Jungian analyst Susan E. Schwartz explores the profound impact absent fathers have on daughters' psychological development, relationships, and sense of self-worth. Through personal stories and psychological insights, this episode reveals how paternal absence creates unconscious patterns that affect women throughout their lives.
• Absent father effect manifests in daughters through self-sacrifice, self-hatred, and destructive relationship patterns
• Cultural norms often give fathers a "pass" while daughters learn to rationalize their absence
• Women frequently excuse absent fathers with "that's just the way it was" rather than acknowledging their pain
• Paternal absence affects a woman's relationship with her body and her ability to honor her own needs
• The "house of cards" collapse that many women experience in midlife can lead to creative awakening
• Healing requires acknowledging difficult emotions rather than suppressing them
• Jungian analysis connects conscious and unconscious patterns through dreams and relationship dynamics
• True healing happens when women stop excusing absent fathers and honor their authentic feelings
• Finding your voice and challenging patriarchal expectations is part of the individuation process
Check out Susan's website for more information about her books and work at susaneschwartzphd.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/susanschwartzphd/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everybody.
This is Steel Roses podcast.
This podcast was created forwomen, by women, to elevate
women's voices.
I am very honored to introduceyou to our guest today.
We have Susan E Schwartz withus.
She was trained in Zurich,switzerland, as a Jungian
analyst.
She has appeared on manypodcasts and presents at
(00:20):
numerous Jungian analyticalconferences and teaching
programs in the USA andworldwide.
Her expertise goes across arange, but we're going to focus
in on the absent father today.
But, susan, I would love it ifyou could introduce yourself to
the listeners, tell them aboutyourself and the area of focus
(00:41):
in absent Father.
But I think we also might wantyou to give layman's description
or layman's explanation of whatexactly is Jungian analysis
Like?
How does that work?
What is it?
Speaker 2 (00:53):
I will do that.
Sure, do you want me to start?
Yes, okay, great, jenny, thankyou so much for having me to
begin with, and let me say thatI'm going to answer your
question about what is Jungiananalysis, because it fits with
the absent father effect ondaughters, because that's what
(01:15):
we're talking about.
So one of the differences withJungian analysis and some other
approaches are is the emphasison connecting the unconscious to
the conscious and within that.
So we find out about thatthrough people's dreams, their
relationships, things thathappen to us, which seem out of
(01:38):
the blue and they're not.
They're meaningful.
Even the lousy things aremeaningful.
The point is, how do you learnfrom them?
The issue about the absentfather and how I got interested
in it is that a lot of the womenwho come to see me, who came to
see me for analysis, I wouldask them about their father, and
(02:02):
they had about one sentence tosay almost all of them that was
it because the father had beenabsent.
This is historically,transgenerationally.
So the father, where was he?
I don't know.
He was working, he was divorced, he was separated, he was drunk
, he did drugs, a lot ofdifferent things, but he wasn't
(02:26):
emotionally present and all thedaughters excused it.
They said well, that's just theway it was.
Then I looked in the literature.
By the literature I meananything psychoanalytic, jungian
psychology, even Jungianpsychology, even very little.
(02:51):
Until the last maybe 20, 25years has much been written on
the father.
Usually, again, there's aboutone sentence he was X and that's
it.
But you know, when there isabsence it has a huge effect.
Whatever has been absent in ourlives, it doesn't just go away.
It goes underneath, it lives inthe unconscious.
We don't know about it and itcan come around in a rather
(03:16):
destructive fashion.
So one of the things that Ifelt.
So I'm just going to go on abit and then we'll talk.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Yeah, I'm taking notes, keep going.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
One of the things that I found as well is the
effect of the father on awoman's body.
So that also is not talkedabout very much.
But and also culturally.
So culturally, because I knowthe United States, that's the
culture that I reflect, but manyother cultures have a very
(03:50):
similar absence of father.
It manifests itself differently, but it's there.
There are hardly any.
It's happening more now.
Many men that I see are notabsent fathers.
They want to be present, butthe history is they're not there
.
I think what happens to thedaughters?
(04:10):
This relates to their psycheand their body.
They forget about themselves,they don't take care of
themselves, they don't treatthemselves well.
They might get intoself-sacrifice, self-hatred,
self-denigration, hurtingthemselves.
I don't mean just cutting, Imean hurting psychologically
their relationships.
(04:31):
Their inner relationship iswhere you can repair it.
But the relationship's alsofraught and fractured, and the
book is not meant to just benegative, it's to recognize how
absence is to be filled, andthat is the point.
(04:51):
That's the point maybe, of whywe are talking as well how
absence is filled, so it doesn'tjust remain some kind of abyss
inside of oneself.
We become creative, we becomeenergetic, we become alive, not
numb.
(05:11):
So a rather long introduction.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
No, I love it.
So I'm going to circle back alittle bit.
Let's see here.
Okay, so, and just for thelisteners, I did pull up um, uh,
like a little brief definitionand you tell me if this sounds
accurate to you.
A lot, um.
So a young yin, um, younganalysis and psychotherapy.
It's a licensed mental healthprofessional who helps people
(05:36):
understand themselves and theirmotivations through
psychoanalyst psychoanalysisthat focuses on the unconscious
mind.
So I just wanted to sum up,like what you said, and then I
am.
I don't think people realizehow much and this is for men and
women, it's not just specificto women.
I know that's the focus, Ialways focus on women, but it's
(05:58):
really not our unconscious mind.
There's so much there and ifyou suppress or try to suppress
and try to ignore exactly whatyou just said, susan, it will
come out and present itself inother ways.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
It's true, yeah, and the reason it does is we're
supposed to know a lot.
We're not supposed to justrepress things, we're supposed
to know a lot.
And again, it isn't reallypopular to access the
unconscious, I'm not sure why.
It is not difficult.
It appears all the time.
(06:33):
It appears even in you knowwhat you choose to have for
breakfast sometimes.
You know and you need to knowwhy.
So why am I doing this?
What is happening?
Even what is the meaning of ourinterview?
You know, I always think thatthere's meaning in it.
It makes life so much morevaluable because then you have
(06:53):
meaning and you're not justwalking around suffering and in
pain, You're finding the valuewithin yourself, and that, to me
, is really the focus of Jungianpsychology.
There's one other part that'skind of different than other
psychoanalytic approaches andthat is the value of one's
(07:15):
spirituality.
I don't mean religion, I meanan approach to life which
involves rituals and images andthe life force, et cetera.
And we cannot miss culture.
So I work mostly one-to-one, orI have worked mostly one-to-one
(07:36):
and you would think, well, doesthat really have much of an
effect?
But actually, if you thinkabout it, as we gain
consciousness, then everyone wespeak to we have an effect.
It's like with your podcast thepeople that listen there's an
effect and they're going to tellsomebody else and it increases
consciousness.
It's like sparks that go out.
(07:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Yeah, it's, um, it's.
I'll use myself as an example.
When, um, well, you know whatI'll actually the absent father
effect, like you know what, I'mgoing to make a couple of
statements and then I want youto kind of, you know, do your
thing.
Basically so, until I was about13, my parents were married and
(08:33):
then, when I got to high school, I had already had a sense, you
know, that things were notright.
And I remember when I was inseventh grade, when I was about
12, I remember telling mycousins like I was, like I don't
think my parents are gonna makeit, like I think they're gonna,
I think they're gonna divorceand they were like, no, no, like
your family's perfect.
You know you guys are all goingto church together all the time,
(08:54):
this and that, the next thing.
And I remember saying like, no,like, I have a sense,
something's not right.
And I was able to I don't knowif it's the empath intuitive I
picked up on it and, sure enough, about two years later, when I
was 1415, um, my parentsseparated.
Now, at the time I selfpreservation found a way to
(09:16):
compartmentalize that and put myfeelings in a box and put it to
the side.
That was me trying to survivethe situation Flash forward from
the age of like 15 to the ageof about 21, 22,.
I went through this reallydestructive phase.
Now I know why now and I have totell you, when I was in my
(09:41):
mid-20s, early 20s, I actuallystarted reading a lot of books
about women coming of age, younggirls coming of age.
One of the books that I readthat really like knocked me for
one was Reviving Ophelia, and Iread that one and I was like
crying reading that book becauseI was like, oh my God, like I
(10:01):
went through this, like this isstuff that I went through.
Because I was like, oh my God,like I went through this Like
this is stuff that I wentthrough and now like speaking
with you, if you don't mind forthe guests me going through that
trauma of my parents'separation and having that
destructive period all ties intothe fact that that divorce
happened, of course.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Well, if you think about it, when there is a
rupture, there's a rupture andyou're around that age.
It's such a change time thatit's not surprising.
Anyway, we go through this kindof identification who am I at
that age?
But you did a couple of veryinteresting things.
One is you had good intuitionand you knew that the image of
(10:45):
the family together was false.
I think that saved you yourintuition In a strange way.
You had to act out, what isacting out, you had to express,
and then you had tocompartmentalize and put it in a
box.
One because you had to grow up.
I mean, we do anything tosurvive and then, because it's
(11:05):
so destructive inside, or feelsthat way, that in fact it's not
until later that we start to go.
Wait a second, because evenwhen you said about a
destructive phase, usually it'sconnected up with being numb.
So I would ask you, if youdon't mind, we can use you as an
(11:26):
example, because your situation, although yours, is very common
If you think about it, whenyou're like an early teenager
girl, female you're like growing, deciding who am I?
How does your father deal withyou?
How does he comment about yourbody changing?
How does he comment about yourintellect, your talents, your
(11:50):
athletic abilities?
How does he and is he presentto do that?
So we could say well, whenthere's divorce, does that mean
the father is just gone?
Oftentimes, sadly, it does, andthen again the feeling doesn't
come back until quite a bitlater.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Right, and that's and honestly that's and I remember.
I now and I went through andI'll explain to about when I
eventually came back to myself,but in that time I do distinctly
remember that.
You know, it's very interestingtoo, susan.
I have two brothers and Iremember my older brother during
(12:31):
this phase, like when we weregoing through this with our
family.
My younger brother, I was about15.
So he would have I told him,like you know, I'm like I I
don't know if I'm blocked, Idon't know what it is, but for
(12:53):
some reason there's these spotsof time where I don't remember
him and I must have been becauseI was going through my own
journey and my own crisis.
I have no recollection of evenreaching out to him to be like,
hey, like we were all living inthe same house, obviously, but
like I don't have anyrecollection of even reaching
out to him and to be like hey,like we were all living in the
same house, obviously, but likeI don't have any recollection of
like, well, what did he doduring that time?
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Yeah, but you know when you can't remember, so
here's part of the absence.
So you can't remember who wasthere, and you actually didn't
answer when I asked you aboutwas your father present?
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Oh, I can answer that .
Speaker 2 (13:29):
But you know, I think what I'm saying is that the
places where the memory is notthere, it kind of compensates
and allows you to be able tofocus on yourself and kind of go
inward and preserve yourself.
And then it's alwaysinteresting how many people
don't remember what happened, orthey don't remember so-and-so,
(13:52):
or they became numb, yeah, yeah.
And so as you follow each ofthe events, they kind of one
adds to another, to another.
And again, where did the fathergo?
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Now he was the way that I look at it.
Now he was present in like atopical way exactly topical yes,
yes.
So it was very much like and atthe time I again was like I'm, I
can handle this, I can, I cancarry this weight on my
shoulders of my parentsseparating, like I can help my
(14:27):
mom through this, for example,me 16 year old me was like I can
save you.
This was like when I was heavilylike, heavily developing my
codependence skills basically iswhat was happening here.
And so I remember saying tomyself well, I excuse his
behavior because he's goingthrough something and I have to
put my own feelings aside herebecause he's going through
(14:49):
something.
He's have to put my ownfeelings aside here because he's
going through something.
He's, you know, he's figuringout his own way and I have to be
, like you know, supportiveacross the board and not cause
any additional ripples for myparents.
They already have enough ontheir plate.
I need to just kind of helpkeep the peace, keep things
moving forward.
And so I remember rationalizingit in my head and I was very
sad for a long time.
(15:10):
But I remember trying to likerationalize my head like, well,
it's okay, because he needs togo through this and it's okay
that he's going through like.
That was the.
Those were the thoughts that Iwas using to help me, like get
through it.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Yes, but you know, the he that you're referring to
could also be the he that manydaughters refer to when they're
talking about their father.
And they take care of him byexcusing him.
So they say well, you know, hedid this, well, he didn't do
much, but they rationalize andmake it better than it was.
(15:44):
And the other thing is it'ssuch an interesting denial of
one's own feelings to think thatyou're strong enough to take
care of mother or neverchallenge father, so he doesn't
really get challenged.
Why Is he fragile?
Is he able?
And then you could say what doyou take in, what do we take in
(16:09):
of that kind of modeling?
So if you think the father isfragile and he's not taking care
maybe of himself as well, thenhow do we learn to take care of
ourselves, right, right?
So throughout history there'sbeen this deal of it's the
mother.
She affects the child most ofall.
Well, that was when the nuclearfamily was of a different
(16:33):
nature than it is now.
And then where are we left?
We're kind of left nowhere ifwe don't pay attention to the
father and how he has affectedus.
It's so amazing.
I'll give you an example.
I gave a lecture on the absentfather quite a long time ago
(16:56):
with a group of analysts and oneof them was so honest.
The person said you know, Iforget to ask about the father.
This is an analyst.
I was amazed, I was soappreciative that that person
could be that honest and part ofthe forgetting, it's like you
forgot about your brother.
(17:17):
You didn't forget, you didn'tforget.
It was just too much.
Too much.
So, in a way, if you open thedeal about the father, there's
the can of worms that starts toopen up and it's got
reverberations, reverberationsand reverberations.
I don't want to say that theabsence is always destructive,
(17:40):
but it can be because werationalize it away.
I could handle it just like yousaid.
You said it in relation to yourmother.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
But we could apply it .
We can apply it because we justcan.
It happens Also to the fatherand he gets off the hook.
The destruction stays inside,like with you.
But you could also say whathappens.
I mean divorce, separation isso common in many ways.
(18:13):
Usually what happens the motherstays and the father goes
Almost ubiquitous I meanpercentage-wise it's pretty much
what happens.
And the father might retainsome contact, but not so much.
And how you find out how you'reaffected.
You can look at your dreams.
(18:33):
Is there a father?
Does he ever come in the dreams?
And how does the relationshipwith him get projected onto
relationships with a partner?
Now, the partner doesn't haveto be a male partner, it can be
anybody, because we've all gotthese characters hanging around
inside.
(18:54):
So, whoever you're with, howare you projecting you onto them
?
Or their own absent fatherprojected onto you?
So it becomes so.
This is very Jungian in a way.
Many layers, many, many layers.
How did this happen?
How did that happen?
(19:14):
What are you carrying and whatare you carrying of the absent
father inside yourself?
Speaker 1 (19:20):
Yeah, I'll say this because it ties into what you
just explained.
It's almost like I have to behonest, it's very interesting,
slash, scary a little bit tohear like how spot on what I
went through is in comparison tolike what you're talking about.
So I know listeners areprobably hearing this and maybe
pulling over to be like wait,what is happening?
(19:40):
Um, so I had that experiencewith my parents separating and
there was a point in time whereI got to the point where I had
said to myself no matter what myfather does, I'm going to look
the other way and excuse it,because it's either I lose my
father or I accept everything hedoes.
Now I carried that with me intomy very first serious
(20:02):
relationship and it was aterrible relationship and it
took me about a year and a halfand it took a death in my family
for me to shake myself out ofthat relationship.
To be like wait, I don't want to.
I don't want to live my lifelike this, like what is, and I
didn't know enough to how to getmyself out of it.
(20:23):
But I knew that it was not goodwhat I was doing and I started
pursuing psychologists formyself just because I was like
something's not right.
I know something's right, notright inside, and I have to
figure this out now Because Iremember a lot of times I'll
have these moments where I'mlike I need to figure this out
because I want to eventually getmarried, like I don't want to
(20:44):
live my life like this, like howcan I address this so I can
become better or get you know,get a better understanding of
what I've been through?
But it was very interesting nowto look back and see like I
went through this in my reallyformative years and it affected
a lot of decisions that I madeall the way up until I was about
25.
(21:05):
When I finally got to the pointwhere I was like I feel like
I've gone through enough therapy, where I felt like I was safe
enough to date and you know, getserious about people because
for a long time I had a lot ofpoor, toxic behaviors that I
just kept repeating over andover again, right?
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Well, there's.
There's several things in whatyou're saying.
One is that you know the braindoesn't solidify until we're 25.
Well, that's several things inwhat you're saying.
One is that you know the braindoesn't solidify until we're 25.
That's interesting, amazing,isn't it?
It's totally amazing.
So it takes a long time.
But then the other thing thatactually takes a long time is to
learn to honor yourself.
So you can be 25 and you getthe ego functioning, you get
(21:53):
yourself into your world, youhave I don't know career, et
cetera.
You decide how you want to haveyour life.
But then later, because thepain was so profound, people
don't usually explore it until abit later in depth.
So that's the deal.
I mean, that's what I do.
It's more in depth.
(22:13):
And there is another thing thatI have found Several, quite a
few women who contacted me andthey say you know, I'm in my 70s
and I need to figure out aboutmy father.
Yep, in other words, it hasbeen underneath that long.
(22:34):
My relationships, just likeyou're saying, have been
affected by this.
I have to figure it out now.
I mean right, if not now, when?
And they say I want to go intodeeper work to figure out what
has happened.
In other words, the process ofknowing about yourself is
(22:57):
lifelong.
The other thing that happenswith the absent father is it's
promoted in our culture.
You did it.
You said it, give him a pass.
But our culture is verypatriarchal.
Yes, right, so the masculine,whatever that means, is elevated
.
And then who are you toquestion that?
(23:21):
And who you are as a person whoneeds to question it?
And then you gain not then, butyou gain your strength.
So what you're talking about isthat intuition which just knows
.
It just knows, and then youlearn to listen to it.
But our culture is a little onthe outside story.
(23:42):
That's exactly right.
And don't question, don't looktoo deeply inside, don't trust
your intuition.
Don't trust your intuition.
And then it is also saidintuition is feminine, whatever
that means.
It's a put down, but it's a putdown to women and to men as well
(24:05):
, but also to men.
And so it becomes divisive andwe want to bring the personality
together.
It does not mean so there'sanother piece.
It doesn't mean you forgiveyour father.
I mean people say I'll justforgive him and it'll be okay.
No, it isn't.
I go, how is he going to beokay?
And how do you?
(24:26):
Also, what happens if he's dead?
So how do you?
Or you haven't seen him for amillion years, you know a long
time.
You don't just forgive somebody.
Forgiveness is a.
We talk about it, we discuss it, we see, do we have a
relationship or not?
What are we going to do?
Right, yeah, challenge, notjust yeah.
(24:48):
Challenge the status quo.
Well, it's not popular, and yetthat's what's needed.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
It's interesting that you say that, because I
remember there were severalmoments throughout my adult life
where I would say you know, Ifeel like I've made my peace
with this or I forgive him, likeyou know, and for everything
that has happened.
But then, ultimately, timewould pass, some trigger would
(25:15):
happen and it would feel like itwas being ripped open all over
again, nice and fresh, and evento this day.
You know, I'm 41 years old, youknow, for me, now I'm like I'm
much more aware of myself andmuch more like respectful of my
own feelings and really, again,single attention to my intuition
(25:36):
and to my feelings as abarometer of, like well, how do
I really feel about thisscenario?
And now more than ever, I makeit a point to be honest about
things and I'll kind of takestock, like if something happens
, like do I really feel okaywith this or am I just putting a
bandaid over it?
And I make sure I don't do thebandaid thing anymore as much as
(25:58):
I can, because I'm like I needto be able to live my life to
the best of my ability, for theexample of my children as well,
because I think about the traumaand things I've been through,
and I know that there's a weightthat still carries with me, but
because I'm trying to be somindful of it, I really don't
want to pass that on to my kidsand Susan.
(26:21):
Prior to our recording, I hadbeen able to share with you a
little bit about my husband andhow his approach as a father,
and when we first got together Iremember I was astounded at the
level of commitment he had tohis children.
I mean, I was because I have.
(26:43):
I had been through what I wentthrough, where I had to
prioritize.
I felt like I was prioritizingmy father versus versus like the
other way around, right.
And then I started dating thisperson that wholly committed to
his children.
Nothing else mattered to him,and that was like our very first
date.
He told me I have two children,they are my priority, they're
(27:07):
up front.
He's like you have to becomfortable with the fact that
they will come first all thetime.
And I remember being like as adivorced child.
I was like wow, really I wastotally shocked to see that,
because I've never seen thatbefore.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
No, because you know you had given father a pass.
Yeah, I've never seen thatbefore.
No, because you know you hadgiven father a pass.
Yeah.
And then you could saypsychologically that absence led
you to find presence.
Oh yeah, so it led you to findwhat you needed.
There's a French psychoanalystthat I refer to quite a bit.
(27:42):
I just love him.
It's Andre Green, and he cameup with this concept of the dead
mother effect, but he alsospoke about the dead father.
What he means is not dead, deadlike buried.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Right.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
He means depressed, he means absent, vacant,
emotionally stunted, stoppedsomewhere.
And so what happens is?
You described it well.
Actually, you compensate, youtry to make the parent come
alive, you give them a pass.
They're not so bad, it wasn'tso awful.
(28:16):
I'll try to repair it, but thatdoesn't work, because then
you're constantly giving yourblood to him.
It's a horrible analogy, but youreally are like draining
yourself over to him, or youmight be draining yourself, not
(28:37):
even to your actual father.
Maybe you learned to drainyourself period in life and
you're not really doing yourselfperiod in life and you're not
really doing yourself.
So you're going along with I'mgoing to use this word again, I
mean it in a general senseYou're going along with the
patriarchy which still has aneffect to say the women still
(29:01):
are not wherever they totallywant to be, that's, anyone
feminine in general, whateverthat means.
So it's like the equalitywithin the psyche is not equal.
So I'm just going to go back.
So Andre Green in a wayparallels Jung, because Jung
(29:21):
talks about the negative fathercomplex.
So it's like it's functioninginside in a negative way.
Sometimes we're not even awareof how bad it is because we're
used to it.
Or people say oh really, that'sas good as it gets.
Your standards are too high.
Oh, that's a big one, that's abig one.
(29:42):
Why are you going after so much?
Well, the answer is because youshould, because this is your
life and you want to.
But there's a subtle that'swhat I mean.
Truly, we're supposed to becontent with less.
Now, that's true for men aswell.
I don't know who wins in thatstory, but it's not going to be
(30:05):
anybody.
Yeah, once again, I think, ifwe look at the absence as a
means to fill it, it's like yourexample of why you met your
husband, you know, because ithad to be filled.
It's like this empty spacesitting there and
psychologically, unconsciously,you're like I don't know, going
out doing this and that, andthen the whatever right is right
(30:31):
for your psyche at the timecomes along to fill the space.
But you also have to do thework Right.
So, partners, don't do the workfor us, forget it.
That doesn't happen.
Oh no, not at all.
Yeah, that's, that's too late,that's not real.
But we're challenged then toreally go back and say, wow,
(30:52):
what did I really miss, what didI really need and who am I?
And to make sense out of thesuffering.
You can't deny the suffering,you can't get over it.
You make sense of it andprovide meaning.
Who knows, it might be part ofwhat.
Had you do these podcasts?
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Yeah, so it was very interesting.
I was waiting for you to getthere because I had a feeling
you were going there.
I was waiting for it.
I was like she's going, I cansee where she's going.
So, going through, I'm sharing,like you know, basically like
blocks of time with you.
So I met, meet my husband andit was very interesting because
when we met, nobody in my familywas okay with the relationship.
(31:38):
Nobody was and they were likehe's because he's older than me.
He's nine years older than me,so I was 26 when we met and they
were like you know, he alreadyhas kids.
You know it?
This isn't this, you know, orhe's too much older than you.
They have this perception ofhe's controlling you.
And the reality of it was thatwhat had started to happen was
(32:04):
for from like 23 to like 26 orso.
I was just there for everybody.
I was consistently like I'mhere for everybody, I'll show up
to everybody's things.
I'm, you know, showing up foreverybody else's kids and their
own things.
And I had gotten to a pointwhere I was like I, I'm not
doing anything for me, nothingis for me.
So when I met my husband, I Ihad started at that point the
(32:27):
practice of checking in withmyself and my own feelings about
the situation.
Everybody was being very loudaround me about how much they
didn't think this was good forme, and I kept taking stock and
I would have a quiet moment withmyself and say, look, I'm like
everyone's giving me a hard time, like are you happy, jenny?
Do you feel respected, jenny?
Do you feel like this is apositive relationship, jenny?
And it was always yes, which iswhy I'm married now.
(32:48):
But it always came back with ifI'm happy at the end of the day
, when I lay my head down.
This is what's important here.
And so I got to a point with myfamily where I said to them I'm
like, you have to get on board,like, and if you don't, that's
your choice, but this is mychoice.
So I basically drew a line.
Everybody they know me wellenough to know like, if I'm
(33:09):
saying this definitively, thenget on board or like.
That's it.
So that was 15 years ago,during the time that we were
married.
I definitely in the beginning,especially after we had kids,
fell into habits that I hadpicked up from my parents and
from my mother specifically.
(33:29):
Do you want me to pause?
No, go ahead.
Okay, my mother specifically.
There was habits there, butthere was also habits from my
fathers and watching my, myparents with their relationship.
Um, my dad worked, my mom didn't, and he controlled all the
finances.
This was something that waslike a thorn in my side the
entire time I was growing up,because all I would watch was
(33:50):
like my dad had all these things.
He was always spending money onsuits and this and that or
whatever, and my mom had like tshirts and sweatpants.
You know like it was very likeuneven to me.
And so, while I was growing up,I swore to myself like you're
not ever going to be in thatposition, like Jenny, you're
going to make sure that you'reshowing up too.
So I had the full career youknow I was, even though I had
(34:14):
three kids, three infants.
I was like I'm going to do itall, I'm going to show up
financially, I'm going to showup there.
I was ultimately burning myselfout quite quickly.
Um, I did that for I want tosay like five years or so.
For a very long time I burntmyself out, and then I got to
about 37 and it was like thishouse of cards had started to
(34:38):
fall Collapse.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
And everything that I thought I wanted and that I
thought I should be doing juststarted to crumble, and even my
career I was like it was.
The career was going great, butit didn't feel great, and so I
got to a point where I was likethis isn't right, like
something's not right, like I'mnot.
I'm not me here, I'm not Jenny,I'm not showing up as Jenny.
I feel like I'm just like goingthrough the motions and pushing
(35:02):
ahead and constantly looking tothe next thing.
But what's going on here that Idon't feel like I'm being
filled up anymore.
I'm not happy with what's goingon.
This is also when the podcastidea really came to life.
So I had this pivotal momentwhere I was on this project for
work and I was working.
(35:22):
I got put on this project eventhough I requested not to, and
it was a really, really heavyworkload.
So there was about three weekswhere I was working like 70
hours.
I wasn't seeing my kids, eventhough I work from home, but my
kids were little they're aboutfour and five years old.
For about three weeks I didn'tsee them.
I just for baths and breakfast.
That was it.
And so I get to this end ofthis period of really, really
(35:52):
heavy work and I was liketotally shattered.
I was burnt out.
My kids looked bigger.
I was crushed because I hadmissed it.
This is where I started to kindof turn and say like I need to
make a change here, kind of likeevery other moment in my life
where I had a moment of I needto change this.
And it's when I started to lookinto podcasting.
And then it's also when Idiscovered, like meditation and
starting to turn inward to clearup everything that was stuck,
(36:13):
because that's what it startedto feel like Susan.
It started to feel like a drainhad been clogged full of so
much trash that I was justshoving in there as band-aids
and this and that, and it's okay.
And the meditation that reallypushed me to be like I need to
really start focusing on likehealing these old wounds that
(36:35):
had just left there.
There was this meditation.
I was following somebody, I wastaking a class, so I this
meditation she had us do.
You basically are reflecting onyour other, jenny's basically.
So you acknowledge 20 something, jenny, but then you're also
acknowledging eight year oldJenny, right, right.
I remember I came out of thismeditation crying like
(36:58):
hysterically and I was messagingthe other people and I was,
like, is anyone else crying from?
Like having to do thismeditation?
Because it felt like I hadfinally started to acknowledge
these other Jennys that hadgotten pushed deep down and
never really healed from iteverything that I had gone
(37:19):
through.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
Yes, well, you know it's interesting Jung speaks
about.
He calls it the middle part oflife.
Who knows when it is.
It hits people in a variety ofways, but what happens is
exactly what you said the houseof cards crumbles, it's gone.
What you thought it was goingto be doesn't work anymore and
(37:40):
out of it comes exactly what yousaid creativity, however, it
comes as well when you start torealize what you didn't have.
So you start to realize loss,you start to mourn, you start to
grieve, you start to seeparents for who they really are
(38:00):
and you start to also see yourfather because that's who we're
talking about for what he couldgive and what he could not give,
so how he hurt you and how heleft open the places of your own
desire.
And if you read fairy tales, sothis is one of the beauties of
(38:24):
Jungian psychology is looking atfairy tales and myths, legends.
They tell you about thepsychological process.
The one I speak about in thebook is the Handless Maiden.
Do you know that fairy tale?
Speaker 1 (38:37):
No.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Well, I'm going to tell you the horrible part.
So the horrible part is that inorder to save the father, the
daughter agrees that her handscan be cut off so then he
doesn't have to be taken by thedevil.
It's a whole story.
And what she does is she leaves.
(38:59):
She does is she leaves.
So in every fairy tale, theprincess, the female, the male,
they always leave the beginningplace, go through quite a
difficult time, come out theother side.
It's not that she marries theprince, it's that she finds
herself.
I mean, that's really whathappens.
But in this fairy tale it'sreally one of the worst and it
(39:22):
actually speaks about apsychological incest Because if
you think about it, it's acastration.
The hands are cut off, she hasno hands anymore.
How herself develops, it'spretty parallel to what you're
saying.
She went and lived alone, oryou could say alone inside for a
period of time and then hernature, her real nature, came
(39:46):
back.
Yeah, and she had a child.
Of course it's.
You know Grimm's fairy tales,that's what it is.
They're kind of male oriented,so she always has a male, but
we'll excuse that.
So she has, she has.
In other words, she gives birthto herself.
And this is often where womenbecause that's who we're talking
(40:07):
about get stuck.
They don't know how to givebirth to themselves.
Your house of cards that felldown forced you into finding
another part of yourself, and ina way you're lucky it didn't
happen later in life.
Sometimes it does, you know,whenever it happens.
It happens, but the issue isthat what you believed it's so
(40:31):
hard, it has to crash so youfind who you really really are.
Jung calls it the process ofindividuation.
So it means you're not justgoing along with the herd, it
means you are going along withyourself, which is exactly what
(40:53):
you said.
It's finding you, going alongwith you.
From the absence you come tosee how much you've got, how
much creativity there is, whatyour new ideas are, how you're
going to reach out in the worldin a different way, because you
don't just find yourself to stayhidden in your house.
You find yourself to move outinto the world and affect other
(41:15):
people.
Speaker 1 (41:16):
So you did that?
That was like the most perfectexplanation.
Did that?
That was like the most perfectexplanation and it's honestly it
it's almost like a breath ofrelief to hear you say it like
that, because that's how it feltand it it truly felt.
I was telling my husband theother night I'm like I think
about me now and then like theme when we met and I am so
(41:39):
vastly different different, ohfor sure and I feel like now I
was, and I had this conversationrecently with somebody.
I feel like now, in my forties,after going through all this
and then this reawakening oflike, a resurfacing of like who
Jenny really is, I feel like myforties is like this is this, is
(41:59):
it?
Now I really know who I am andI and I feel like I'm putting my
best face forward and I feelreally fulfilled.
And it was very interestingBecause when I was younger,
before all this, I was verycreative.
I love writing, I loved art, Iloved all those things and I
completely stopped for a periodfrom like, the age of like I
(42:22):
want to say 15 or so all the wayuntil I started podcasting.
I stopped all creative outletsbecause I was and I've done the
work to think this through, butit was like the ego taking over
to say, like you know what yougo to the side, your feelings
will push us aside.
We need to just drive reallyfast forward, get through this
(42:45):
and preserve ourselves.
Just keep your head down andkeep going.
And I did that for so long thatnow I look back and even when
my kids were little I mean I had, I had my kids very back to
back.
I had my son in 2016, and thetwins in 2017.
So I had three.
I had three infants at the sametime and even in that moment,
when I was working full time,had my three babies at the same
(43:08):
time, I was like keep your headdown, keep moving forward.
And I operated like that for solong that now I'm like no, I'm
going to soak in every singlemoment, every moment that I can
be present, I'm going to makesure I'm present.
I will make sure that I'mprioritizing, like my children.
I work really hard, susan, tomake sure that they all feel
(43:28):
acknowledged.
Because there's three.
I mean it's very hard, but I'malso very honest with them.
I'm like mommy's just one mommyLike let's just give me a break
.
Speaker 2 (43:37):
Yeah, but you know, yeah, but you know, again, I
think there's that pushsometimes can overcompensate
what we didn't have.
So we're pushing from a place,which is true, but it's also a
little artificial and it is tooverride the pain, the
(43:58):
discomfort I'm not going to.
You said it, you put theemotions in a bag over there.
Well, probably in a casket isprobably a nailed it down,
because that's what we, that'swhat the culture promotes as
well.
Right, don't be too emotional.
Well, I don't know how you getthrough life without being
(44:18):
emotional.
And this can also happen withthe father who, as I said
earlier, is emotionally absent,so he doesn't know how to show
you how to manage emotions orhow to be loving as you need, as
you individually need.
What I would want to say aswell it's really the fathers who
(44:41):
suffer also.
They can't enjoy theirdaughters, they don't know how,
or they don't know how to taketime and say, oh, let's hang out
together, let's take a walk,let's run, but you know we'll do
a sport together, something.
Too often they don't do that.
Again, I think it's changing, Idon't think it's changed enough
(45:03):
, and so hence that was thepoint of writing the book.
The other thing that'sinteresting is, I'm going to add
culturally.
I remember I gave a lecture anda woman from China came up in
rather a subdued tone after andsaid you know, we're not
(45:26):
supposed to challenge fathers inChina, not supposed to.
They rule, they're the ones.
And I said I don't think it'sjust in China, I think it
happens.
But it's interesting to mebecause she couldn't really say
it in a very loud voice even,and express her disappointment,
(45:47):
and even to do that would feeltoo rebellious.
So there's the other thingIsn't a girl, as she grows up,
supposed to be healthilyrebellious?
Isn't she supposed to argue withthe dad if he's around?
Isn't she supposed to be as thedad if he's around?
Isn't she supposed to be assmart as she possibly wants to
be?
Isn't she supposed to make tonsof money if that's what she
(46:11):
wants?
Isn't she supposed to find herown way?
The other part that happens issometimes people will say my
father wanted me to be this.
The question is what did youwant?
Sadly, some people don't goinside like you did and the
crash has to be bigger.
You know, it takes a long time.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
I know that I've thought quite a bit about that.
That's also part of the reasonwhy, when I have guests such as
yourself on this podcast, I tryto share as much as I can as
yourself on this podcast.
I try to share as much as I canthe vulnerability there,
because I do think that many ofus won't go inside and try to
fix it.
It's a lot, it's a lot to gothrough and it can be hard to
(46:52):
deal with it.
And I mean I will readily admitnow like I still have residual
feelings, like I still havefeelings about it and my, my
cousin and I will joke sometimesand say like oh, it's the
divorce kid syndrome and likeit's, you know, because we both
went through divorces with ourparents and you know, there's
(47:13):
almost always something, sometrigger, some form of something
that comes up that incites thislike madness, this rage, this
sadness, and I'm much better nowat acknowledging and accepting
and like paying homage to itbecause I'm like it's there,
like I have to be, you know, beable to acknowledge this.
That's a big part of the journeythat I went on over the past
(47:36):
like three or four years wasbeing okay with not being okay,
like acknowledge the fact thatthis happened.
It happened.
We can't you can't bury this.
What can we do with this?
I've had countless women thepodcast has well over a hundred
episodes and so many women havecome on here and shared how a
trauma that they eventuallyaddressed turned into them
(47:59):
helping other people where theyused what they went through,
they acknowledged it, theyworked on it and then they
decided, made the decision like.
I need to use my voice here totalk about this because there's
probably someone else goingthrough the same thing.
We need to let people know likethis happens to a lot of us
we're all going through this.
Speaker 2 (48:19):
I think you're right.
I think there's something alsoabout expressing your voice and
using it in your own individualway, and also to know that you
see it's kind of tricky.
Some people will say yes, I'vegone through a lot, therefore I
want to help other people.
I think that's.
One of the difference withanalysis is that an analyst has
(48:42):
to have done the work, so youdon't just go and read a book.
You figure yourself out as muchas you can and then, quite like
you're saying as well, yourealize that through your life
you're going to keep on figuring.
Yes, I mean, it just doesn'tend.
Speaker 1 (48:58):
Oh, it doesn't's what I'm saying.
I still, which is fine.
I think that's part of thejourney, though this is life.
There is no end point.
This is it, this?
Speaker 2 (49:07):
is it, but you know it should be ideally interesting
.
Okay, it's difficult, but youknow, nothing wonderful is easy
anyway.
So go through the difficulty,find your strength, be able to
realize you can do it.
Use your creativity in adifferent way than what you
thought, because not all treeshave green leaves.
(49:30):
See, we learn it very early.
I think also, females stilllearn to not be too rageful,
don't be too angry.
Be a little more docile.
It's so old-fashioned, it's soold-fashioned, it's ridiculous,
but it's still there.
It's still there, you can seeit.
(49:51):
And so the more that we knowand the more we break out of old
bonds, the better it isactually.
Because we always stay a littlebit unconscious anyway.
Nobody can be conscious 24-7.
So we don't need to expect it,but to honor the difficult
feelings.
That's the deal.
Yes.
Speaker 1 (50:12):
That was like the perfect summary that you could
have.
I was going to ask you for afinal thought, but you did it so
that I don't even have toanswer the question.
Susan, thank you for coming onwith me today.
I greatly appreciate it.
I think this has been soinsightful, even for me
personally.
I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (50:29):
Well, you know.
I thank you very much forasking me, but you can tell in
our interactions how alreadythere was a click.
Speaker 1 (50:40):
You can tell it through the, you know, through
the email through the oh, I canusually tell pretty easily and
very quickly the guests that I'mgoing to really connect with
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (50:51):
It's there.
So thank you for theopportunity for us to have such
a lively discussion.
Speaker 1 (50:57):
Oh no, this has been so wonderful Listeners.
Thank you so much for joiningus today.
I'm going to link Susan'swebsite her information in the
description of the podcast Ifyou want to look into anything
further.
Definitely I recommendexploring her books.
I've already earmarked a couplethat I'd like to purchase
myself, because this isimportant, and you've all heard
(51:20):
me say before how critical it isfor us to be really living
authentically.
And I don't mean a buzzword,authentic, I mean like, truly do
the work, because once you getthrough that, there's a hump of
emotion that you have to getthrough, or there's a hump of
work you have to get through.
The light that comes to youwhen you do this afterwards is
phenomenal.
So, susan, thank you again forjoining me today.
Speaker 2 (51:40):
Thank you, Jenny.
Speaker 1 (51:41):
Have a good one, thank you.
Hello everybody.
This is Steel Roses podcast.
This podcast was created forwomen, by women, to elevate
women's voices.
I am very honored to introduceyou to our guest today.
We have Susan E Schwartz withus.
She was trained in Zurich,switzerland, as a Jungian
analyst.
She has appeared on manypodcasts and presents at
(00:20):
numerous Jungian analyticalconferences and teaching
programs in the USA andworldwide.
Her expertise goes across arange, but we're going to focus
in on the absent father today.
But, susan, I would love it ifyou could introduce yourself to
the listeners, tell them aboutyourself and the area of focus
(00:41):
in absent Father.
But I think we also might wantyou to give layman's description
or layman's explanation of whatexactly is Jungian analysis
Like?
How does that work?
What is it?
Speaker 2 (00:53):
I will do that.
Sure, do you want me to start?
Yes, okay, great, jenny, thankyou so much for having me to
begin with, and let me say thatI'm going to answer your
question about what is Jungiananalysis, because it fits with
the absent father effect ondaughters, because that's what
(01:15):
we're talking about.
So one of the differences withJungian analysis and some other
approaches are is the emphasison connecting the unconscious to
the conscious and within that.
So we find out about thatthrough people's dreams, their
relationships, things thathappen to us, which seem out of
(01:38):
the blue and they're not.
They're meaningful.
Even the lousy things aremeaningful.
The point is, how do you learnfrom them?
The issue about the absentfather and how I got interested
in it is that a lot of the womenwho come to see me, who came to
see me for analysis, I wouldask them about their father, and
(02:02):
they had about one sentence tosay almost all of them that was
it because the father had beenabsent.
This is historically,transgenerationally.
So the father, where was he?
I don't know.
He was working, he was divorced, he was separated, he was drunk
, he did drugs, a lot ofdifferent things, but he wasn't
(02:26):
emotionally present and all thedaughters excused it.
They said well, that's just theway it was.
Then I looked in the literature.
By the literature I meananything psychoanalytic, jungian
psychology, even Jungianpsychology, even very little.
(02:51):
Until the last maybe 20, 25years has much been written on
the father.
Usually, again, there's aboutone sentence he was X and that's
it.
But you know, when there isabsence it has a huge effect.
Whatever has been absent in ourlives, it doesn't just go away.
It goes underneath, it lives inthe unconscious.
We don't know about it and itcan come around in a rather
(03:16):
destructive fashion.
So one of the things that Ifelt.
So I'm just going to go on abit and then we'll talk.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Yeah, I'm taking notes, keep going.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
One of the things that I found as well is the
effect of the father on awoman's body.
So that also is not talkedabout very much.
But and also culturally.
So culturally, because I knowthe United States, that's the
culture that I reflect, but manyother cultures have a very
(03:50):
similar absence of father.
It manifests itself differently, but it's there.
There are hardly any.
It's happening more now.
Many men that I see are notabsent fathers.
They want to be present, butthe history is they're not there
.
I think what happens to thedaughters?
(04:10):
This relates to their psycheand their body.
They forget about themselves,they don't take care of
themselves, they don't treatthemselves well.
They might get intoself-sacrifice, self-hatred,
self-denigration, hurtingthemselves.
I don't mean just cutting, Imean hurting psychologically
their relationships.
(04:31):
Their inner relationship iswhere you can repair it.
But the relationship's alsofraught and fractured, and the
book is not meant to just benegative, it's to recognize how
absence is to be filled, andthat is the point.
(04:51):
That's the point maybe, of whywe are talking as well how
absence is filled, so it doesn'tjust remain some kind of abyss
inside of oneself.
We become creative, we becomeenergetic, we become alive, not
numb.
(05:11):
So a rather long introduction.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
No, I love it.
So I'm going to circle back alittle bit.
Let's see here.
Okay, so, and just for thelisteners, I did pull up um, uh,
like a little brief definitionand you tell me if this sounds
accurate to you.
A lot, um.
So a young yin, um, younganalysis and psychotherapy.
It's a licensed mental healthprofessional who helps people
(05:36):
understand themselves and theirmotivations through
psychoanalyst psychoanalysisthat focuses on the unconscious
mind.
So I just wanted to sum up,like what you said, and then I
am.
I don't think people realizehow much and this is for men and
women, it's not just specificto women.
I know that's the focus, Ialways focus on women, but it's
(05:58):
really not our unconscious mind.
There's so much there and ifyou suppress or try to suppress
and try to ignore exactly whatyou just said, susan, it will
come out and present itself inother ways.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
It's true, yeah, and the reason it does is we're
supposed to know a lot.
We're not supposed to justrepress things, we're supposed
to know a lot.
And again, it isn't reallypopular to access the
unconscious, I'm not sure why.
It is not difficult.
It appears all the time.
(06:33):
It appears even in you knowwhat you choose to have for
breakfast sometimes.
You know and you need to knowwhy.
So why am I doing this?
What is happening?
Even what is the meaning of ourinterview?
You know, I always think thatthere's meaning in it.
It makes life so much morevaluable because then you have
(06:53):
meaning and you're not justwalking around suffering and in
pain, You're finding the valuewithin yourself, and that, to me
, is really the focus of Jungianpsychology.
There's one other part that'skind of different than other
psychoanalytic approaches andthat is the value of one's
(07:15):
spirituality.
I don't mean religion, I meanan approach to life which
involves rituals and images andthe life force, et cetera.
And we cannot miss culture.
So I work mostly one-to-one, orI have worked mostly one-to-one
(07:36):
and you would think, well, doesthat really have much of an
effect?
But actually, if you thinkabout it, as we gain
consciousness, then everyone wespeak to we have an effect.
It's like with your podcast thepeople that listen there's an
effect and they're going to tellsomebody else and it increases
consciousness.
It's like sparks that go out.
(07:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Yeah, it's, um, it's.
I'll use myself as an example.
When, um, well, you know whatI'll actually the absent father
effect, like you know what, I'mgoing to make a couple of
statements and then I want youto kind of, you know, do your
thing.
Basically so, until I was about13, my parents were married and
(08:33):
then, when I got to high school, I had already had a sense, you
know, that things were notright.
And I remember when I was inseventh grade, when I was about
12, I remember telling mycousins like I was, like I don't
think my parents are gonna makeit, like I think they're gonna,
I think they're gonna divorceand they were like, no, no, like
your family's perfect.
You know you guys are all goingto church together all the time,
(08:54):
this and that, the next thing.
And I remember saying like, no,like, I have a sense,
something's not right.
And I was able to I don't knowif it's the empath intuitive I
picked up on it and, sure enough, about two years later, when I
was 1415, um, my parentsseparated.
Now, at the time I selfpreservation found a way to
(09:16):
compartmentalize that and put myfeelings in a box and put it to
the side.
That was me trying to survivethe situation Flash forward from
the age of like 15 to the ageof about 21, 22,.
I went through this reallydestructive phase.
Now I know why now and I have totell you, when I was in my
(09:41):
mid-20s, early 20s, I actuallystarted reading a lot of books
about women coming of age, younggirls coming of age.
One of the books that I readthat really like knocked me for
one was Reviving Ophelia, and Iread that one and I was like
crying reading that book becauseI was like, oh my God, like I
(10:01):
went through this, like this isstuff that I went through.
Because I was like, oh my God,like I went through this Like
this is stuff that I wentthrough and now like speaking
with you, if you don't mind forthe guests me going through that
trauma of my parents'separation and having that
destructive period all ties intothe fact that that divorce
happened, of course.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Well, if you think about it, when there is a
rupture, there's a rupture andyou're around that age.
It's such a change time thatit's not surprising.
Anyway, we go through this kindof identification who am I at
that age?
But you did a couple of veryinteresting things.
One is you had good intuitionand you knew that the image of
(10:45):
the family together was false.
I think that saved you yourintuition In a strange way.
You had to act out, what isacting out, you had to express,
and then you had tocompartmentalize and put it in a
box.
One because you had to grow up.
I mean, we do anything tosurvive and then, because it's
(11:05):
so destructive inside, or feelsthat way, that in fact it's not
until later that we start to go.
Wait a second, because evenwhen you said about a
destructive phase, usually it'sconnected up with being numb.
So I would ask you, if youdon't mind, we can use you as an
(11:26):
example, because your situation, although yours, is very common
If you think about it, whenyou're like an early teenager
girl, female you're like growing, deciding who am I?
How does your father deal withyou?
How does he comment about yourbody changing?
How does he comment about yourintellect, your talents, your
(11:50):
athletic abilities?
How does he and is he presentto do that?
So we could say well, whenthere's divorce, does that mean
the father is just gone?
Oftentimes, sadly, it does, andthen again the feeling doesn't
come back until quite a bitlater.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Right, and that's and honestly that's and I remember.
I now and I went through andI'll explain to about when I
eventually came back to myself,but in that time I do distinctly
remember that.
You know, it's very interestingtoo, susan.
I have two brothers and Iremember my older brother during
(12:31):
this phase, like when we weregoing through this with our
family.
My younger brother, I was about15.
So he would have I told him,like you know, I'm like I I
don't know if I'm blocked, Idon't know what it is, but for
(12:53):
some reason there's these spotsof time where I don't remember
him and I must have been becauseI was going through my own
journey and my own crisis.
I have no recollection of evenreaching out to him to be like,
hey, like we were all living inthe same house, obviously, but
like I don't have anyrecollection of even reaching
out to him and to be like hey,like we were all living in the
same house, obviously, but likeI don't have any recollection of
like, well, what did he doduring that time?
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Yeah, but you know when you can't remember, so
here's part of the absence.
So you can't remember who wasthere, and you actually didn't
answer when I asked you aboutwas your father present?
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Oh, I can answer that .
Speaker 2 (13:29):
But you know, I think what I'm saying is that the
places where the memory is notthere, it kind of compensates
and allows you to be able tofocus on yourself and kind of go
inward and preserve yourself.
And then it's alwaysinteresting how many people
don't remember what happened, orthey don't remember so-and-so,
(13:52):
or they became numb, yeah, yeah.
And so as you follow each ofthe events, they kind of one
adds to another, to another.
And again, where did the fathergo?
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Now he was the way that I look at it.
Now he was present in like atopical way exactly topical yes,
yes.
So it was very much like and atthe time I again was like I'm, I
can handle this, I can, I cancarry this weight on my
shoulders of my parentsseparating, like I can help my
(14:27):
mom through this, for example,me 16 year old me was like I can
save you.
This was like when I was heavilylike, heavily developing my
codependence skills basically iswhat was happening here.
And so I remember saying tomyself well, I excuse his
behavior because he's goingthrough something and I have to
put my own feelings aside herebecause he's going through
(14:49):
something.
He's have to put my ownfeelings aside here because he's
going through something.
He's, you know, he's figuringout his own way and I have to be
, like you know, supportiveacross the board and not cause
any additional ripples for myparents.
They already have enough ontheir plate.
I need to just kind of helpkeep the peace, keep things
moving forward.
And so I remember rationalizingit in my head and I was very
sad for a long time.
(15:10):
But I remember trying to likerationalize my head like, well,
it's okay, because he needs togo through this and it's okay
that he's going through like.
That was the.
Those were the thoughts that Iwas using to help me, like get
through it.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Yes, but you know, the he that you're referring to
could also be the he that manydaughters refer to when they're
talking about their father.
And they take care of him byexcusing him.
So they say well, you know, hedid this, well, he didn't do
much, but they rationalize andmake it better than it was.
(15:44):
And the other thing is it'ssuch an interesting denial of
one's own feelings to think thatyou're strong enough to take
care of mother or neverchallenge father, so he doesn't
really get challenged.
Why Is he fragile?
Is he able?
And then you could say what doyou take in, what do we take in
(16:09):
of that kind of modeling?
So if you think the father isfragile and he's not taking care
maybe of himself as well, thenhow do we learn to take care of
ourselves, right, right?
So throughout history there'sbeen this deal of it's the
mother.
She affects the child most ofall.
Well, that was when the nuclearfamily was of a different
(16:33):
nature than it is now.
And then where are we left?
We're kind of left nowhere ifwe don't pay attention to the
father and how he has affectedus.
It's so amazing.
I'll give you an example.
I gave a lecture on the absentfather quite a long time ago
(16:56):
with a group of analysts and oneof them was so honest.
The person said you know, Iforget to ask about the father.
This is an analyst.
I was amazed, I was soappreciative that that person
could be that honest and part ofthe forgetting, it's like you
forgot about your brother.
(17:17):
You didn't forget, you didn'tforget.
It was just too much.
Too much.
So, in a way, if you open thedeal about the father, there's
the can of worms that starts toopen up and it's got
reverberations, reverberationsand reverberations.
I don't want to say that theabsence is always destructive,
(17:40):
but it can be because werationalize it away.
I could handle it just like yousaid.
You said it in relation to yourmother.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
But we could apply it .
We can apply it because we justcan.
It happens Also to the fatherand he gets off the hook.
The destruction stays inside,like with you.
But you could also say whathappens.
I mean divorce, separation isso common in many ways.
(18:13):
Usually what happens the motherstays and the father goes
Almost ubiquitous I meanpercentage-wise it's pretty much
what happens.
And the father might retainsome contact, but not so much.
And how you find out how you'reaffected.
You can look at your dreams.
(18:33):
Is there a father?
Does he ever come in the dreams?
And how does the relationshipwith him get projected onto
relationships with a partner?
Now, the partner doesn't haveto be a male partner, it can be
anybody, because we've all gotthese characters hanging around
inside.
(18:54):
So, whoever you're with, howare you projecting you onto them
?
Or their own absent fatherprojected onto you?
So it becomes so.
This is very Jungian in a way.
Many layers, many, many layers.
How did this happen?
How did that happen?
(19:14):
What are you carrying and whatare you carrying of the absent
father inside yourself?
Speaker 1 (19:20):
Yeah, I'll say this because it ties into what you
just explained.
It's almost like I have to behonest, it's very interesting,
slash, scary a little bit tohear like how spot on what I
went through is in comparison tolike what you're talking about.
So I know listeners areprobably hearing this and maybe
pulling over to be like wait,what is happening?
(19:40):
Um, so I had that experiencewith my parents separating and
there was a point in time whereI got to the point where I had
said to myself no matter what myfather does, I'm going to look
the other way and excuse it,because it's either I lose my
father or I accept everything hedoes.
Now I carried that with me intomy very first serious
(20:02):
relationship and it was aterrible relationship and it
took me about a year and a halfand it took a death in my family
for me to shake myself out ofthat relationship.
To be like wait, I don't want to.
I don't want to live my lifelike this, like what is, and I
didn't know enough to how to getmyself out of it.
(20:23):
But I knew that it was not goodwhat I was doing and I started
pursuing psychologists formyself just because I was like
something's not right.
I know something's right, notright inside, and I have to
figure this out now Because Iremember a lot of times I'll
have these moments where I'mlike I need to figure this out
because I want to eventually getmarried, like I don't want to
(20:44):
live my life like this, like howcan I address this so I can
become better or get you know,get a better understanding of
what I've been through?
But it was very interesting nowto look back and see like I
went through this in my reallyformative years and it affected
a lot of decisions that I madeall the way up until I was about
25.
(21:05):
When I finally got to the pointwhere I was like I feel like
I've gone through enough therapy, where I felt like I was safe
enough to date and you know, getserious about people because
for a long time I had a lot ofpoor, toxic behaviors that I
just kept repeating over andover again, right?
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Well, there's.
There's several things in whatyou're saying.
One is that you know the braindoesn't solidify until we're 25.
Well, that's several things inwhat you're saying.
One is that you know the braindoesn't solidify until we're 25.
That's interesting, amazing,isn't it?
It's totally amazing.
So it takes a long time.
But then the other thing thatactually takes a long time is to
learn to honor yourself.
So you can be 25 and you getthe ego functioning, you get
(21:53):
yourself into your world, youhave I don't know career, et
cetera.
You decide how you want to haveyour life.
But then later, because thepain was so profound, people
don't usually explore it until abit later in depth.
So that's the deal.
I mean, that's what I do.
It's more in depth.
(22:13):
And there is another thing thatI have found Several, quite a
few women who contacted me andthey say you know, I'm in my 70s
and I need to figure out aboutmy father.
Yep, in other words, it hasbeen underneath that long.
(22:34):
My relationships, just likeyou're saying, have been
affected by this.
I have to figure it out now.
I mean right, if not now, when?
And they say I want to go intodeeper work to figure out what
has happened.
In other words, the process ofknowing about yourself is
(22:57):
lifelong.
The other thing that happenswith the absent father is it's
promoted in our culture.
You did it.
You said it, give him a pass.
But our culture is verypatriarchal.
Yes, right, so the masculine,whatever that means, is elevated
.
And then who are you toquestion that?
(23:21):
And who you are as a person whoneeds to question it?
And then you gain not then, butyou gain your strength.
So what you're talking about isthat intuition which just knows
.
It just knows, and then youlearn to listen to it.
But our culture is a little onthe outside story.
(23:42):
That's exactly right.
And don't question, don't looktoo deeply inside, don't trust
your intuition.
Don't trust your intuition.
And then it is also saidintuition is feminine, whatever
that means.
It's a put down, but it's a putdown to women and to men as well
(24:05):
, but also to men.
And so it becomes divisive andwe want to bring the personality
together.
It does not mean so there'sanother piece.
It doesn't mean you forgiveyour father.
I mean people say I'll justforgive him and it'll be okay.
No, it isn't.
I go, how is he going to beokay?
And how do you?
(24:26):
Also, what happens if he's dead?
So how do you?
Or you haven't seen him for amillion years, you know a long
time.
You don't just forgive somebody.
Forgiveness is a.
We talk about it, we discuss it, we see, do we have a
relationship or not?
What are we going to do?
Right, yeah, challenge, notjust yeah.
(24:48):
Challenge the status quo.
Well, it's not popular, and yetthat's what's needed.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
It's interesting that you say that, because I
remember there were severalmoments throughout my adult life
where I would say you know, Ifeel like I've made my peace
with this or I forgive him, likeyou know, and for everything
that has happened.
But then, ultimately, timewould pass, some trigger would
(25:15):
happen and it would feel like itwas being ripped open all over
again, nice and fresh, and evento this day.
You know, I'm 41 years old, youknow, for me, now I'm like I'm
much more aware of myself andmuch more like respectful of my
own feelings and really, again,single attention to my intuition
(25:36):
and to my feelings as abarometer of, like well, how do
I really feel about thisscenario?
And now more than ever, I makeit a point to be honest about
things and I'll kind of takestock, like if something happens
, like do I really feel okaywith this or am I just putting a
bandaid over it?
And I make sure I don't do thebandaid thing anymore as much as
(25:58):
I can, because I'm like I needto be able to live my life to
the best of my ability, for theexample of my children as well,
because I think about the traumaand things I've been through,
and I know that there's a weightthat still carries with me, but
because I'm trying to be somindful of it, I really don't
want to pass that on to my kidsand Susan.
(26:21):
Prior to our recording, I hadbeen able to share with you a
little bit about my husband andhow his approach as a father,
and when we first got together Iremember I was astounded at the
level of commitment he had tohis children.
I mean, I was because I have.
(26:43):
I had been through what I wentthrough, where I had to
prioritize.
I felt like I was prioritizingmy father versus versus like the
other way around, right.
And then I started dating thisperson that wholly committed to
his children.
Nothing else mattered to him,and that was like our very first
date.
He told me I have two children,they are my priority, they're
(27:07):
up front.
He's like you have to becomfortable with the fact that
they will come first all thetime.
And I remember being like as adivorced child.
I was like wow, really I wastotally shocked to see that,
because I've never seen thatbefore.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
No, because you know you had given father a pass.
Yeah, I've never seen thatbefore.
No, because you know you hadgiven father a pass.
Yeah.
And then you could saypsychologically that absence led
you to find presence.
Oh yeah, so it led you to findwhat you needed.
There's a French psychoanalystthat I refer to quite a bit.
(27:42):
I just love him.
It's Andre Green, and he cameup with this concept of the dead
mother effect, but he alsospoke about the dead father.
What he means is not dead, deadlike buried.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Right.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
He means depressed, he means absent, vacant,
emotionally stunted, stoppedsomewhere.
And so what happens is?
You described it well.
Actually, you compensate, youtry to make the parent come
alive, you give them a pass.
They're not so bad, it wasn'tso awful.
(28:16):
I'll try to repair it, but thatdoesn't work, because then
you're constantly giving yourblood to him.
It's a horrible analogy, but youreally are like draining
yourself over to him, or youmight be draining yourself, not
(28:37):
even to your actual father.
Maybe you learned to drainyourself period in life and
you're not really doing yourselfperiod in life and you're not
really doing yourself.
So you're going along with I'mgoing to use this word again, I
mean it in a general senseYou're going along with the
patriarchy which still has aneffect to say the women still
(29:01):
are not wherever they totallywant to be, that's, anyone
feminine in general, whateverthat means.
So it's like the equalitywithin the psyche is not equal.
So I'm just going to go back.
So Andre Green in a wayparallels Jung, because Jung
(29:21):
talks about the negative fathercomplex.
So it's like it's functioninginside in a negative way.
Sometimes we're not even awareof how bad it is because we're
used to it.
Or people say oh really, that'sas good as it gets.
Your standards are too high.
Oh, that's a big one, that's abig one.
(29:42):
Why are you going after so much?
Well, the answer is because youshould, because this is your
life and you want to.
But there's a subtle that'swhat I mean.
Truly, we're supposed to becontent with less.
Now, that's true for men aswell.
I don't know who wins in thatstory, but it's not going to be
(30:05):
anybody.
Yeah, once again, I think, ifwe look at the absence as a
means to fill it, it's like yourexample of why you met your
husband, you know, because ithad to be filled.
It's like this empty spacesitting there and
psychologically, unconsciously,you're like I don't know, going
out doing this and that, andthen the whatever right is right
(30:31):
for your psyche at the timecomes along to fill the space.
But you also have to do thework Right.
So, partners, don't do the workfor us, forget it.
That doesn't happen.
Oh no, not at all.
Yeah, that's, that's too late,that's not real.
But we're challenged then toreally go back and say, wow,
(30:52):
what did I really miss, what didI really need and who am I?
And to make sense out of thesuffering.
You can't deny the suffering,you can't get over it.
You make sense of it andprovide meaning.
Who knows, it might be part ofwhat.
Had you do these podcasts?
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Yeah, so it was very interesting.
I was waiting for you to getthere because I had a feeling
you were going there.
I was waiting for it.
I was like she's going, I cansee where she's going.
So, going through, I'm sharing,like you know, basically like
blocks of time with you.
So I met, meet my husband andit was very interesting because
when we met, nobody in my familywas okay with the relationship.
(31:38):
Nobody was and they were likehe's because he's older than me.
He's nine years older than me,so I was 26 when we met and they
were like you know, he alreadyhas kids.
You know it?
This isn't this, you know, orhe's too much older than you.
They have this perception ofhe's controlling you.
And the reality of it was thatwhat had started to happen was
(32:04):
for from like 23 to like 26 orso.
I was just there for everybody.
I was consistently like I'mhere for everybody, I'll show up
to everybody's things.
I'm, you know, showing up foreverybody else's kids and their
own things.
And I had gotten to a pointwhere I was like I, I'm not
doing anything for me, nothingis for me.
So when I met my husband, I Ihad started at that point the
(32:27):
practice of checking in withmyself and my own feelings about
the situation.
Everybody was being very loudaround me about how much they
didn't think this was good forme, and I kept taking stock and
I would have a quiet moment withmyself and say, look, I'm like
everyone's giving me a hard time, like are you happy, jenny?
Do you feel respected, jenny?
Do you feel like this is apositive relationship, jenny?
And it was always yes, which iswhy I'm married now.
(32:48):
But it always came back with ifI'm happy at the end of the day
, when I lay my head down.
This is what's important here.
And so I got to a point with myfamily where I said to them I'm
like, you have to get on board,like, and if you don't, that's
your choice, but this is mychoice.
So I basically drew a line.
Everybody they know me wellenough to know like, if I'm
(33:09):
saying this definitively, thenget on board or like.
That's it.
So that was 15 years ago,during the time that we were
married.
I definitely in the beginning,especially after we had kids,
fell into habits that I hadpicked up from my parents and
from my mother specifically.
(33:29):
Do you want me to pause?
No, go ahead.
Okay, my mother specifically.
There was habits there, butthere was also habits from my
fathers and watching my, myparents with their relationship.
Um, my dad worked, my mom didn't, and he controlled all the
finances.
This was something that waslike a thorn in my side the
entire time I was growing up,because all I would watch was
(33:50):
like my dad had all these things.
He was always spending money onsuits and this and that or
whatever, and my mom had like tshirts and sweatpants.
You know like it was very likeuneven to me.
And so, while I was growing up,I swore to myself like you're
not ever going to be in thatposition, like Jenny, you're
going to make sure that you'reshowing up too.
So I had the full career youknow I was, even though I had
(34:14):
three kids, three infants.
I was like I'm going to do itall, I'm going to show up
financially, I'm going to showup there.
I was ultimately burning myselfout quite quickly.
Um, I did that for I want tosay like five years or so.
For a very long time I burntmyself out, and then I got to
about 37 and it was like thishouse of cards had started to
(34:38):
fall Collapse.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
And everything that I thought I wanted and that I
thought I should be doing juststarted to crumble, and even my
career I was like it was.
The career was going great, butit didn't feel great, and so I
got to a point where I was likethis isn't right, like
something's not right, like I'mnot.
I'm not me here, I'm not Jenny,I'm not showing up as Jenny.
I feel like I'm just like goingthrough the motions and pushing
(35:02):
ahead and constantly looking tothe next thing.
But what's going on here that Idon't feel like I'm being
filled up anymore.
I'm not happy with what's goingon.
This is also when the podcastidea really came to life.
So I had this pivotal momentwhere I was on this project for
work and I was working.
(35:22):
I got put on this project eventhough I requested not to, and
it was a really, really heavyworkload.
So there was about three weekswhere I was working like 70
hours.
I wasn't seeing my kids, eventhough I work from home, but my
kids were little they're aboutfour and five years old.
For about three weeks I didn'tsee them.
I just for baths and breakfast.
That was it.
And so I get to this end ofthis period of really, really
(35:52):
heavy work and I was liketotally shattered.
I was burnt out.
My kids looked bigger.
I was crushed because I hadmissed it.
This is where I started to kindof turn and say like I need to
make a change here, kind of likeevery other moment in my life
where I had a moment of I needto change this.
And it's when I started to lookinto podcasting.
And then it's also when Idiscovered, like meditation and
starting to turn inward to clearup everything that was stuck,
(36:13):
because that's what it startedto feel like Susan.
It started to feel like a drainhad been clogged full of so
much trash that I was justshoving in there as band-aids
and this and that, and it's okay.
And the meditation that reallypushed me to be like I need to
really start focusing on likehealing these old wounds that
(36:35):
had just left there.
There was this meditation.
I was following somebody, I wastaking a class, so I this
meditation she had us do.
You basically are reflecting onyour other, jenny's basically.
So you acknowledge 20 something, jenny, but then you're also
acknowledging eight year oldJenny, right, right.
I remember I came out of thismeditation crying like
(36:58):
hysterically and I was messagingthe other people and I was,
like, is anyone else crying from?
Like having to do thismeditation?
Because it felt like I hadfinally started to acknowledge
these other Jennys that hadgotten pushed deep down and
never really healed from iteverything that I had gone
(37:19):
through.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
Yes, well, you know it's interesting Jung speaks
about.
He calls it the middle part oflife.
Who knows when it is.
It hits people in a variety ofways, but what happens is
exactly what you said the houseof cards crumbles, it's gone.
What you thought it was goingto be doesn't work anymore and
(37:40):
out of it comes exactly what yousaid creativity, however, it
comes as well when you start torealize what you didn't have.
So you start to realize loss,you start to mourn, you start to
grieve, you start to seeparents for who they really are
(38:00):
and you start to also see yourfather because that's who we're
talking about for what he couldgive and what he could not give,
so how he hurt you and how heleft open the places of your own
desire.
And if you read fairy tales, sothis is one of the beauties of
(38:24):
Jungian psychology is looking atfairy tales and myths, legends.
They tell you about thepsychological process.
The one I speak about in thebook is the Handless Maiden.
Do you know that fairy tale?
Speaker 1 (38:37):
No.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Well, I'm going to tell you the horrible part.
So the horrible part is that inorder to save the father, the
daughter agrees that her handscan be cut off so then he
doesn't have to be taken by thedevil.
It's a whole story.
And what she does is she leaves.
(38:59):
She does is she leaves.
So in every fairy tale, theprincess, the female, the male,
they always leave the beginningplace, go through quite a
difficult time, come out theother side.
It's not that she marries theprince, it's that she finds
herself.
I mean, that's really whathappens.
But in this fairy tale it'sreally one of the worst and it
(39:22):
actually speaks about apsychological incest Because if
you think about it, it's acastration.
The hands are cut off, she hasno hands anymore.
How herself develops, it'spretty parallel to what you're
saying.
She went and lived alone, oryou could say alone inside for a
period of time and then hernature, her real nature, came
(39:46):
back.
Yeah, and she had a child.
Of course it's.
You know Grimm's fairy tales,that's what it is.
They're kind of male oriented,so she always has a male, but
we'll excuse that.
So she has, she has.
In other words, she gives birthto herself.
And this is often where womenbecause that's who we're talking
(40:07):
about get stuck.
They don't know how to givebirth to themselves.
Your house of cards that felldown forced you into finding
another part of yourself, and ina way you're lucky it didn't
happen later in life.
Sometimes it does, you know,whenever it happens.
It happens, but the issue isthat what you believed it's so
(40:31):
hard, it has to crash so youfind who you really really are.
Jung calls it the process ofindividuation.
So it means you're not justgoing along with the herd, it
means you are going along withyourself, which is exactly what
(40:53):
you said.
It's finding you, going alongwith you.
From the absence you come tosee how much you've got, how
much creativity there is, whatyour new ideas are, how you're
going to reach out in the worldin a different way, because you
don't just find yourself to stayhidden in your house.
You find yourself to move outinto the world and affect other
(41:15):
people.
Speaker 1 (41:16):
So you did that?
That was like the most perfectexplanation.
Did that?
That was like the most perfectexplanation and it's honestly it
it's almost like a breath ofrelief to hear you say it like
that, because that's how it feltand it it truly felt.
I was telling my husband theother night I'm like I think
about me now and then like theme when we met and I am so
(41:39):
vastly different different, ohfor sure and I feel like now I
was, and I had this conversationrecently with somebody.
I feel like now, in my forties,after going through all this
and then this reawakening oflike, a resurfacing of like who
Jenny really is, I feel like myforties is like this is this, is
(41:59):
it?
Now I really know who I am andI and I feel like I'm putting my
best face forward and I feelreally fulfilled.
And it was very interestingBecause when I was younger,
before all this, I was verycreative.
I love writing, I loved art, Iloved all those things and I
completely stopped for a periodfrom like, the age of like I
(42:22):
want to say 15 or so all the wayuntil I started podcasting.
I stopped all creative outletsbecause I was and I've done the
work to think this through, butit was like the ego taking over
to say, like you know what yougo to the side, your feelings
will push us aside.
We need to just drive reallyfast forward, get through this
(42:45):
and preserve ourselves.
Just keep your head down andkeep going.
And I did that for so long thatnow I look back and even when
my kids were little I mean I had, I had my kids very back to
back.
I had my son in 2016, and thetwins in 2017.
So I had three.
I had three infants at the sametime and even in that moment,
when I was working full time,had my three babies at the same
(43:08):
time, I was like keep your headdown, keep moving forward.
And I operated like that for solong that now I'm like no, I'm
going to soak in every singlemoment, every moment that I can
be present, I'm going to makesure I'm present.
I will make sure that I'mprioritizing, like my children.
I work really hard, susan, tomake sure that they all feel
(43:28):
acknowledged.
Because there's three.
I mean it's very hard, but I'malso very honest with them.
I'm like mommy's just one mommyLike let's just give me a break
.
Speaker 2 (43:37):
Yeah, but you know, yeah, but you know, again, I
think there's that pushsometimes can overcompensate
what we didn't have.
So we're pushing from a place,which is true, but it's also a
little artificial and it is tooverride the pain, the
(43:58):
discomfort I'm not going to.
You said it, you put theemotions in a bag over there.
Well, probably in a casket isprobably a nailed it down,
because that's what we, that'swhat the culture promotes as
well.
Right, don't be too emotional.
Well, I don't know how you getthrough life without being
(44:18):
emotional.
And this can also happen withthe father who, as I said
earlier, is emotionally absent,so he doesn't know how to show
you how to manage emotions orhow to be loving as you need, as
you individually need.
What I would want to say aswell it's really the fathers who
(44:41):
suffer also.
They can't enjoy theirdaughters, they don't know how,
or they don't know how to taketime and say, oh, let's hang out
together, let's take a walk,let's run, but you know we'll do
a sport together, something.
Too often they don't do that.
Again, I think it's changing, Idon't think it's changed enough
(45:03):
, and so hence that was thepoint of writing the book.
The other thing that'sinteresting is, I'm going to add
culturally.
I remember I gave a lecture anda woman from China came up in
rather a subdued tone after andsaid you know, we're not
(45:26):
supposed to challenge fathers inChina, not supposed to.
They rule, they're the ones.
And I said I don't think it'sjust in China, I think it
happens.
But it's interesting to mebecause she couldn't really say
it in a very loud voice even,and express her disappointment,
(45:47):
and even to do that would feeltoo rebellious.
So there's the other thingIsn't a girl, as she grows up,
supposed to be healthilyrebellious?
Isn't she supposed to argue withthe dad if he's around?
Isn't she supposed to be as thedad if he's around?
Isn't she supposed to be assmart as she possibly wants to
be?
Isn't she supposed to make tonsof money if that's what she
(46:11):
wants?
Isn't she supposed to find herown way?
The other part that happens issometimes people will say my
father wanted me to be this.
The question is what did youwant?
Sadly, some people don't goinside like you did and the
crash has to be bigger.
You know, it takes a long time.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
I know that I've thought quite a bit about that.
That's also part of the reasonwhy, when I have guests such as
yourself on this podcast, I tryto share as much as I can as
yourself on this podcast.
I try to share as much as I canthe vulnerability there,
because I do think that many ofus won't go inside and try to
fix it.
It's a lot, it's a lot to gothrough and it can be hard to
(46:52):
deal with it.
And I mean I will readily admitnow like I still have residual
feelings, like I still havefeelings about it and my, my
cousin and I will joke sometimesand say like oh, it's the
divorce kid syndrome and likeit's, you know, because we both
went through divorces with ourparents and you know, there's
(47:13):
almost always something, sometrigger, some form of something
that comes up that incites thislike madness, this rage, this
sadness, and I'm much better nowat acknowledging and accepting
and like paying homage to itbecause I'm like it's there,
like I have to be, you know, beable to acknowledge this.
That's a big part of the journeythat I went on over the past
(47:36):
like three or four years wasbeing okay with not being okay,
like acknowledge the fact thatthis happened.
It happened.
We can't you can't bury this.
What can we do with this?
I've had countless women thepodcast has well over a hundred
episodes and so many women havecome on here and shared how a
trauma that they eventuallyaddressed turned into them
(47:59):
helping other people where theyused what they went through,
they acknowledged it, theyworked on it and then they
decided, made the decision like.
I need to use my voice here totalk about this because there's
probably someone else goingthrough the same thing.
We need to let people know likethis happens to a lot of us
we're all going through this.
Speaker 2 (48:19):
I think you're right.
I think there's something alsoabout expressing your voice and
using it in your own individualway, and also to know that you
see it's kind of tricky.
Some people will say yes, I'vegone through a lot, therefore I
want to help other people.
I think that's.
One of the difference withanalysis is that an analyst has
(48:42):
to have done the work, so youdon't just go and read a book.
You figure yourself out as muchas you can and then, quite like
you're saying as well, yourealize that through your life
you're going to keep on figuring.
Yes, I mean, it just doesn'tend.
Speaker 1 (48:58):
Oh, it doesn't's what I'm saying.
I still, which is fine.
I think that's part of thejourney, though this is life.
There is no end point.
This is it, this?
Speaker 2 (49:07):
is it, but you know it should be ideally interesting
.
Okay, it's difficult, but youknow, nothing wonderful is easy
anyway.
So go through the difficulty,find your strength, be able to
realize you can do it.
Use your creativity in adifferent way than what you
thought, because not all treeshave green leaves.
(49:30):
See, we learn it very early.
I think also, females stilllearn to not be too rageful,
don't be too angry.
Be a little more docile.
It's so old-fashioned, it's soold-fashioned, it's ridiculous,
but it's still there.
It's still there, you can seeit.
(49:51):
And so the more that we knowand the more we break out of old
bonds, the better it isactually.
Because we always stay a littlebit unconscious anyway.
Nobody can be conscious 24-7.
So we don't need to expect it,but to honor the difficult
feelings.
That's the deal.
Yes.
Speaker 1 (50:12):
That was like the perfect summary that you could
have.
I was going to ask you for afinal thought, but you did it so
that I don't even have toanswer the question.
Susan, thank you for coming onwith me today.
I greatly appreciate it.
I think this has been soinsightful, even for me
personally.
I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (50:29):
Well, you know.
I thank you very much forasking me, but you can tell in
our interactions how alreadythere was a click.
Speaker 1 (50:40):
You can tell it through the, you know, through
the email through the oh, I canusually tell pretty easily and
very quickly the guests that I'mgoing to really connect with
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (50:51):
It's there.
So thank you for theopportunity for us to have such
a lively discussion.
Speaker 1 (50:57):
Oh no, this has been so wonderful Listeners.
Thank you so much for joiningus today.
I'm going to link Susan'swebsite her information in the
description of the podcast Ifyou want to look into anything
further.
Definitely I recommendexploring her books.
I've already earmarked a couplethat I'd like to purchase
myself, because this isimportant, and you've all heard
(51:20):
me say before how critical it isfor us to be really living
authentically.
And I don't mean a buzzword,authentic, I mean like, truly do
the work, because once you getthrough that, there's a hump of
emotion that you have to getthrough, or there's a hump of
work you have to get through.
The light that comes to youwhen you do this afterwards is
phenomenal.
So, susan, thank you again forjoining me today.
Speaker 2 (51:40):
Thank you, Jenny.
Speaker 1 (51:41):
Have a good one, thank you.
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