:12):
difficult situation.
there's a lot of anger on the streets right now.
And people are in camp in different camps.
So much, so much anger, so much vitriol.
And it gives me pause to think, you know, a lot of that might be, might be, you know, aresponse to what's going on.
But much of that could be coming from everyone's different levels of deficiency withemotional regulation.
(28:40):
Exactly.
And that's why it spills over.
So let's talk about some of these symptoms.
uh People pleasing.
Have you heard of people pleasing?
Yes, I've lived people pleasing.
So what in our in our common day conversational explanation, how would we see peoplepleasing?
What what is that?
(29:01):
How do you see it in you and me and others?
You are forgoing.
what you like or what you need and putting the needs of others um in place of yours.
Yes.
You know, putting it first, which, you know, can in and of itself be a very good thing.
(29:23):
If you are a person who is hospitable or you love to serve, or you see the needs of othersand you want to help.
However, it can, it can be just plain old people pleasing.
You don't know what you like or what you need.
Yes.
And it's easier to, to suppress your emotions, your feelings and put others first.
(29:46):
Yeah.
This is an interesting one because yeah, in, in some beliefs and philosophies servingothers is a very high virtue and a high value.
ah Not living for yourself, not being selfish, but serving God, serving people.
And so it seems on the surface that it is something honorable to do, to put others beforeyourself.
(30:08):
And like you said, yes, it is.
Yes, it is.
But it has to come from a place of security and wholeness I heard once a counselor say uhto me that you can't, uh you cannot help others.
You can't spill over to other people's lives if your cup isn't full in the first place.
(30:30):
And so if you are deficient, if your cup is empty and yet you want to help others, whatyou're going to be doing is using that as a crutch to kind of fill a wound.
Right.
And I can tell you from a firsthand experience since I worked in ministry for many yearsand uh as a church pastor, that is my calling, that remains my calling to this day.
(30:54):
And I love being there for people and so do you.
But I noticed the nuance of that.
and how it becomes enmeshed in your lack of self-worth and how it can become unhealthy insome ways.
Like we're talking about people pleasing.
Unhealthy ways of people pleasing is when you forego, like you said, your own self, yourown healing, your own interest, your own likes and dislikes.
(31:20):
Often I would suppress things that I enjoyed for the sake of others, only to become veryresentful.
I also was constantly worrying about what people thought of me and I'm being very candidbecause I know it can help others.
Um, it may have been subtle in the back of my mind, but it was always like a, casting ashadow over things because it's constantly misreading people's cues, hyper vigilance, uh,
(31:49):
kind of watching my back, uh, you know, uh, fearing people's displeasure or people'srejection.
or people's uh emotional abandonment.
And so I know full well the destructive aspects of people pleasing.
Absolutely.
When it's healthy, I believe that's what the mandate is all about, to flow into people'slives from an area of security and health and wholeness.
(32:16):
But when it's not healthy, can lead to just very destructive.
Very destructive.
patterns of behavior that end up sweeping the problem under the rug.
Tell me about, we talked about shyness earlier and how you suppressed yourself.
How about the pressure to perform?
(32:37):
If you've got a parent who was like you said, very driven or you were clamoring for theirattention and their approval, how can that be a negative when it comes to performing?
Now religious
speak, people call it works sometimes.
How does that play out and how can that be a negative?
(32:57):
can be really, really detrimental to you and your relationships.
If you are work-based, performance-driven, and you've got goals and you're trying to reachthose goals, that's not a bad thing.
Yes.
But if you set aside
(33:18):
your relationship with your spouse, your children, family, friends, just for that goal.
That's going to be a temporary win.
What are you hoping to get?
Because material things can never fill that void.
(33:40):
That money can never fill that void.
And you're not
filling anything inside.
Everything is all external.
It's going to be the accolades.
It's going to be, yay, you just got a million subscribers.
just sold your first book.
You just got a job at the greatest company.
(34:03):
What is it going to cost you, though?
Yeah, and it comes back to what we spoke about last time when we spoke about self-worthversus self-esteem.
Self-esteem, we said, was something external.
And if you're trying to chase the approval, because works is often related to gettingapproval, external approval.
uh When you fall short of that approval, not only do you feel like you were unsuccessful,but you feel like you are no good.
(34:32):
You feel like you're not enough.
That you're not enough.
You're not good.
And so if you're continually doing works to chase approval, if you're continually doingworks to fill that
um that self-worth hole that you have, then when that's not there, it's going to havecataclysmic results on you as a person because you're going to feel less than for not
(34:56):
achieving what you wanted to achieve.
Right.
There's a perfect example of that.
uh can't remember the guy's name, but I saw an interview and he reached the highest peak.
yes.
um
Mount think it was one of those big ones.
It was the highest mountain, whatever it was.
(35:19):
He reached it and that was his goal.
And he speaks of this being a very traumatic experience after he came off the mountainbecause he did not feel it inside.
And he actually thought about unaliving himself.
(35:40):
Unaliving.
taking his own.
Yes.
Wow.
That, um, that is crazy that someone could achieve something so great.
And as I'm saying it, I'm hearing the words that I'm saying, you can achieve something soamazingly great.
And then the next moment feel so deflated, deflated, depressed that you don't even want tocontinue living.
(36:06):
Wow.
Wow.
And I mean that
speaks to me because in my experience I certainly was able to do a lot of things uh interms of my work, uh upfront work in the media, with music uh often in front of people.
And I guess in some respects I feel like I did some amazing things, had great privileges.
(36:33):
Only too often at the end of it be left uh
with some severe self-criticism, often empty, because it just doesn't fill it.
And some people that are celebrities, they have this constant need for this drug to fueltheir self-worth.
And no matter how hard they try, it just doesn't cut it.
(36:59):
that performance, external performance to try.
to fill the hole just doesn't work.
And other things, guess, insecurity that you bring from childhood, mood swings, impostersyndrome, where you are in a position, but you deep down feel like you're not worthy of it
if people only knew how ill equipped or how hopeless you are.
(37:22):
That is pretty common, especially in the corporate world.
uh Shame, anger, uh loneliness, emotional loneliness is a big one.
Yes, that's so huge.
you have been left devoid of that security in childhood, you carry this sense of isolationwhere you may be even in a room full of people, or you may belong to a church, or you
(37:50):
might come from a big family, and still you feel this sense of emptiness or this lack ofbelonging, this emotional loneliness, and
And again, it's one of these insidious, invisible symptoms that can come from those veryearly years in infancy where there was this lack of attention, perhaps, from a parent that
(38:17):
didn't have the maturity or the understanding, this lack of attunement to the feelings ofthat child, this lack of emotional empathy and sensitivity.
and a security where the child knew that it was safe, that the child could come to theparent for comfort and for unconditional love.
(38:38):
If those things are missing, it's amazing how they can carry over to adulthood.
And you have experience with that.
Yes, yes, I do have experience with that.
We grew up uh in an immigrant household in Australia.
Both my parents migrated from Chile to Australia back in the early 70s.
(38:59):
And so we were raised, and this is where it's interesting that you can have, you can comefrom a home where there's a lot of visible trauma or toxicity or maybe shouting or a lot
of visible issues.
I came from a middle-class home where we went to church.
My parents worked a lot.
They had multiple jobs.
(39:20):
They put food on the table.
They...
They showed their love in very physical ways.
but when it came to emotional connection, it wasn't always there.
Sometimes it was because they were just physically not present.
We were latch-key kids, so we would let ourselves out to go to school with our parents hadgone already to work uh in the afternoons.
(39:43):
We would come home and watch cartoons and let ourselves in.
And my parents would often work.
into the evening, my dad would have a part-time job on the weekends, a side hustle as theycall it now.
And so physically, I guess they weren't there, but also there was some brokenness that wasbrought from their childhood, especially my mom coming from a very uh broken home.
(40:11):
There was a lot of poverty from where she came.
There was a lot of abuse in very different ways.
So she came to parenting, not that young actually, she was close to her 30s, but withtremendous uh deficiencies when it came to emotional maturity and security in her life.
(40:33):
uh I know that she herself is very protective over not wanting to speak ill of herparents, but in reality, there was no real normality in her upbringing.
I think there were
12 kids in the home at different ages.
And there was alcoholism and there was physical violence, emotional, what would you callit, manipulation and things like that.
(41:00):
And so when she came to have children and I was the first born, she just didn't, for lackof, you know, for no lack of want.
She just didn't have the hooks to know how to do that.
And so she has told me in recent years that she even struggled to want to pick me up as achild, to embrace me as a child, as an infant, as a baby.
(41:25):
And sometimes there were other family members that would come and would pick me up becausemy mom didn't know how to connect at that level, though she clearly loved me.
And then because she had to go out to work, she would leave me with babysitters as aninfant.
And I don't know who these people were.
have this, this vague feeling that there was a lot of anger as a child there.
(41:50):
And, and all of that put together meant that little James, although he came from a prettystable home, there wasn't any major, major trauma with a capital T.
In fact, on that score, you know, that score, the ACE,
I would probably score pretty low and yet the deficiency was super deep.
(42:11):
Tremendous, yes.
And here I am now in my early 50s and still working through a lot of these things andthose patterns played out in my first marriage.
They played out in my parenting with my kids.
They have played out in our home.
Still working on those and they go all the way back.
What is that?
(42:32):
Five decades?
And still working on these things.
goes to show how, how deep these things are.
But you're just now acknowledging because you didn't have the tools.
You didn't know what you didn't know.
And that's, that's why it's so important.
Once you find out these things and acknowledge, um, these, these deficiencies and namethem, then you can do something about them.
(43:01):
And you can.
own your agency.
Absolutely.
And like I said earlier, it's not because we don't want to know.
It's just so hard to pinpoint.
right.
You think it's all within you, but oh you carried what she carried.
You carried her wounds into your adulthood.
Yes.
(43:21):
but they were connected to me.
Right.
So I tend to- your self-worth.
Yeah.
I tended to blame me.
Exactly.
And I was enmeshed with that idea.
So I wasn't able to detach from it and look at it in front of me and go, wow, this is athing.
And that doesn't define my person.
(43:43):
I've always seen it as just me.
So this brings us to another thing that we want to say here So uh could your parents havestruggled with emotional immaturity?
And Gail's already shared uh what it looked like in infancy.
So think about that.
know, babies need uh food and safety and shelter, but they need more than that.
(44:07):
They need emotional connection.
As you've said, they need caregivers that comfort, acknowledge feelings, respondconsistently.
Emotionally immature parents often fail to do that and they leave children feelingemotionally unsafe.
And with responses that overreact, parents can overreact.
(44:28):
They can withdraw, they can dismiss, or they can even be very inconsistent with theiremotions.
So I want to ask you a couple of questions.
I just want to do a self-assessment for this episode in trying to think whether this couldbe you.
And Gail, I guess for you as well, even though we've talked about it.
(44:48):
how would you answer these questions?
That's a rhetorical question.
Um, number one, my parent often overreacted to small problems.
Number two, my parents struggled to understand or care about my feelings.
Number three, emotional closeness felt uncomfortable and unavailable.
(45:13):
Number four, I often took care of my parents needs, what we talking about earlier, butthey didn't support me or at least I didn't feel like they supported me.
And number five, sharing my successes or feelings didn't seem to matter to them.
So in those five very simple questions, how many of those
(45:37):
would you agree was your experience in infancy or in early childhood?
Even if there was one that could be a sign, but if there was more than one, maybe allfive, it is odds on that you also went through this childhood uh experience with an
immature parent, one, or maybe both parents, which would be compounding to any child.
(46:05):
And you know, in our research, we talked about that book.
What was the author's name who wrote the book?
Lindsay C.
Gibson.
Lindsay C.
Gibson.
And the name of the book again, because it's an awesome book.
Yes, we highly recommend it.
Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents.
Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents.
(46:27):
In that book, in chapter four, she talks about four different types of emotional,emotionally immature parents.
One uh is the emotional parent.
This is the parent that's run by his or her feelings and is highly unstable.
lot of mood swings, a lot of inconsistency in feelings, maybe a lot of meltdowns andanger, a lot of impulsiveness, not a lot of deliberate action or rational decision making,
(46:57):
but everything made on emotions and feelings.
So that's called the emotional parent.
How would you respond to that?
Does that ring a bell for you?
Was there emotions in your childhood?
there were lots of emotions.
um My grandparents were alcoholics and we stayed with them on the weekends.
(47:18):
Yes.
So there were a lot of emotions flying there.
At home, my parents fought a lot.
My dad worked a lot, but when he was home, they fought a lot.
It was very emotional all the time.
And you were telling me that that has played out in your experience somewhat as well withemotional dysregulation in parenting?
(47:41):
absolutely.
Absolutely.
I will put my hand up to that as well.
Absolutely.
So I certainly see uh this category in my experience, the emotional fluctuations.
The second one is the driven parent.
This is the parent that is compulsively
goal oriented and controlling.
(48:02):
This is the parent that wants their children to achieve certain things and perhaps doesnot come across as unconditional in their love and approval unless they see achievements
or certain standards or certain things done with career, with studies, with grades andthat sort of thing.
(48:25):
And that was not in my household?
Yeah.
So that one you don't count.
cannot relate to that one.
I can relate to control.
Yes.
But in a very different way.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I think, I think for me as well, it's not a major one, but there are, you know, wetalk our parents and especially, you one of each of our parents, in your case, your dad,
(48:49):
and in my case, my mom, um you know, in terms of career and achievement.
Even though they may not want to admit it, will show a favor or, you know, when we'reachieving and maybe doubt if we're not achieving.
So it's kind of subtle, but I think there's a little bit of drive there more about, youknow, success or I don't know.
(49:11):
So it's not a big The third one is the passive parent.
Sometimes this may be coupled with a driven parent or an emotional parent.
where one is driven, one is uh one is driven or emotional and the other one is justpassive.
They avoid conflict as much as they can and they withdraw, especially when they're understress.
(49:34):
Can you relate to this one?
Did you see this in your family home?
Well, the the passive part, absolutely with my mother, but she was passive aggressive.
OK, well, what is passive aggressive?
How do we explain that?
Well, I can give you examples.
For instance, my girlfriend was moving and this was our last night for us to see herbefore she was going to be going to another school.
(50:08):
So I asked my mother, I go out with them to dinner?
these friends to say goodbye for farewell.
And she said, you'll have to ask your dad.
And I said, daddy's at work.
He doesn't get off work until six o'clock in the morning.
(50:33):
Well, I can't answer them.
And I did not get to go.
or.
Can we go across the street and play?
um No.
Why not?
Because they have to come over here.
My friend would have to come across the street because our friends, we only played in theneighborhood.
(50:57):
um So those are two examples.
Or she would just ignore when I would talk to her.
She would not.
answer me.
So, yeah.
So that, that passivity is not uncommon.
I've heard that before, you know, go and ask your dad or go and ask your mom.
(51:18):
And that also is a form of withdrawal from the child.
Right, right.
Because the child is looking for something from you.
And, and then there are other spouses that there may be issues in the marriage and the,you know,
Go and talk to your mom or go and talk to your dad.
this is like this deflection from the passive parent.
that's played out in my previous marriage.
(51:40):
Yes.
Number four is the straight out rejecting parent.
And as extreme as this sounds, it can happen.
This can be one or even both parents where they are completely disconnected, cold andunempathetic with their children, where children are seen as a disruption, as an
interruption.
(52:02):
A parent can be reading the newspaper while that's in the olden days.
And like you said, children need to get out of the room, not be heard.
Or often there's like this level of impatience with kids because they're just in the way.
Right.
Right.
My dad was big into television when we were growing up.
(52:22):
And if his show was on, you'd better not make a noise.
And it's funny because he's like that with
Judge Judy now.
yeah, during Judge Judy, you've got to be quiet if daddy is watching his show.
And my mother, not, she did not, she was very cold to me.
(52:47):
She did not hug me or anything.
And I don't know if some people can relate, but when I was a kid,
uh My mother would clean out my ears with a q-tip and I would long for her to clean out myears so I could be close to her because there were no hugs.
(53:09):
There was no warmth and just putting my head in her lap was very very comforting
Soothing.
Yeah, because I didn't get that except for when she cleaned out my ears, which is soweird.
But it goes to show when we're children, we can be so vulnerable and so needy becausewe're little and we look to our parents or our first caregivers for fulfillment in all
(53:37):
these areas.
And it goes to show how much just even to clean your ears.
You were just wanting to be close to your mom.
Right.
And um
And you told me also that you really valued when your dad did give you some affection,even though he wasn't overly affectionate as a child, you really received every bit of
(53:59):
affection that you could get from him.
right.
So so if I had a nightmare, my dad was my go to parent.
Yes.
And so when I would have a nightmare, I would go to him and in his
slumber, he would, you know, put his arm around me ah baby, it's okay.
(54:19):
And so, you know, it made the nightmare not so bad, you that wasn't his baseline.
But when he did that, it meant a lot.
Oh, it meant the world.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's, it's important to realize that even on this, even doing small things can make a hugeimpact on a child.
Right.
(54:43):
so whose fault is it?
I wrote a few thoughts down, you know, understanding your parents limits, isn't blamingthem.
It's seeing why some struggles aren't your fault and why, uh, these things need attention.
Most emotional immaturity is unintentional beyond the parents awareness.
The goal isn't betrayal of the parent.
It's clarity.
It's understanding, the.
(55:04):
patterns to be able to start your own healing.
Does this mean that they didn't love us?
Of course, our parents loved us.
And the fact that they provided in all the other areas means that there was love there.
Yes.
They just didn't know or they loved us to the best of their capacity.
Yes, that's what it is.
(55:25):
And they just didn't know how to do it.
If it wasn't shown to them, how could they show it to us?
So.
How can we heal and rewrite the emotional patterns from childhood?
I want to leave you with these four things.
First of all, awareness.
This whole episode has been about awareness, um about recognizing this, that this exists,that this is a real thing that's actually more prevalent than we even think.
(55:56):
And that these patterns occur in ourselves and in others.
We're all about awareness and naming it, naming it.
This is a reality.
Emotional immaturity is a reality.
It isn't us.
It was something that was handed to us very early before we even had a language to to nameit then and even capacity to understand it.
(56:19):
Exactly.
So awareness.
Number two, this is a big one.
I've called it auto nurturing.
or self-parenting.
ah is not easy to do, but we have to try to envision ourselves as little children, asinfants, little Gail, little James, little you, maybe provide that support and validation
(56:47):
that you missed as a child.
Gail, you had a good suggestion that...
could involve a photo of little you?
Yes, get a photo of you as a child and talk to that child and tell that child that it wasnot their fault.
It was not your fault.
That child did not have the capacity for it to be uh their fault.
(57:14):
Yeah.
And they didn't receive what they needed and it's
tell yourself inside, it's okay.
And you're going to be okay because now you have recognized that it wasn't your fault andyour parents did not do this intentionally, usually, most likely, but you can heal from
(57:38):
it.
Yeah.
There is healing.
So auto-nurturing, being aware, maybe even
you know, verbalizing it out loud, saying that uh you matter.
I love you, and validating.
Validation is so important.
So awareness, auto nurturing.
Number three is affirmation.
(57:59):
uh I want you to say this whenever you encounter it with a parent or uh in maybe someoneelse that might be speaking to you and offloading on you.
You can say,
I won't take it on as my own.
This isn't about me.
It's about them.
I'm not going to receive it.
(58:20):
I'm not going to internalize this.
This is not about me.
This is about that person.
They're obviously deficient emotionally and I'm going to place it where it belongs.
It's clear to me and I'm not going to make this or take it on for myself.
Again, not an easy thing to do.
(58:42):
with the awareness and the auto-nurturing comes that next step where you refuse to acceptit.
You refuse to accept it and internalize it.
It was never yours to hold.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was never yours to hold.
And lastly is action step.
And that is to set boundaries with compassion to detach.
(59:03):
It may require physical detachment from people in your life that are
offloading on you, that they're passing on these stressors that are, treating you lessthan that are just negative influences.
Sometimes that may require boundaries with compassion to not allow even physically thesepeople to bring you down.
(59:27):
Right.
Yeah.
And ironically, tonight, before we started taping,
Ironically, I got a drunk dial call from my dad.
um I get that weekly and I see it as a loving gesture because that's when he is his mostauthentic self.
(59:51):
I feel like so I get the soft side of daddy he asked what we were doing and I said we werepreparing to tape for the podcast and he explained that my
Stepmother had told him about it and he doesn't know what a podcast he is, but he said hewas not interested in watching it.
(01:00:16):
And I did not receive it.
I did not receive that.
I know that even if he knew what it was and he chose not to watch it, he chose not tosupport.
It is okay.
I give him grace because I love him and it doesn't define me.
(01:00:37):
It doesn't define what we're doing and I don't receive the negativity.
He is giving me his max capacity and I'm okay with that and I can detach and not let ithurt me.
And I think that's very, very important.
for you to do with someone in your life if they seemingly bringing negativity, it is notabout you, it's about them and you don't have to receive it.
(01:01:09):
So awareness, auto nurturing, affirmation, action steps, setting boundaries withcompassion.
So emotional wounds may be invisible, but they're not untreatable.
They're a signal pointing back to your desire for self-worth or to your actual self-worthIt may have shaped your story up until this point, but it doesn't have to define your
(01:01:36):
future.
It doesn't have to define your future.
Healing begins.
When you stop carrying the responsibility for something that was not yours and you placeit over here and recognize it for what it is, emotional immaturity that exists, but it was
(01:01:56):
not your fault.
It is not that you were broken.
It was a wound, a deficiency that was left inside of you.
I did come up with a term called emotional miswiring.
or a distorted script, we're gonna unpack that a bit more later, but that's all that'sbeen going on.
(01:02:17):
It's not you that's broken.
It was a wound that went back to childhood.
So that is our episode for today.
I hope that you found it helpful.
If you've reached this far, we thank you for sticking with us.
We are trying to be as raw and authentic as we can, as honest with everything about us,because we want to help you to break free and to achieve a breakthrough in your life.
(01:02:40):
We believe that it is possible.
We care about you.
We're doing this because we extend love to you.
We extend grace.
We believe that God loves you and wants something better for you.
And next time when we come together again, we'll be exploring how kids adapt and survivein these environments.
And of course, we're going to be looking more at the hidden cost of the roles that we playin adulthood as a result of emotionally immature parenting.
(01:03:08):
We're going to launch second part of this series next time.
I've called the series Invisible No More because we are going to be invisible no more.
invite you to join us again next time on The I Matter Mindset podcast with James and Gail.
Bye from me.
Bye for now.
And we'll see you next time.
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