To have Jackie Werboff on this Podcast is nothing short of an incredible honor. Jackie directly contributed to my own Recovery through an offering space to begin understanding, in the most compassionate of ways, how my own childhood development was impacting the Family System I sought to build. I hope you enjoy this conversation that includes the NeuroAffective Relational Model(NARM) model of Therapy, attunement between parent and child, substance use as self-medication for unmet emotional needs in teens, the value of the 12 Step Program, and more. We explore options to help the Family system through therapy, learning, and relational-model engagement, all of which contribute to becoming healthier humans and healthier parents for our kids. As with each instance of engagement with Jackie, we end with hope.
1:15 - 2:55 - Dr. Larry Heller, What is NARM?
3:55 - Developmental verses Shock Trauma
5:45 - Mis-attunement
6:30 - Attuning at the parental level
10:15 - The impossibility of being constantly emotionally attuned
11:35 - Self medication specific to substance misuse
12:30 - Unmet needs and emotional pain
12:45 - Strategies: read about the Core Surviving Strategies here
14:10 - The power of words
16:15 - Shame and the impact on Recovery
17:00 - The challenge of behavior in substance misuse and how NARM can help navigate this challenge
19:00 - How Recovery can re-set a Family
19:50 - Addiction is a Family System challenge
20:50 - The dead-end of blame
21:55 - Apologizing as a Parent and the value that offers our Children
23:10 - Accountability
24:20 - The 12 Steps and Recovery
27:00 - NARM Therapy and listening
27:35 - Curiosity and NARM
28:00 - Breaking down the power dynamics in the therapeutic relationship
30:45 - Self regulation and the importance of having a caregiver self-regulate
33:35 - Nervous System Therapeutic approaches (Somatic and Polyvagal)
33:45 - Dr. Stephen Porges
33:50 - The Polyvagal Institute, About Deb
34:30 - Jackie's Contact info at Wide Awake Counseling
35:35 - The Journey
Thank you for listening and please visit www.siblinghoodofrecovery.com for free resources, links to organizations, groups and individuals who can offer help in the Journey of Recovery towards healing from substance use disorders. If you like this Podcast, please leave a rating on wherever you're listening. It will help to get the word out.
If there is one message I can leave you with, the best you can offer your loved one battling addiction is love and a healthier you.
Walk gently, my friend.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
My name is Angie Reno and I'm a mom on a recovery
journey from family dysfunction,addiction and perhaps all that
simply comes with the humancondition.
I'm not a licensed therapist,although I will always encourage
seeking out professional help.
I know therapy has changed mylife for the better.
There are many of us on thispath towards recovery, so let's
(00:23):
walk gently.
Welcome to Siblinghood ofRecovery, jackie Wurbauf.
Welcome to Siblinghood ofRecovery.
It's so good to have you here.
Thank you, angie.
(00:44):
It's great to be here with you.
It's been a long journey.
As a matter of fact, in thewarm-up we were talking about
how many years have gone by, andit's shocking.
It's so quick.
How many days did you fly?
One of the reasons I met you iswhen my son went to his first
rehab and I'm going to getapproval before I say their name
(01:04):
, but one of the firstrecommendations was to read a
book on Narm by Dr Heller.
Then that led me to you.
I feel that Narm is an integralpart of my recovery.
I also know that it is anintegral part of my son's
(01:26):
recovery, and you are a Narmexpert.
I would love it if you broke itdown for the listener.
What is Narm and what is a Narmpractice?
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Absolutely Just to welcome in some of my own
humility.
I am a Narm therapist the wordexpert I noticed some of my own
strategies show up when I hearyou say expert, because I start
to put pressure on myself andI'm noticing that I appreciate
(02:01):
the faith you have in myknowledge and also just to be
with your listeners.
Just to be really clear, I'm aNarm therapist.
That means that I have had both.
Well, I've had the level twotraining, which means that's
their level training forlicensed mental health
counselors or those entering thefield who might still be in
(02:21):
school or might be earning theirlicensure hours.
Then I've also had level threetraining, which is their
master's level training.
Right now I'm working towardthe post-training requirements
for the master levelcertification.
All of that said, I definitelyI just always so much more to
(02:46):
learn too.
Let me just share a little bitabout Narm, and I can share
about my journey through Narm aswell.
I know it's been so helpful foryou, angie, and for your son
and for so many other familiesworking on recovery or even just
working on healing their ownstuff.
Oh yeah, yeah.
(03:06):
So Narm stands for theneuroactive relational model.
It was created by Dr LawrenceHeller.
It is a really deep therapeuticmodel that really brings in so
(03:26):
much of a nervous systemapproach and education which I
think for me as a therapist madea huge difference just in terms
of learning about somethingthat answered a lot of questions
that I really had about traumaand about treating trauma in the
first place.
It answered a ton of questionsI didn't even know I had yet too
(03:48):
.
One of the main things I thinkthat sets Narm apart from many
other trauma-informed modalitiesis that it's specifically
created for developmental trauma, opposed to shock trauma.
Developmental trauma can be alot different to treat.
It can also be a lot differentto recognize.
For many of us, things thatlead to developmental trauma are
(04:13):
things that we would commonlyactually write off as just the
way it was, yes, or justsomething that kids deal with.
Things that can causedevelopmental trauma can even be
parents doing the very bestthat they could.
It's really easy to miss.
I think a lot of times it'sactually a lack of something.
(04:35):
Another tough thing to catchfor ourselves and even for our
clients is like when somethingwasn't there, you know.
A lot of times we really don'teven realize what we needed,
that we never got when it wasnever there to know we needed in
the first place.
So Norm really Not normallyspeaks to all of that and really
speaks to how to treat thechronic, ongoing kind of just
(04:59):
every day there's what life feltlike for a kid, or for a period
of time in a kid's life.
Or here's what life has feltlike for an adult all throughout
their life Just a sort of likechronic experience of either
emotional misattunement ordisconnection from Self and from
others.
It can also be difficultyfeeling like they can trust
(05:22):
those around themselves.
It can be brought up in anenvironment that doesn't support
their own independence orautonomy, yeah, and, and it
often leads to feeling likethere has to be this
performative peace to life aswell.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
I want to Go back to the misattunement.
Do you know for the averagelistener?
Yeah, let's, yeah, expand onthat a little bit please.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Absolutely yeah.
The term misattunement Notactually the norm training was
the first time I even heard theterm and it kind of sort of blew
my mind a little bit.
So, starting just withattunement, so emotional
attunement is that sense offeeling gotten by the people
around us.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Yeah, heard.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Yes, yeah, heard, seen, understood.
It doesn't mean that the peoplearound us are having the same
feelings we're having, we don'tnecessarily mean that, but it
means that the people around us,whether that's our parents or
our caregivers or our friendsand can attune, can kind of
where we're at in our ownemotional feeling and so just
kind of really framing thisAgain through developmental
(06:29):
trauma.
What can often happen is thatparents or caregivers are
raising children without enoughresources or support or have
never had the opportunity to dotheir own work often, and so
their ability to emotionallyattune to their children can be
really interrupted or reallyinterfered with by their own
stuff, by their own stress bytheir own trauma or the
(06:53):
structure of the norm I find inthe recovery rooms that a lot of
moms talk about, for example,adhd, you know, and constantly
dealing with the, the system ofeducation that their child is in
and how that structure isn'tsupporting that child right.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
And then and then the stressor on the mom Like my
heart rate increases a littlebit because you can tell that
that situation for the mom it'sgonna be challenging and that
mom won't be able to take awaythe kid stressors.
So when we so let's talk aboutDoing that own work on the mom
(07:35):
side, how?
Or the parent side.
So you have misattunement like.
How do you even know thatthere's Misattunement going on
in the family?
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Yeah, I guess they go to you, yeah, and, and really I
mean just to really normalizethis, like, myself included, I
had no idea that I experiencedemotional misattunement as a kid
until I started to like evenlearn that that was a thing,
right, I mean, this is we oftenjust like have awareness of,
like you know, these are thingsthat we often have no idea about
(08:06):
until we start to do some ofour own work or hear about some
of these things.
How does one know if they'veexperienced emotional
misattunement or it?
Speaker 1 (08:15):
was like how do you recognize that it's actually
happening?
Speaker 2 (08:22):
You know, and I say that in my kid, my kid actually
needs something.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
I will pause.
I'll pause here real quick.
Go with you and yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
I have to do?
Speaker 1 (08:32):
I'll just tell him to text me and and then, like he's
standing there and I'm like howdo I?
How do I ignore him, I'm notlistening to, so hold on.
Well, you're more than welcometo step away to no, I'll just
say if he needs anything, heprobably wants me to start some
wash.
Do you need anything?
Okay, come on, jackie, realquick.
(08:54):
No, come on, she knows, sheknows it all about you and dick.
Yeah, you can come on, come onreal quick.
You gotta lower your leg he justgot back from football here
here.
Okay, so you need to apply this, all right, oh, I love it.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Down low all over okay.
Okay.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
That's my right Okay.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Thank you mom.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
All right, can you shut the door for me please?
All right, we're gonna editthat.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
That was great.
I loved it.
That's actually a really niceexample of emotional attunement.
Honestly, is it okay.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Great, he just got back.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
We could really use that.
Actually, we actually could.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Oh man, okay so, and I did recognize.
It's funny because I recognizeat that moment, if I don't
address this, I'm missing hisneed.
It's so convoluted, right,exactly.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
I know, okay, jackie, so yeah.
So, in terms of emotionalmisattunement, you know, first
of all, it's impossible toconstantly be attuned, just to
like name, that it's absolutelyimpossible, and I think many
parents perhaps put a lot ofpressure on themselves to always
feel attuned to their kids'needs or to always be
(10:21):
emotionally connected to theirkids, and that's just impossible
.
There's no possible way wecould ever be constantly meeting
all of our kids' needs all thetime, no matter their age,
whether they're infants or theirtoddlers or their kids or their
teenagers or their adults, likethere's no way we could ever be
meeting all of the needs of anybeing at any given moment.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
I think that would be risking enmeshment right.
Absolutely, it would get closeto it.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Yeah, it absolutely would, and it would just be
unrealistic.
Because it would just beunrealistic even for infants
where, like we really do need tobe meeting you know they can't
meet their own needs yet westill aren't going to meet all
of our needs all the timethere's no possible way, because
what we'd be doing is we'd becompletely disregarding our own
needs if we did that, which youknow, parents have to a little
(11:07):
bit, but you know.
But parents also need toacknowledge that they themselves
have emotional needs that areimportant and that matter.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
And then there's the danger that comes with that of
risking our own health.
It degrades and they need us tobe healthy.
Granted difference, okay, so,because I think this will help
somebody who's listening.
Now, right, how do I recognize,in the midst of this chaos,
that's going on?
Right, we've got substance usehappening and a lot of us, as we
(11:40):
get into recovery, understandthat that's self-medication.
Yep, that's right.
That's right.
So walk a parent, a new parent,new to this journey?
Yep, how do you see it?
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Absolutely yeah.
So I mean a trauma-informedapproach, certainly a norming
approach, but even just from theperspective, just a
trauma-informed perspective onsubstance misuse, is that it is
needing an unmet need.
It is a way to meet a needthat's not getting met otherwise
, and a lot of times I thinkquite especially in my
(12:17):
experience working in the fieldthe unmet I mean we could add
more nuance to this.
You know personal situations,but in general, the unmet need
for teens who are turning tosubstances is that it's
relieving some kind of emotionalpain.
Yeah, yeah, it's numbing somekind of emotional suffering that
(12:38):
they're experiencing.
I know that's really general,but there's a reason why they're
engaging in this norm.
We'd call it strategy.
They're engaging in this typeof strategy for a reason, and
strategies are actuallyextremely useful at first, and
(12:58):
then what happens is we begin tooutgrow our strategies at some
point where they start to reallyget in the way.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Yeah.
And then we go to the nextlevel of identifying how, as a
parent, we can, you know,because, to tell a kid that
that's not going to help them,but to walk them through, like,
how are you going to get toletting them see the end results
?
You know, especially with ayoung mind, it's hard for us to
(13:25):
think, you know, going back tolike your 15, you don't even
know what next year is going tolook like.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
No, no, and teenagers , you know, adolescents, they
don't have the well, first ofall, yeah, they're working with
a still developing brain, verymuch still developing brain, and
they don't have the gift ofperspective the way that you
know, like adults, those of uswho have had more experience in
life, we have the the gift ofbeing able to have perspective
like we have lots of.
We have lots more experiencesthan a 15 year old has yet to
(13:55):
have, and so it is verydifficult for a 15 year old to
consider it might feel differentat another time.
That's actually so difficultfor a 15 year old to consider.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
It is.
And then what I learned fromyou in our sessions was the
power of the word, like even howyou acknowledged your reaction
to the word expert, right, yeah,yeah.
That is a phenomenal ability totake in the power of that word
(14:27):
at that moment.
Recognize it.
It's a layman's term for me, soit doesn't build up right.
So that's right.
Talk to me, how do you coachsomebody to understand that
power of that, the words tothemselves?
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Absolutely yeah.
So the language we would use asa norm, the language I use as
my clients and with myself too,is how, how are you relating to
this or how am I relating tothis experience?
And so you know, I've got, I'vegot a lot of practice.
So the word you know, you saidthe word expert and immediately
I was able to notice that I wasrelating to it with by putting
(15:04):
pressure on myself.
And that comes from lots ofpractice of of checking in and
and my own therapy too, withwith norm therapists around how
I'm relating to things.
But yeah, it's about like, howare you experiencing this?
What is this like for you?
Because that's a very personalexperience.
Someone else, anyone else,might be introduced as an expert
(15:26):
and feel quite at home withthat word, depending on what
they're an expert at.
In fact, many of us, thepressure begins to build when
we're acknowledged for somethingthat we might be doing well or
might be doing at all.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
And the pressure building is also, I guess, a
window into the developmentalpart of that person's self.
You know there's, I guess,self-reflection, or their
opinion of self.
You know how they seethemselves.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Absolutely, yeah, absolutely, and it's such a
nuanced experience, like it's socomplex, in terms of how a
person, how a teenager or achild, develops their, who they
take themselves to be, theirself-reflection.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
So in recovery, a big part of recovery is the
mitigation of shame.
It's a horrific cycle really,because there's so many you know
opportunities to fail and theninstead you have to shift that
perspective to the littleadvancements.
Right, that's why I love Kraftand I mentioned that briefly.
(16:39):
But Cordelia Kraus and Moms forAll Pass of Recovery also
introduced me to the concept ofKraft and I think it aligns with
NARM, because we don't focus onthe failures, we focus on the
very little, small movementsforward.
And in your training can youspeak to that versus other
(17:01):
interventionist type of orhardcore boundary setting and
the differences?
Speaker 2 (17:07):
For sure, yeah, for sure.
I mean it's hard not to make itbehavioral in the substance
abuse world because, on thesurface, the most damaging part
of substance abuse is thebehavior.
It's the behavior of, or theaction of, using substances or
using alcohol, including alcohol, of course and so it's really
(17:28):
hard not to make it behavioral,and to a certain extent, I think
it's gonna have to be whensomeone needs to stop using a
substance or when a substance isreally harming somebody.
But NARM really encourages usto not make it behavioral,
because when it's behavioral andI know that term might seem a
little strange when what we'refocusing on is someone's
(17:49):
external action or behaviors orsome kind of measurable thing,
whether they've used that day ornot, whether you, how long
sober they are, things like thatthere's a relationship between
behavior and pressure.
This comes all the way back todevelopmental trauma in terms of
what type of expectations orpressures or, you know, use the
(18:13):
word failures earlier what typesof failures or how failures
were acknowledged, or howfailures, how different
experiences were, sort of, yeah,acknowledged by the parents of
these kids, or by the parents ofthe parents too, because you
know, it all comes fromsomewhere as well.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
And that's.
I use the word failure becauseit's so powerful and I don't
like it.
Yeah, you know, that's thestandard.
I think that's the standardemotion for a lot of parents
when they're in this wholeprocess.
They get introduced to finallysaying, okay, we've got to get
help, we've got to get our childinto treatment, and there's
(18:51):
this sense that it all wentwrong.
And where did you know?
looking back and I'm not theonly recovery mom that said this
, believe me is it became anopportunity.
It became such a wonderful,beautiful opportunity for
resetting the family.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
And.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Oh my gosh.
Yes, yeah, it's been.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Oh, yeah, that's a really important point and I'd
be happy to speak to that,please as well.
Yeah, for sure, you know so I,several years, I worked in an
inpatient treatment center formen, so for adult men, 18 and up
and the treatment center had ahuge focus on including the
(19:35):
family, and that made such adifference.
You know the clients we hadwhose families were more
involved.
You know, whether by choice oror because they simply could be,
those clients had such adifferent experience in
treatment and recovery andsobriety, because addiction is
not just one person.
It's true, addiction is a wholefamily issue.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
It affects the entire family system.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Yeah, it affects the entire family system.
There's no way that it can't.
There's actually no way that itcan't.
And so when substance use istreated just as though it's this
one person issue or this oneperson thing to work on or this
one person's experience, it'smissing.
It's missing a much biggerpiece, missing like the systemic
piece of it.
(20:19):
And so parents often feel likefailures when their children are
struggling with addiction orwith substance use.
I think that's a really commonreaction to have enter in shame,
right?
I mean, how can you know therole and power of shame around
having a kid who's strugglingwith anything, especially
(20:40):
something like this, that hassuch a stigma around it and that
can often you know it can betempting to really wanna please
blame.
The trouble with blame is that,yeah, blame often is such a dead
end because all of our stuffcomes from somewhere and you
know, if we were to blame theparents, then we'd probably have
(21:01):
to also then blame theirparents, and then we'd also have
to blame their parents' parents, and I mean really, it's kind
of a dead end.
It doesn't actually really helpanything anyway, it doesn't
yeah.
The blame doesn't solve anything.
Yeah, and so, like you said, itcan be a really big opportunity
.
It can be oftentimes a family'svery first opportunity to do
(21:21):
any kind of deeper work ordeeper reflection on themselves,
on each other, on the dynamicsbetween everybody.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Yeah, and that goes into intergenerational trauma,
which is so deep, but it's a.
For me, it was an opportunityagain to stop certain cycles of
what's considered Appropriate oracceptable in a family system
and change it, and I know Iapologize when I do something
(21:53):
wrong now to my children if Ifeel that I've overstepped you
know even on small things,because I think it's important
for them to hear hey, I'm sorryabout that, that wasn't my
intention, but it's reallyimportant.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
And can I say something about?
Why is it so important?
Yes, it's really important forkids to get an opportunity to
hear their parents acknowledgetheir own mistakes.
That is super important.
Parents who are parents whoattempt to look whether it's
perfect or like they're notmaking any mistakes or like I
(22:29):
believe the intention is good.
But when kids grow up seeingtheir parents never, you know,
like stumble or never have achallenge or never admit that
like hey, I was wrong here.
Kids have a pretty hard timelearning that.
That's okay, I mean, they donot show them?
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Yeah, so let me ask you from your perspective now,
because this ties into the word,the wordsmithing right what is
the difference betweenapologizing and the often heard,
whether it's in movies orwhatever.
Don't make the same mistakes.
I did, Hmm.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
I would hope that apologizing also comes with some
kind of accountability.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
That would be my hope .
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Yeah, in terms of acknowledging not just I'm sorry
when a parent because none ofus are perfect and none of us
are even supposed to be, and yeta lot of us do pressure
ourselves to be that way.
But if a parent makes a mistake, whether they are late picking
their kid up, or forgot to picktheir kid up, or something that
they got wrong, or maybe theyemotionally mistattuned to their
(23:38):
kid and they have theopportunity to do that, you know
an apology is a little bitlacking what they're sorry about
or what they're sorry for,whereas accountability could
allow the parent to acknowledgelike, hey, I'm sorry for this
behavior that I had, which itseems like caused this feeling
for you, and so you know, whenthat accountability is
(24:00):
identified, it can be theparents naming their the thing
that they got you know that theydidn't get right and maybe even
attuning to their kid's feeling, perhaps.
Yeah, I think so too, and soaccountability could be really
nice.
And then, you know, in the 12step world, accountability
always comes with the questionof like, how can I make this
right?
And so even asking, evenallowing ourselves to ask our
(24:25):
kids or whoever I know, I hurtyou in this way.
What do you need here?
What do you need from me?
Speaker 1 (24:31):
I'm glad you brought up the 12 steps.
I was listening to anotherpodcast at how so many recovery
people that is the staple,that's the pillar.
It's not necessarily requiredthough Everybody's different
right, I know.
For me it helps, even if Ireturn to it a year later.
I return to you know step one.
(24:52):
It helps me get grounded againon the constant development
towards you know, at the veryleast being aware, just being
aware, right?
So in your practice, do yourefer to 12 steps, encourage
your recovery patients to go to12 steps?
How do you handle that part ofthe recovery?
Speaker 2 (25:15):
Yeah, absolutely.
So I have seen the 12 steps beso important for people
struggling with things over orwith their own emotional work,
because there's 12 step groupsfor things other than alcohol
and drugs.
There's 12 step groups forpeople who have grown up with
emotionally immature parents orpeople who struggle with
(25:38):
codependency.
Yeah, I mean, I definitely tendto encourage someone to at
least check it out, at leastexplore it.
It might not be right foreveryone.
I do absolutely identify withthat, because I don't think
there's just one right way foreveryone.
I don't believe so.
But I do encourage yeah, I doencourage folks, especially if
(25:59):
they've never had any experiencewith that type of community,
that type of support.
I do encourage that they giveit a try, give it a shot.
I mean, I think the stepsthemselves can be so helpful and
the community connection pieceof being in a meeting, being in
a room, huge, and often such aso lacking, often so lacking in
(26:22):
terms of emotional needs howmany of us are lacking community
and connection.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
Yes, and you know, as a parent especially, you see
all the social media pictures,pictures, perfect pictures.
To walk into a room ofindividuals, it's almost like
exhaling, you know.
It's like, oh okay, I can, Ican, I can be heard, you know,
(26:46):
and tying back to the same partof the world, and I think that's
a great thing to do, and Ithink that's a great thing to do
, and I think that's a greatthing to do.
The listening skills is off thecharts, and then you realize
(27:07):
how many people in the otherpart of the world are not.
You know, I love that part ofNorm and but it's not just
listening to the words, it'slistening to the tonality.
Yeah, yeah, how is that?
I mean, how do you guys do that?
Speaker 2 (27:24):
I agree in terms of kind of what I picked up on in
my own experience with Narm andin the training I've attended.
There is a much differentrelationship to listening.
My interpretation of that is inNarm we are taught to be
curious.
We are taught to take off theexpert hat.
(27:45):
Actually, we are taught to notbelieve that we have all the
answers for our clients becausethere's no way we could know,
there's no way we could have allthe answers for our clients,
one that completely takes awayour client's experience of being
agents of their own life, andtwo, that puts a ton of pressure
on the therapist to have allthe answers which there's no way
we possibly could.
(28:07):
So Narm is like hey, let's justbe curious about the client's
experience, let's just be reallycurious about how they're
relating to themselves, howthey're relating to these
experiences in their lives, whatthey most want for themselves.
Gosh, that's a whole otherthing I had never before in my
work in the mental health field,in any other therapeutic
(28:30):
modalities I'd learned untilNarm I'd never before been
introduced to the idea that wecan just ask our clients what
they want.
There's always been thispressure of you should know.
You as the therapist, you as ahealth professional, ought to
know what this client needs andlike, oh boy, talk about
emotionalness, atonement, Icould never know what someone
(28:53):
else needs Client, family member, child I could never know.
They have to tell me.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Yeah, it's almost like you're a coach.
I think in the 2000s we kind ofoverused that word a little bit
.
Right, I'm not a tech lifecoach, but when you take
somebody on that journey oftheir self-discovery, you know,
there were a couple momentswhere I didn't know what I was
wanting until I started talkingthrough it.
(29:19):
I love that approach, thecuriosity.
It's fantastic.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
It's fantastic.
It is from a therapistperspective.
It's fantastic because itallows us to take so much
pressure off of ourselves inthese situations.
You know that we aren'tentering into a therapeutic
relationship feeling like wehave to have all the answers,
because that's I mean.
That sets up a power dynamicfrom the start, and I don't
(29:45):
believe that that's correct in atherapeutic relationship.
100%.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
Because you want to teach the individual.
Well, there's self-regulation.
I'd love to hear your thoughtson that.
Not self-soothing, but tellinga person what they think or how
they should feel.
It's not helping them developthe skills to get towards.
Hey, I'm thinking this.
I'm feeling this.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Telling someone what they should be feeling or
thinking, whether it's a parentor caregiver communicating with
a child, or a therapistcommunicating with a client, I
don't know how that could everbe helpful in telling them.
Because this is the bind assoon as we tell someone how they
should be feeling, we'resimultaneously basically telling
(30:29):
them that, whatever they feel,that isn't.
That is wrong.
You know, that's the unspokenmessage there.
It is that there's somethingabout them that's incorrect or
wrong, which just isn't true.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
So let's talk about self-regulation.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
So well so self-regulation is something
that, as humans, it's connectedto the nervous system.
It's connected to nervoussystem development and humans
come into this world with very,very undeveloped nervous system.
Babies can't self-regulate.
I mean, babies don't have fullyformed nervous systems.
They actually needco-regulation.
(31:03):
What that means is they need acaregiver who and many of us
never get this which enterdevelopmental trauma, but babies
need a caregiver who canself-regulate so that
co-regulation can occur.
So a baby learns how toregulate in relationship with
(31:24):
someone else and their nervoussystem who knows how to regulate
or can regulate.
It doesn't mean that for someof the time we're always
regulated.
That's also realistic.
But humans learnself-regulation in relationship
with someone through the processof co-regulation and that's a
long process for a young human.
(31:44):
You know that's the process ofgrown up, I believe.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
Yes, it is, and there and thus begets the relational
aspect of it.
Yes, the relational model yes,and then that co-regulation, and
then the family dynamics andthen how to build that positive
connection.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
So many of us, for whatever reason again, this
isn't about blame but so many ofus didn't experience, didn't
learn how to self-regulatethrough the relationship of
co-regulation with a regulatedcaregiver.
So many of us never got that.
So many of us never hadregulated caregivers.
And it's not like we shouldjust know how to do that.
(32:24):
You know, it's not like youshould just be able to, like you
know, figure it out.
But that's a big piece of whatNarm brings to a therapeutic
relationship or to thetherapeutic process is hopefully
self-regulated therapist thatcan, in relationship with the
client, help facilitate theprocess of learning to
(32:45):
co-regulate.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
So there is hope.
There is hope Even if you comefrom a toxic or dysfunctional
family.
You can work on it and learnhow to do that.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
Absolutely, there's so much hope.
Oh, Angie, yes, there's so muchhope.
I mean, there are so manyamazing things out there that
you know.
There's so much out there abouthow to help heal the nervous
system.
And there's so much hope outthere, Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
What are some of the resources?
If somebody is listening now,what are some of the resources
that you can think of?
Hey, check out this.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
There are.
There are many differentnervous system informed
approaches, perhaps more thanwe've ever had before, which is
really great because the nervoussystem plays such a crucial
role in in all of this.
Some cool things to check outin terms of kind of working
through one's own nervous system.
Dysregulation, somaticexperiencing could be something
really good to check out, butthat works on the nervous system
(33:41):
.
Anything within the realm of thepolyvagal theory so that's the
work of dr Steven Porridge's andHer name is Deb Dana.
She's a therapist who's beenreally kind of taking his work
to using using the polyvagaltheory by dr Porridge's,
(34:01):
bringing it more into.
You know, she's got books.
She's got a really coolpolyvagal card desk that I use
with a lot of clients.
Yeah, and that's that's just toname a couple things.
There's lots of stuff out there.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
Yeah okay.
Thank you.
I know that you're, I know thatyou're a mom, you've got a
schedule and everything, sowould you like to put out your
contact information?
How can somebody get in touchwith you?
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Yeah, I'd be happy to .
Yeah, so I'm a therapist in thestate of Florida, so I see
clients in person in StAugustine, florida, where little
towns in South Jacksonville Ialso see clients.
I can work with anyone inFlorida virtually.
The name of my practice is wideawake living and the name of my
website is wide awakecounseling, comm.
(34:50):
That's a really great place toget in touch with me.
Just to read, you know, readmore about an arm and and about
my approach in therapy and I'veworked with lots of families.
I've had such a goodopportunity to, like I said
before, I work in varioussettings where the family gets
to play such a prominent role,and I've also had lots of
(35:13):
opportunities to work withparents who have kids going
through substance abusetreatment or some of their own
challenges, and that is suchpowerful work as well.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
It is, it really is.
Yeah, I tell you, you made adifference.
You made a difference for meand I can't thank you enough.
I really can't thank you.
Well, it really is a pleasure.
Yeah, it's and it's still ajourney that's happening, right
oh.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, there's no arriving.
That's, that's another, that'sanother.
Like I think, way we gettricked in our life, we have
this idea I know I did that like, oh, someday We'll just like be
done, and then we can just thejourney continues, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, I was like at thefinish line.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Yeah, there really isn't.
There really isn't.
All right, jackie, I'm gonnalet you go.
I can't thank you enough.
It has been an absolutepleasure and I'll put all of
your stuff on the podcast linkand on my site too.
Thank you so much, angie.
To connect with me, visitsiblinghood of recovery on
Instagram or visit my website,wwwsiblinghoodovercoverycom.
(36:18):
Although I'm not overly activeon social media, I'll get back
with you as soon as I can.
On my site, I'm committed toproviding free resources.
You'll find links toinformation that point towards
12-stop meetings, craft basedtherapy programs and much more,
but please know you're notwalking this journey alone
simply from being human.
We're a community that isgrowing each and every day.
(36:38):
Be well, and I'll talk to yousoon.
You, you, you.
My name is Angie Reno and I'm a mom on a recovery
journey from family dysfunction,addiction and perhaps all that
simply comes with the humancondition.
I'm not a licensed therapist,although I will always encourage
seeking out professional help.
I know therapy has changed mylife for the better.
There are many of us on thispath towards recovery, so let's
(00:23):
walk gently.
Welcome to Siblinghood ofRecovery, jackie Wurbauf.
Welcome to Siblinghood ofRecovery.
It's so good to have you here.
Thank you, angie.
(00:44):
It's great to be here with you.
It's been a long journey.
As a matter of fact, in thewarm-up we were talking about
how many years have gone by, andit's shocking.
It's so quick.
How many days did you fly?
One of the reasons I met you iswhen my son went to his first
rehab and I'm going to getapproval before I say their name
(01:04):
, but one of the firstrecommendations was to read a
book on Narm by Dr Heller.
Then that led me to you.
I feel that Narm is an integralpart of my recovery.
I also know that it is anintegral part of my son's
(01:26):
recovery, and you are a Narmexpert.
I would love it if you broke itdown for the listener.
What is Narm and what is a Narmpractice?
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Absolutely Just to welcome in some of my own
humility.
I am a Narm therapist the wordexpert I noticed some of my own
strategies show up when I hearyou say expert, because I start
to put pressure on myself andI'm noticing that I appreciate
(02:01):
the faith you have in myknowledge and also just to be
with your listeners.
Just to be really clear, I'm aNarm therapist.
That means that I have had both.
Well, I've had the level twotraining, which means that's
their level training forlicensed mental health
counselors or those entering thefield who might still be in
(02:21):
school or might be earning theirlicensure hours.
Then I've also had level threetraining, which is their
master's level training.
Right now I'm working towardthe post-training requirements
for the master levelcertification.
All of that said, I definitelyI just always so much more to
(02:46):
learn too.
Let me just share a little bitabout Narm, and I can share
about my journey through Narm aswell.
I know it's been so helpful foryou, angie, and for your son
and for so many other familiesworking on recovery or even just
working on healing their ownstuff.
Oh yeah, yeah.
(03:06):
So Narm stands for theneuroactive relational model.
It was created by Dr LawrenceHeller.
It is a really deep therapeuticmodel that really brings in so
(03:26):
much of a nervous systemapproach and education which I
think for me as a therapist madea huge difference just in terms
of learning about somethingthat answered a lot of questions
that I really had about traumaand about treating trauma in the
first place.
It answered a ton of questionsI didn't even know I had yet too
(03:48):
.
One of the main things I thinkthat sets Narm apart from many
other trauma-informed modalitiesis that it's specifically
created for developmental trauma, opposed to shock trauma.
Developmental trauma can be alot different to treat.
It can also be a lot differentto recognize.
For many of us, things thatlead to developmental trauma are
(04:13):
things that we would commonlyactually write off as just the
way it was, yes, or justsomething that kids deal with.
Things that can causedevelopmental trauma can even be
parents doing the very bestthat they could.
It's really easy to miss.
I think a lot of times it'sactually a lack of something.
(04:35):
Another tough thing to catchfor ourselves and even for our
clients is like when somethingwasn't there, you know.
A lot of times we really don'teven realize what we needed,
that we never got when it wasnever there to know we needed in
the first place.
So Norm really Not normallyspeaks to all of that and really
speaks to how to treat thechronic, ongoing kind of just
(04:59):
every day there's what life feltlike for a kid, or for a period
of time in a kid's life.
Or here's what life has feltlike for an adult all throughout
their life Just a sort of likechronic experience of either
emotional misattunement ordisconnection from Self and from
others.
It can also be difficultyfeeling like they can trust
(05:22):
those around themselves.
It can be brought up in anenvironment that doesn't support
their own independence orautonomy, yeah, and, and it
often leads to feeling likethere has to be this
performative peace to life aswell.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
I want to Go back to the misattunement.
Do you know for the averagelistener?
Yeah, let's, yeah, expand onthat a little bit please.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Absolutely yeah.
The term misattunement Notactually the norm training was
the first time I even heard theterm and it kind of sort of blew
my mind a little bit.
So, starting just withattunement, so emotional
attunement is that sense offeeling gotten by the people
around us.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Yeah, heard.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Yes, yeah, heard, seen, understood.
It doesn't mean that the peoplearound us are having the same
feelings we're having, we don'tnecessarily mean that, but it
means that the people around us,whether that's our parents or
our caregivers or our friendsand can attune, can kind of
where we're at in our ownemotional feeling and so just
kind of really framing thisAgain through developmental
(06:29):
trauma.
What can often happen is thatparents or caregivers are
raising children without enoughresources or support or have
never had the opportunity to dotheir own work often, and so
their ability to emotionallyattune to their children can be
really interrupted or reallyinterfered with by their own
stuff, by their own stress bytheir own trauma or the
(06:53):
structure of the norm I find inthe recovery rooms that a lot of
moms talk about, for example,adhd, you know, and constantly
dealing with the, the system ofeducation that their child is in
and how that structure isn'tsupporting that child right.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
And then and then the stressor on the mom Like my
heart rate increases a littlebit because you can tell that
that situation for the mom it'sgonna be challenging and that
mom won't be able to take awaythe kid stressors.
So when we so let's talk aboutDoing that own work on the mom
(07:35):
side, how?
Or the parent side.
So you have misattunement like.
How do you even know thatthere's Misattunement going on
in the family?
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Yeah, I guess they go to you, yeah, and, and really I
mean just to really normalizethis, like, myself included, I
had no idea that I experiencedemotional misattunement as a kid
until I started to like evenlearn that that was a thing,
right, I mean, this is we oftenjust like have awareness of,
like you know, these are thingsthat we often have no idea about
(08:06):
until we start to do some ofour own work or hear about some
of these things.
How does one know if they'veexperienced emotional
misattunement or it?
Speaker 1 (08:15):
was like how do you recognize that it's actually
happening?
Speaker 2 (08:22):
You know, and I say that in my kid, my kid actually
needs something.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
I will pause.
I'll pause here real quick.
Go with you and yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
I have to do?
Speaker 1 (08:32):
I'll just tell him to text me and and then, like he's
standing there and I'm like howdo I?
How do I ignore him, I'm notlistening to, so hold on.
Well, you're more than welcometo step away to no, I'll just
say if he needs anything, heprobably wants me to start some
wash.
Do you need anything?
Okay, come on, jackie, realquick.
(08:54):
No, come on, she knows, sheknows it all about you and dick.
Yeah, you can come on, come onreal quick.
You gotta lower your leg he justgot back from football here
here.
Okay, so you need to apply this, all right, oh, I love it.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Down low all over okay.
Okay.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
That's my right Okay.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Thank you mom.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
All right, can you shut the door for me please?
All right, we're gonna editthat.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
That was great.
I loved it.
That's actually a really niceexample of emotional attunement.
Honestly, is it okay.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Great, he just got back.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
We could really use that.
Actually, we actually could.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Oh man, okay so, and I did recognize.
It's funny because I recognizeat that moment, if I don't
address this, I'm missing hisneed.
It's so convoluted, right,exactly.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
I know, okay, jackie, so yeah.
So, in terms of emotionalmisattunement, you know, first
of all, it's impossible toconstantly be attuned, just to
like name, that it's absolutelyimpossible, and I think many
parents perhaps put a lot ofpressure on themselves to always
feel attuned to their kids'needs or to always be
(10:21):
emotionally connected to theirkids, and that's just impossible
.
There's no possible way wecould ever be constantly meeting
all of our kids' needs all thetime, no matter their age,
whether they're infants or theirtoddlers or their kids or their
teenagers or their adults, likethere's no way we could ever be
meeting all of the needs of anybeing at any given moment.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
I think that would be risking enmeshment right.
Absolutely, it would get closeto it.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Yeah, it absolutely would, and it would just be
unrealistic.
Because it would just beunrealistic even for infants
where, like we really do need tobe meeting you know they can't
meet their own needs yet westill aren't going to meet all
of our needs all the timethere's no possible way, because
what we'd be doing is we'd becompletely disregarding our own
needs if we did that, which youknow, parents have to a little
(11:07):
bit, but you know.
But parents also need toacknowledge that they themselves
have emotional needs that areimportant and that matter.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
And then there's the danger that comes with that of
risking our own health.
It degrades and they need us tobe healthy.
Granted difference, okay, so,because I think this will help
somebody who's listening.
Now, right, how do I recognize,in the midst of this chaos,
that's going on?
Right, we've got substance usehappening and a lot of us, as we
(11:40):
get into recovery, understandthat that's self-medication.
Yep, that's right.
That's right.
So walk a parent, a new parent,new to this journey?
Yep, how do you see it?
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Absolutely yeah.
So I mean a trauma-informedapproach, certainly a norming
approach, but even just from theperspective, just a
trauma-informed perspective onsubstance misuse, is that it is
needing an unmet need.
It is a way to meet a needthat's not getting met otherwise
, and a lot of times I thinkquite especially in my
(12:17):
experience working in the fieldthe unmet I mean we could add
more nuance to this.
You know personal situations,but in general, the unmet need
for teens who are turning tosubstances is that it's
relieving some kind of emotionalpain.
Yeah, yeah, it's numbing somekind of emotional suffering that
(12:38):
they're experiencing.
I know that's really general,but there's a reason why they're
engaging in this norm.
We'd call it strategy.
They're engaging in this typeof strategy for a reason, and
strategies are actuallyextremely useful at first, and
(12:58):
then what happens is we begin tooutgrow our strategies at some
point where they start to reallyget in the way.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Yeah.
And then we go to the nextlevel of identifying how, as a
parent, we can, you know,because, to tell a kid that
that's not going to help them,but to walk them through, like,
how are you going to get toletting them see the end results
?
You know, especially with ayoung mind, it's hard for us to
(13:25):
think, you know, going back tolike your 15, you don't even
know what next year is going tolook like.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
No, no, and teenagers , you know, adolescents, they
don't have the well, first ofall, yeah, they're working with
a still developing brain, verymuch still developing brain, and
they don't have the gift ofperspective the way that you
know, like adults, those of uswho have had more experience in
life, we have the the gift ofbeing able to have perspective
like we have lots of.
We have lots more experiencesthan a 15 year old has yet to
(13:55):
have, and so it is verydifficult for a 15 year old to
consider it might feel differentat another time.
That's actually so difficultfor a 15 year old to consider.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
It is.
And then what I learned fromyou in our sessions was the
power of the word, like even howyou acknowledged your reaction
to the word expert, right, yeah,yeah.
That is a phenomenal ability totake in the power of that word
(14:27):
at that moment.
Recognize it.
It's a layman's term for me, soit doesn't build up right.
So that's right.
Talk to me, how do you coachsomebody to understand that
power of that, the words tothemselves?
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Absolutely yeah.
So the language we would use asa norm, the language I use as
my clients and with myself too,is how, how are you relating to
this or how am I relating tothis experience?
And so you know, I've got, I'vegot a lot of practice.
So the word you know, you saidthe word expert and immediately
I was able to notice that I wasrelating to it with by putting
(15:04):
pressure on myself.
And that comes from lots ofpractice of of checking in and
and my own therapy too, withwith norm therapists around how
I'm relating to things.
But yeah, it's about like, howare you experiencing this?
What is this like for you?
Because that's a very personalexperience.
Someone else, anyone else,might be introduced as an expert
(15:26):
and feel quite at home withthat word, depending on what
they're an expert at.
In fact, many of us, thepressure begins to build when
we're acknowledged for somethingthat we might be doing well or
might be doing at all.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
And the pressure building is also, I guess, a
window into the developmentalpart of that person's self.
You know there's, I guess,self-reflection, or their
opinion of self.
You know how they seethemselves.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Absolutely, yeah, absolutely, and it's such a
nuanced experience, like it's socomplex, in terms of how a
person, how a teenager or achild, develops their, who they
take themselves to be, theirself-reflection.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
So in recovery, a big part of recovery is the
mitigation of shame.
It's a horrific cycle really,because there's so many you know
opportunities to fail and theninstead you have to shift that
perspective to the littleadvancements.
Right, that's why I love Kraftand I mentioned that briefly.
(16:39):
But Cordelia Kraus and Moms forAll Pass of Recovery also
introduced me to the concept ofKraft and I think it aligns with
NARM, because we don't focus onthe failures, we focus on the
very little, small movementsforward.
And in your training can youspeak to that versus other
(17:01):
interventionist type of orhardcore boundary setting and
the differences?
Speaker 2 (17:07):
For sure, yeah, for sure.
I mean it's hard not to make itbehavioral in the substance
abuse world because, on thesurface, the most damaging part
of substance abuse is thebehavior.
It's the behavior of, or theaction of, using substances or
using alcohol, including alcohol, of course and so it's really
(17:28):
hard not to make it behavioral,and to a certain extent, I think
it's gonna have to be whensomeone needs to stop using a
substance or when a substance isreally harming somebody.
But NARM really encourages usto not make it behavioral,
because when it's behavioral andI know that term might seem a
little strange when what we'refocusing on is someone's
(17:49):
external action or behaviors orsome kind of measurable thing,
whether they've used that day ornot, whether you, how long
sober they are, things like thatthere's a relationship between
behavior and pressure.
This comes all the way back todevelopmental trauma in terms of
what type of expectations orpressures or, you know, use the
(18:13):
word failures earlier what typesof failures or how failures
were acknowledged, or howfailures, how different
experiences were, sort of, yeah,acknowledged by the parents of
these kids, or by the parents ofthe parents too, because you
know, it all comes fromsomewhere as well.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
And that's.
I use the word failure becauseit's so powerful and I don't
like it.
Yeah, you know, that's thestandard.
I think that's the standardemotion for a lot of parents
when they're in this wholeprocess.
They get introduced to finallysaying, okay, we've got to get
help, we've got to get our childinto treatment, and there's
(18:51):
this sense that it all wentwrong.
And where did you know?
looking back and I'm not theonly recovery mom that said this
, believe me is it became anopportunity.
It became such a wonderful,beautiful opportunity for
resetting the family.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
And.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Oh my gosh.
Yes, yeah, it's been.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Oh, yeah, that's a really important point and I'd
be happy to speak to that,please as well.
Yeah, for sure, you know so I,several years, I worked in an
inpatient treatment center formen, so for adult men, 18 and up
and the treatment center had ahuge focus on including the
(19:35):
family, and that made such adifference.
You know the clients we hadwhose families were more
involved.
You know, whether by choice oror because they simply could be,
those clients had such adifferent experience in
treatment and recovery andsobriety, because addiction is
not just one person.
It's true, addiction is a wholefamily issue.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
It affects the entire family system.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Yeah, it affects the entire family system.
There's no way that it can't.
There's actually no way that itcan't.
And so when substance use istreated just as though it's this
one person issue or this oneperson thing to work on or this
one person's experience, it'smissing.
It's missing a much biggerpiece, missing like the systemic
piece of it.
(20:19):
And so parents often feel likefailures when their children are
struggling with addiction orwith substance use.
I think that's a really commonreaction to have enter in shame,
right?
I mean, how can you know therole and power of shame around
having a kid who's strugglingwith anything, especially
(20:40):
something like this, that hassuch a stigma around it and that
can often you know it can betempting to really wanna please
blame.
The trouble with blame is that,yeah, blame often is such a dead
end because all of our stuffcomes from somewhere and you
know, if we were to blame theparents, then we'd probably have
(21:01):
to also then blame theirparents, and then we'd also have
to blame their parents' parents, and I mean really, it's kind
of a dead end.
It doesn't actually really helpanything anyway, it doesn't
yeah.
The blame doesn't solve anything.
Yeah, and so, like you said, itcan be a really big opportunity
.
It can be oftentimes a family'svery first opportunity to do
(21:21):
any kind of deeper work ordeeper reflection on themselves,
on each other, on the dynamicsbetween everybody.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Yeah, and that goes into intergenerational trauma,
which is so deep, but it's a.
For me, it was an opportunityagain to stop certain cycles of
what's considered Appropriate oracceptable in a family system
and change it, and I know Iapologize when I do something
(21:53):
wrong now to my children if Ifeel that I've overstepped you
know even on small things,because I think it's important
for them to hear hey, I'm sorryabout that, that wasn't my
intention, but it's reallyimportant.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
And can I say something about?
Why is it so important?
Yes, it's really important forkids to get an opportunity to
hear their parents acknowledgetheir own mistakes.
That is super important.
Parents who are parents whoattempt to look whether it's
perfect or like they're notmaking any mistakes or like I
(22:29):
believe the intention is good.
But when kids grow up seeingtheir parents never, you know,
like stumble or never have achallenge or never admit that
like hey, I was wrong here.
Kids have a pretty hard timelearning that.
That's okay, I mean, they donot show them?
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Yeah, so let me ask you from your perspective now,
because this ties into the word,the wordsmithing right what is
the difference betweenapologizing and the often heard,
whether it's in movies orwhatever.
Don't make the same mistakes.
I did, Hmm.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
I would hope that apologizing also comes with some
kind of accountability.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
That would be my hope .
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Yeah, in terms of acknowledging not just I'm sorry
when a parent because none ofus are perfect and none of us
are even supposed to be, and yeta lot of us do pressure
ourselves to be that way.
But if a parent makes a mistake, whether they are late picking
their kid up, or forgot to picktheir kid up, or something that
they got wrong, or maybe theyemotionally mistattuned to their
(23:38):
kid and they have theopportunity to do that, you know
an apology is a little bitlacking what they're sorry about
or what they're sorry for,whereas accountability could
allow the parent to acknowledgelike, hey, I'm sorry for this
behavior that I had, which itseems like caused this feeling
for you, and so you know, whenthat accountability is
(24:00):
identified, it can be theparents naming their the thing
that they got you know that theydidn't get right and maybe even
attuning to their kid's feeling, perhaps.
Yeah, I think so too, and soaccountability could be really
nice.
And then, you know, in the 12step world, accountability
always comes with the questionof like, how can I make this
right?
And so even asking, evenallowing ourselves to ask our
(24:25):
kids or whoever I know, I hurtyou in this way.
What do you need here?
What do you need from me?
Speaker 1 (24:31):
I'm glad you brought up the 12 steps.
I was listening to anotherpodcast at how so many recovery
people that is the staple,that's the pillar.
It's not necessarily requiredthough Everybody's different
right, I know.
For me it helps, even if Ireturn to it a year later.
I return to you know step one.
(24:52):
It helps me get grounded againon the constant development
towards you know, at the veryleast being aware, just being
aware, right?
So in your practice, do yourefer to 12 steps, encourage
your recovery patients to go to12 steps?
How do you handle that part ofthe recovery?
Speaker 2 (25:15):
Yeah, absolutely.
So I have seen the 12 steps beso important for people
struggling with things over orwith their own emotional work,
because there's 12 step groupsfor things other than alcohol
and drugs.
There's 12 step groups forpeople who have grown up with
emotionally immature parents orpeople who struggle with
(25:38):
codependency.
Yeah, I mean, I definitely tendto encourage someone to at
least check it out, at leastexplore it.
It might not be right foreveryone.
I do absolutely identify withthat, because I don't think
there's just one right way foreveryone.
I don't believe so.
But I do encourage yeah, I doencourage folks, especially if
(25:59):
they've never had any experiencewith that type of community,
that type of support.
I do encourage that they giveit a try, give it a shot.
I mean, I think the stepsthemselves can be so helpful and
the community connection pieceof being in a meeting, being in
a room, huge, and often such aso lacking, often so lacking in
(26:22):
terms of emotional needs howmany of us are lacking community
and connection.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
Yes, and you know, as a parent especially, you see
all the social media pictures,pictures, perfect pictures.
To walk into a room ofindividuals, it's almost like
exhaling, you know.
It's like, oh okay, I can, Ican, I can be heard, you know,
(26:46):
and tying back to the same partof the world, and I think that's
a great thing to do, and Ithink that's a great thing to do
, and I think that's a greatthing to do.
The listening skills is off thecharts, and then you realize
(27:07):
how many people in the otherpart of the world are not.
You know, I love that part ofNorm and but it's not just
listening to the words, it'slistening to the tonality.
Yeah, yeah, how is that?
I mean, how do you guys do that?
Speaker 2 (27:24):
I agree in terms of kind of what I picked up on in
my own experience with Narm andin the training I've attended.
There is a much differentrelationship to listening.
My interpretation of that is inNarm we are taught to be
curious.
We are taught to take off theexpert hat.
(27:45):
Actually, we are taught to notbelieve that we have all the
answers for our clients becausethere's no way we could know,
there's no way we could have allthe answers for our clients,
one that completely takes awayour client's experience of being
agents of their own life, andtwo, that puts a ton of pressure
on the therapist to have allthe answers which there's no way
we possibly could.
(28:07):
So Narm is like hey, let's justbe curious about the client's
experience, let's just be reallycurious about how they're
relating to themselves, howthey're relating to these
experiences in their lives, whatthey most want for themselves.
Gosh, that's a whole otherthing I had never before in my
work in the mental health field,in any other therapeutic
(28:30):
modalities I'd learned untilNarm I'd never before been
introduced to the idea that wecan just ask our clients what
they want.
There's always been thispressure of you should know.
You as the therapist, you as ahealth professional, ought to
know what this client needs andlike, oh boy, talk about
emotionalness, atonement, Icould never know what someone
(28:53):
else needs Client, family member, child I could never know.
They have to tell me.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Yeah, it's almost like you're a coach.
I think in the 2000s we kind ofoverused that word a little bit
.
Right, I'm not a tech lifecoach, but when you take
somebody on that journey oftheir self-discovery, you know,
there were a couple momentswhere I didn't know what I was
wanting until I started talkingthrough it.
(29:19):
I love that approach, thecuriosity.
It's fantastic.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
It's fantastic.
It is from a therapistperspective.
It's fantastic because itallows us to take so much
pressure off of ourselves inthese situations.
You know that we aren'tentering into a therapeutic
relationship feeling like wehave to have all the answers,
because that's I mean.
That sets up a power dynamicfrom the start, and I don't
(29:45):
believe that that's correct in atherapeutic relationship.
100%.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
Because you want to teach the individual.
Well, there's self-regulation.
I'd love to hear your thoughtson that.
Not self-soothing, but tellinga person what they think or how
they should feel.
It's not helping them developthe skills to get towards.
Hey, I'm thinking this.
I'm feeling this.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Telling someone what they should be feeling or
thinking, whether it's a parentor caregiver communicating with
a child, or a therapistcommunicating with a client, I
don't know how that could everbe helpful in telling them.
Because this is the bind assoon as we tell someone how they
should be feeling, we'resimultaneously basically telling
(30:29):
them that, whatever they feel,that isn't.
That is wrong.
You know, that's the unspokenmessage there.
It is that there's somethingabout them that's incorrect or
wrong, which just isn't true.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
So let's talk about self-regulation.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
So well so self-regulation is something
that, as humans, it's connectedto the nervous system.
It's connected to nervoussystem development and humans
come into this world with very,very undeveloped nervous system.
Babies can't self-regulate.
I mean, babies don't have fullyformed nervous systems.
They actually needco-regulation.
(31:03):
What that means is they need acaregiver who and many of us
never get this which enterdevelopmental trauma, but babies
need a caregiver who canself-regulate so that
co-regulation can occur.
So a baby learns how toregulate in relationship with
(31:24):
someone else and their nervoussystem who knows how to regulate
or can regulate.
It doesn't mean that for someof the time we're always
regulated.
That's also realistic.
But humans learnself-regulation in relationship
with someone through the processof co-regulation and that's a
long process for a young human.
(31:44):
You know that's the process ofgrown up, I believe.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
Yes, it is, and there and thus begets the relational
aspect of it.
Yes, the relational model yes,and then that co-regulation, and
then the family dynamics andthen how to build that positive
connection.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
So many of us, for whatever reason again, this
isn't about blame but so many ofus didn't experience, didn't
learn how to self-regulatethrough the relationship of
co-regulation with a regulatedcaregiver.
So many of us never got that.
So many of us never hadregulated caregivers.
And it's not like we shouldjust know how to do that.
(32:24):
You know, it's not like youshould just be able to, like you
know, figure it out.
But that's a big piece of whatNarm brings to a therapeutic
relationship or to thetherapeutic process is hopefully
self-regulated therapist thatcan, in relationship with the
client, help facilitate theprocess of learning to
(32:45):
co-regulate.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
So there is hope.
There is hope Even if you comefrom a toxic or dysfunctional
family.
You can work on it and learnhow to do that.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
Absolutely, there's so much hope.
Oh, Angie, yes, there's so muchhope.
I mean, there are so manyamazing things out there that
you know.
There's so much out there abouthow to help heal the nervous
system.
And there's so much hope outthere, Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
What are some of the resources?
If somebody is listening now,what are some of the resources
that you can think of?
Hey, check out this.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
There are.
There are many differentnervous system informed
approaches, perhaps more thanwe've ever had before, which is
really great because the nervoussystem plays such a crucial
role in in all of this.
Some cool things to check outin terms of kind of working
through one's own nervous system.
Dysregulation, somaticexperiencing could be something
really good to check out, butthat works on the nervous system
(33:41):
.
Anything within the realm of thepolyvagal theory so that's the
work of dr Steven Porridge's andHer name is Deb Dana.
She's a therapist who's beenreally kind of taking his work
to using using the polyvagaltheory by dr Porridge's,
(34:01):
bringing it more into.
You know, she's got books.
She's got a really coolpolyvagal card desk that I use
with a lot of clients.
Yeah, and that's that's just toname a couple things.
There's lots of stuff out there.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
Yeah okay.
Thank you.
I know that you're, I know thatyou're a mom, you've got a
schedule and everything, sowould you like to put out your
contact information?
How can somebody get in touchwith you?
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Yeah, I'd be happy to .
Yeah, so I'm a therapist in thestate of Florida, so I see
clients in person in StAugustine, florida, where little
towns in South Jacksonville Ialso see clients.
I can work with anyone inFlorida virtually.
The name of my practice is wideawake living and the name of my
website is wide awakecounseling, comm.
(34:50):
That's a really great place toget in touch with me.
Just to read, you know, readmore about an arm and and about
my approach in therapy and I'veworked with lots of families.
I've had such a goodopportunity to, like I said
before, I work in varioussettings where the family gets
to play such a prominent role,and I've also had lots of
(35:13):
opportunities to work withparents who have kids going
through substance abusetreatment or some of their own
challenges, and that is suchpowerful work as well.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
It is, it really is.
Yeah, I tell you, you made adifference.
You made a difference for meand I can't thank you enough.
I really can't thank you.
Well, it really is a pleasure.
Yeah, it's and it's still ajourney that's happening, right
oh.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, there's no arriving.
That's, that's another, that'sanother.
Like I think, way we gettricked in our life, we have
this idea I know I did that like, oh, someday We'll just like be
done, and then we can just thejourney continues, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, I was like at thefinish line.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Yeah, there really isn't.
There really isn't.
All right, jackie, I'm gonnalet you go.
I can't thank you enough.
It has been an absolutepleasure and I'll put all of
your stuff on the podcast linkand on my site too.
Thank you so much, angie.
To connect with me, visitsiblinghood of recovery on
Instagram or visit my website,wwwsiblinghoodovercoverycom.
(36:18):
Although I'm not overly activeon social media, I'll get back
with you as soon as I can.
On my site, I'm committed toproviding free resources.
You'll find links toinformation that point towards
12-stop meetings, craft basedtherapy programs and much more,
but please know you're notwalking this journey alone
simply from being human.
We're a community that isgrowing each and every day.
(36:38):
Be well, and I'll talk to yousoon.
You, you, you.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Intentionally Disturbing
Join me on this podcast as I navigate the murky waters of human behavior, current events, and personal anecdotes through in-depth interviews with incredible people—all served with a generous helping of sarcasm and satire. After years as a forensic and clinical psychologist, I offer a unique interview style and a low tolerance for bullshit, quickly steering conversations toward depth and darkness. I honor the seriousness while also appreciating wit. I’m your guide through the twisted labyrinth of the human psyche, armed with dark humor and biting wit.