Ep. 748 - Steering Families: Navigating Dynamics and Roles | Ellen Chute

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Episode Transcript

(00:13):
Thank you for joining us, andwelcome to another edition of Answers Network.
I'm your host, Alan Cardoza,and each week this show will address many
ways of creating greater health, joyand love for you and those who care
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(00:36):
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(00:59):
or in some case has watched theshow, and especially those who are sending
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(01:21):
download a copy, give it twentyone days and comment on whatever platform you
listen to us on what focusing ongratitude has meant for you and your loved
ones, And if you'd like tosend them to us, go ahead,
send it into our website and Iwill read some of them on the air.
Now, as many of you know, if you've listened to this show,

(01:46):
you know that I believe that oneof the best ways for us to
make a positive difference in the worldis to focus on love, gratitude and
finding your own path to making adifference in the lives of others. Our
guest today is certainly doing that.She is Ellen shut and she is a

(02:07):
renowned practitioner, consultant, and educatorwith a lifelong commitment to empowering individuals,
families and teams. Now doesn't thatsound like what we're after though? As
the President of Empowerment Partners of BinghamFarms, Ellen has transformed countless lives through

(02:27):
her work as a clinical social worker, providing psychotherapy to individuals, couples and
families. She has also been anadjunct lecturer at the University of Michigan School
of Social Work since nineteen ninety eight, sharing her expertise with future generations of
professionals. Now Ellen's extensive experience includesconducting educational workshops for mental health professionals covering

(02:52):
critical areas such as trauma, socialwork, ethics, relationships, family development,
domestic abuse, and divorce. Nowrecognize it, She's been recognized for
her outstanding contributions in many ways.She was honored as the Prestige with the
Prestigious Men Mendel l and Madeleine H. Berman Award for Outstanding Professional Service in

(03:19):
twenty ten. Her expertise and insightshave made her a sought after expert in
the field, leading to regular appearancesin print and broadcast media. Now,
with her wealth of experience and passionfor empowering individuals, Ellen continues to make
a lasting and positive difference in thelives of countless people now. Through her
groundbreaking workbook What Drives You, Howour Family Dynamics Shape the people We become,

(03:46):
She invites readers to embark on atransformative journey of self discovery, unlocking
the secrets of their past to shapea brighter future. Ellen, Welcome to
Answers Network. Thank you, Alan, thank you so much for having me,
and I look forward to speaking withyou and your audience today. Well,

(04:08):
we've already had some questions that havebeen sent in, and I know
that I listened to your podcast,which, by the way, at some
point I want to make sure thatwe that we mentioned that as well.
It was interesting that you have youknow, it calls what it's called,
what drives you? And I knowthat you talk a lot about being in

(04:34):
the car. You know, thethings that we do in our car,
uh, you know, going onfamily trips and things like that. Let's
talk a little bit about how thisties together. Sure, So I use
the metaphor of a car to representa family, and whether you grew up

(04:58):
with a family that actually we hada car or not is kind of irrelevant.
This is just a metaphor. Weall grow up within the confines of
this metaphorical car, and everyone inthe family has their particular seat in the
car, and every car has itsrules, and every person in the family

(05:21):
has its role to play in thecar. While we're growing up, the
car, this unit or car,takes all of us in the family from
one day to the next day tothe next day, while the children are
developing, while everybody's getting older,and the car keeps us in a solidified

(05:48):
position where we are engaged with eachother involved with each other, and there's
a dynamic interaction of people between eachother. And in my opinion, it
is that interaction in our cars everyday that helps to shape our personalities.

(06:11):
It helps to shape how we think, what we do, how we view
other people. It's the most powerfulinfluence, I believe, other than our
own DNA, but it's the mostpowerful influence to us that we have in
our lives. And many of usthink that, well, we grow up

(06:32):
with our family and then we leaveour families, but we always take a
lot of that car with us.Even though most of us leave our families
of origin only to create our owncar or several cars after, in many
ways we still hold on to thatperson who we were in that seat in

(06:57):
our car growing up. Wemple,How did this metaphor resonate with your own
family experiences? Right? So itis it was my family experience that really
set me to wondering about families ingeneral. When I was a little girl,
so I was my mother and fathergot married immediately after the Second World

(07:26):
War and they had me as ababy, and when I was a young
baby, eighteen months old. Asa baby, my parents actually got divorced
and my father moved on, movedout of state, married someone else,
and I really had very very littlecontact with him after that. But my

(07:46):
mother went on also to get remarried, and the person that she remarried is
the person that I really think ofas my father. He's the one that
was there during my childhood and adolescenceand for the rest of my life.
And he did ultimately legally adopt me, but that really wouldn't have mattered.

(08:09):
He was who I thought of asmy father. So in our car,
if you think about the car metaphor, I was raised in a family where
there was a father in the driver'sseat and a mother in the passenger seat
in the front, and me asthe child, was in the back seat,
okay, and then all of asudden, when I was eighteen months

(08:31):
old, that driver was gone.In those days, it wasn't something that
you talked through with your children,and especially not an eighteen month old baby.
But what happened after he was gone. My mother was single until I
was seven, and so basically shemoved into the driver's seat of our car

(08:52):
and I moved up to the frontseat to be with her, and it
was her and I together for sevenyears and then she got married again.
And so if you think about myseat in the car, I went from
the back seat to the front seatto the back seat again as my yes,
as my father who raised me satin the driver's seat, and my

(09:18):
mother was in the front passenger seat. Now what I would say to you
about that is that even though mymother was in the front passenger seat,
she really told my father every moveto make in the driver's seat and probably
was the driver of the car eventhough she didn't sit in that seat.
And every car has their rules,and sometimes the rules are spoken, like

(09:41):
we don't scream and yell in thiscar, And sometimes the rules are not
spoken, but they're delivered through bodylanguage, messaging, punishment, things like
that. But in my car,the rule was spoken. And the primary
rule in my car was that littlegirls are to be seen and not heard.

(10:03):
And other women of my generation shaketheir heads vigorously when I say that,
because it was a very common beliefthen that little girls were to be
seen and not heard. So myrole in my car growing up was to
be in the back seat by myself. In my car, the other second

(10:24):
rule was that you always had tolook pretty, So I was sitting in
the back seat, trying to bea good girl. I didn't bother anybody,
I didn't need anything. I justtried to go along to get along
look pretty, so my parents wouldbe proud of me. And that was
my role in the car. Now, were you an only child the whole

(10:46):
time? It turned out that Iwas an only child the whole time.
My parents did try to have morechildren, but were unsuccessful at that.
So I was an only child.And I do firmly believe that had there
been someone else back there with me, it would have looked very different.
But because there wasn't, I justsat in the back and I was a

(11:09):
good girl. And so I learnedhow to not have a voice. I
learned how to keep things to myself. I learned how to take care of
what I needed on my own.I learned all kinds of stuff that much
of which has been really helpful forme, and some of which has really

(11:33):
held me back in my adult life. And I'll get to that, but
I when we're talking about how Icame up with this metaphor, so I
know. The interesting thing about ourlittle family was that coincidentally, each of
my parents were also only children,which meant that not only did I not

(11:54):
have siblings, but there were noaunts or uncles or cousins or extended family.
So it was really just the threeof us in my childhood existence.
But I always had lots. Oh, yes, I'm sorry, No,
I'm just now that The thought thatcomes to mind to me when you're saying
that is is that if they bothwere also only children, do you think

(12:20):
that they somehow felt that it wascompletely normal because of the fact that they
were raised the same way, Sowhy wouldn't it be completely normal for you
to grow up in kind of alonein the back seat type of thing.
Do you think that that had abearing on it. I think absolutely that

(12:43):
had a bearing on them, notreally tuned into my experience of it,
because they were used to that.They were probably also in the back seat
of their own cars. I dobelieve that it was pure biology that they
didn't have more children, because Iknow that they wanted more children. My
mother had many miscarriages that I remembergrowing up. So it definitely everything in

(13:09):
the car affects us. Doesn't haveto be bad, but it has an
effect on us. You know.It's something I had never thought of until
having this conversation with you. ButI spent the majority of my youth and
probably my younger adult years with almostan inability to be in the back seat

(13:35):
to the point that I would getmotion sickness. I mean I would get
sick, and yet if I satin the front seat, I wouldn't.
Just that difference of sitting in thefront seat versus the back seat. And
I've never thought of it like thisbefore until I'm thinking about what you're talking
about, and I'm wondering if thatwas something that I was manifesting, you

(14:00):
know, for I guess, however, it was that I was feeling when
I'm in the back. It's it'svery possible. I think that a lot
of people get sick in the backand not in the front. However,
I do believe that when we wouldtalk about you and your childhood, and

(14:22):
I would ask you where your seatwas in the car, it would probably
be either in the front, wasit in the middle of two parents,
or was it in one parent andyou in the front? Well, and
it started out, you know,I'm the oldest, and so it started
out being in the middle between theparents. Uh. And then my brother

(14:46):
came and then we were both putin the back. So now we were
both in the back unless you know, I was going somewhere one on one
with my dad. So if ifif he was going to you know,
if he was go to take meto a ball game or something like that,
if it was one on one.Now I'm back in the front seat
again. So anyway, it wasinteresting that Again, until until you know,

(15:13):
reading your workbook and and speaking withyou, I hadn't really put that
much thought into this, but it'sit's got me. It's got me thinking
now that that that right there isexactly the point when I ask people who
sat where in their car? UsuallyI start with, so, who was

(15:33):
in the driver's seat of your car? And they'll say to me, oh
my mom, oh my dad.And I'll say was was the other parent
in the car? And they'll say, oh yeah, And I say where
were they? And I've gotten answerslike, uh, in the trunk,
they were in another car, ridingalong the side of us. And it's

(15:58):
just just the is of those families, of how this person experienced their family
is so powerful to help us understandthat person's experience and how it might have
felt to them to be in theircar because as children, the truth doesn't

(16:19):
matter. The only thing that mattersis our truth, our perception of what's
going on, and we learn whowe are and make assumptions all on the
basis of that. Well, let'stalk a little bit about family roles and
either in your family car or insome of the experiences from people you've worked

(16:41):
with, Yes, how does thewhere you were in the car type of
thing translate later on to somebody whobecomes the funny one or the smart one,
or the troublemaker or the peacemaker.Right, So that's that's a really

(17:02):
good question. The role in thecar is really just to keep the car
going okay, and every car hasvarious roles. The thing about children's roles
is that we somehow as humans instinctivelyknow from infancy that we're going to try

(17:26):
to be something that isn't already inthis car. So if the first child
is the you know, overachieving,perfect one, the second child is not
going to be that. The secondchild could be a difficult one. It

(17:47):
could be the nicest one, theeasiest one in the family, just the
nicest one or the funniest one.Absolutely, now see this to me brings
up a whole nother thought as itrelates to birth order, because there's so
many things. I was just havinga conversation about birth order. There's so

(18:08):
many things that through through psychology andstuff, has been has been put at
as birth order, saying well,it's you know that you know this person
becomes this, and that I thinkyou're adding another dynamic to this to where
maybe it isn't it's just a coincidencethat the birth order person becomes this.

(18:33):
But could it also be where theysat in the car? At one hundred
percent, it is where they satin the car. Birth order matters because
the first child gets to pick one. And the way that children pick their
roles, and this is also frominfancy, is by trying something out and

(18:59):
seeing if it gets reinforced. Soif the first one tries out being the
good child, they're going to keepdoing it. But when the second child
is born and they try out beingthe good child, they don't get any
attention for it because the first oneis already getting that attention. So the

(19:19):
second child is going to try todo something different. And this is all
unconscious, just pure human instinct.The second child is going to try to
do something else to get noticed.Every child wants to get noticed, wants
to be important, wants to matter, wants to know that they are a

(19:44):
factor in this family. And somechildren do that with positive seeking things.
Some children do that with negative seekingthings. Some children do it because they're
the sick one, or they're theneedy one in some kind in some way.

(20:07):
Some children do it by being perfectlysatisfied. They don't need much attention
from anybody, but in the inside, they're really feeling not so good about
themselves because everybody around them seems likethey're getting attention. So it's it's different
in every family. But I willtell you when I work with people that

(20:30):
were always the difficult one in thefamily, and I would ask them,
so, your older sibling was sheyour older sister? Was she the good
and perfect one? And they invariablythey say, oh, yeah, for
sure, And I could never keepup to her. So everybody chooses a

(20:51):
role that is unique to them.One of the roles that has some of
the roles that have the most lifelasting effects is when someone's role is to
be the pleaser or the fixer orthe funny one. And the reason why
people do that as children is becausethey find that when they're smiling a lot

(21:18):
and don't seem to need too much, that everybody's happier and it makes their
environment better. So they keep doingit. But many roles turn out to
be oppressive. As adults, it'shard to live your life as the pleaser.
Well, let's discuss that. Solet's discuss you know, somebody has

(21:41):
has assumed a role. Yes,and let's talk about sort of the change
and growth of it. Because yourbook suggests that while our childhood identities drive
us, we can learn to steerin a new direction. So can you
share some instances where either you consciouslydeviated or somebody you've worked with is consciously
deviated from a childhood identity that waspart of their growth as a person.

(22:07):
Yes, So I can share many, many situations, but I'll start with
my own story. So I wasthe girl that grew up that didn't have
a voice, that wasn't allowed tohave a voice, And my entire adult
life has been about putting myself inplaces where my voice is going to be

(22:30):
valued. I'm an educator, I'ma therapist, I'm a public speaker.
All these places where people are basicallypaying money to hear my voice, which
is the only way that I knewwould guarantee that I would be able to
have a voice. As I havegotten older and have children and grandchildren and

(22:56):
husband, I have learned to usemy voice in many ways. But also
there's nothing that you could do orsay to me right now where I would
lash out at you. That's justnot in me. It was taken from
me. I'm not able to doit. So I did develop a voice.

(23:17):
I have developed a voice over mylifetime. My husband, on the
other hand, who was also areally good example, is the youngest of
five boys, and in his cargrowing up, this was literal and figurative
his car, they had one ofthose old station wagons where the back seat

(23:40):
was turned around to the outside ofthe car, so the back seat faced
out. And when I asked himwhere his seat was in the car,
that was his seat in the backseat, waving at the people in the
cars around him behind them. Yes, us right. And if you would

(24:02):
meet my husband today, he wouldcome at you in just the same way.
He learned to be very friendly.He learned to engage people outside of
the car in order for him toget noticed. And that's that's still very
very much what he does. Myhusband is also a social worker and an
educator and all those things, andhe had his family history was filled with

(24:30):
a lot of grave difficulty. ButI believe that we have the power to
not be what we don't want tobe. But I say that it's either
going to come naturally to us todo what we've always done, but with
intention, we can decide to makechanges, and our adult changes out of

(24:56):
our original roles are always in.We're speaking with Ellen Shoot and the book
is called What Drives You, Andwe're going to take a break. When
we come back, I'd like Ellento tell us a little bit about our
brain development and how it's influenced byour family dynamics. So for everybody out

(25:21):
there, stay with us. We'llbe right back. You're listening to or
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International dot com, Global Reach,Local Knowledge, and We're back. Our

(26:27):
guest is clinical social worker and educatorEllen Shoot And when we went to break,
I asked, how is our braindevelopment influenced by our family dynamics?
So I'm going to I'm going toexplain our brain development in a clinical social

(26:51):
workway. Our brain develops and growsthroughout our lifetime. When we are born,
the part of our brain that isfully developed is the brain stem,
or the reptilian part of our brain. And with the brain stem, our
behavioral responses to things are either fightor flight responses. As we grow older,

(27:18):
more parts of our brain develop andactually the prefrontal cortex part of our
brain, the part that does allof our executive function, that understands consequences,
that is able to think through thingsthat's not just black and white but
more in the gray, that partof our brain is not necessarily fully formed

(27:41):
until we're in our mid mid twenties. So the whole development process in this
car, our brain is developing.Now. The problem. There's good things
and bad things about that. It'sgreat for our brain to continue to develop,
but what we understand is that ourown personal experience in the car is

(28:06):
going to affect the way that ourbrain develops. So if we grow up
in a car where we feel likewe don't matter, like no one is
paying attention to us, in acar where we can't depend on somebody to
be there for us if we needthem, in a car where people are

(28:30):
not don't seem to care about howwe feel about things, in a car
that is parent centric instead of childcentric, we can develop very very negative
beliefs about ourselves, our worth,our value, our loveability, And we

(28:55):
can develop negative beliefs about other peoplethat we can't count on them, that
they're not dependable, that they don'ttake care of us, that they don't
care about us. Those things thatI just mentioned are all parts of what
we know to be trauma. Andwhen we grow up in a car where

(29:18):
there is this kind of emotional traumagoing on, and our way of handling
it is to think that it's becausewe're bad, which is what all children
do, or because other people aren'tto be trusted or relied upon. We
will have what's called disrupted neuro development, which will mean that our brains will

(29:44):
actually form in a traumatized way,which means that as we grow we will
have less ability to soothe our ownemotions. That when things upset us,
we're going to really get upset.And we also will have a hard time
returning back to a normal state afterwe have been triggered emotionally. And those

(30:11):
things are yes, no, no, no, go ahead, go ahead.
Those things are because of the waythat our brain developed, and we're
kind of stuck with that for therest of our lives. We can help
it, we can change it.But I have people saying to me,
I'm too sensitive, I'm too sensitive, And I know that when they say

(30:34):
that to me, it means thatthey have deep wounds inside and that when
something happens to them, it reallyhurts. So it's very much related to
our brain development. Now, youmentioned an adult centric car or a child
centric car, right, what wouldyou say is a good balance? And

(30:59):
how how does say young couple,how do they start out doing this and
get the best possible results or thebest possible situation for themselves and their children.
It's a great question. So thevery very most important thing in a

(31:22):
car is when parents understand their children'semotional states. So that means that if
something happens that a parent is sayingto a child, wow, how was
that for you? What did thatfeel like for you? Where the parent
is encouraging, constantly just asking abouta child's emotional state, what we call

(31:52):
validating the child's emotional state, andit's something that really can happen from birth.
The way that we validate infants,small infants is by tending to them.
When an infant cries. The infantneeds something, and crying is the

(32:13):
only vehicle that they have, andmaybe they don't need to be changed,
and maybe they don't need to eat, but maybe they do just need to
be held. And it's a commitment, especially during the first year, in
my opinion, to try to respondas much as you can to a needy

(32:36):
baby. And I know that thatcan lead to many sleepless nights. But
when the parent responds adequately to anew baby, a secure attachment is formed,
and that secure attachment can really changethe entire trajectory of a human beings
life. So what written what I'mgetting from that is that make that child

(33:07):
or I mean as they're growing up, I mean, but make them feel
as mentally and physically safe as possible, and talk a little bit about the
two different things. You know,how you can traumatize somebody by by not
making them feel physically safe, butyou can also traumatize them by not feeling

(33:30):
mentally safe. Right, so,physically safe, I think most people understand
that, although I will tell youI was at the mall the other day
and there was a woman ahead ofme going up an escalator with her look
like two year old two and ahalf year old child, and the woman

(33:51):
grabs the arm and the child isjust left to get on this escalator fending
for themselves. That would be physicalsafety that you extend your hand, you
help the child, But emotional safetyis a whole other thing. I would
encourage people to watch a very specific, very quick video on TV called the

(34:13):
still Face Experiment. This is anexperiment with a mother and a baby who's
about a year old, and themother is interacting with the baby, and
then they ask the mother to sitthere in front of the baby and not
respond, just have a blank face, a still face, and you see

(34:34):
this baby just the baby tries toget the mother to look at her.
She squeals, she squeaks, shepoints, and the mother is just there.
Even though she's there physically, thereis no there is physical safety.
And this goes on for a minuteor two minutes, and the baby just
completely folds over into sobs because tothat baby, that moment feels like life

(35:04):
or death. When our child isbeckoning us, and as parents were busy,
we're doing a million things, wehave all this stuff going on.
It's impossible to respond every single timeto a child that wants us. But
when we do respond, we couldsay something like, oh boy, I
was so busy, but I'm here, what do you need? Kind of

(35:27):
thing that My favorite example of thisis, and many people have you've been
behind a parent and a child ina grocery cart cart in the checkout line,
and the child sees the candy overthere, and the child wants the
candy, okay, and the parentshave a variety of responses to that.

(35:50):
Some parents say, no, we'renot having candy, we're not buying candy.
Some parents say, what you don'tdon't you don't want candy, You're
going home and having dinner, orit's not time for candy, And some
parents the validating response is that candylooks good, doesn't it, But we're
not going to get it right nowbecause we're going home to have dinner.

(36:12):
So in one case, we tellthe child it's okay to want it right
right, but we're not getting it. But when we try to tell the
child, you're bad for wanting itor you shouldn't want it. If you
were to say that to your partneror anybody that loved you, that is
such a beautiful whatever over there,and they were to look at you and

(36:37):
say, that's ridiculous. Why doyou think that. I mean, it's
silly, you know, And inboth situations, you're invalidating whatever it is
that they are feeling at that moment, which just makes no sense. Yeah,
well, the sense that it doesmake is that for many parents,

(36:59):
they don't really want to hear thechild's emotions. They themselves don't express emotion.
They don't want the child to haveany Things are much tidier and cleaner
when we just don't have any feelings. In my book, I talk about
four different kinds of families, andthe real family, where people are encouraged

(37:21):
to express their feelings when they're sad, when something's wrong. Real families are
messy. They're not neat and cleanand perfect. They're not little girls sitting
in the backseat looking nice and notsaying anything. Real families deal with the
hard stuff of life. They decidethat we're going to talk through it,

(37:44):
rather than one day you having toact that out. So many of us
were not raised in real families becauseat that time, nobody was a real
family. Everybody just did what theyshould. Now, real families are really
what has to be in order forchildren to live and have their feelings in

(38:08):
this very very difficult, complex worldwe live in. Well, we've got
about nine minutes left, but whatI would love for you to do is
to touch on a little bit aboutthese four types of families, and as
I think there's many people out therethat are going to identify with one of
them, Yes, and once,and if you can not only tell them

(38:30):
a little bit about it, butthen for those that identify with it,
be able to share something. Ifit's a very positive thing, then that's
great. You know, we're tellingpeople keep doing it. But if there's
something negative there, what's something thatthey can do that's going to shift that
and make it become more positive?Yes? Right, So I start with

(38:52):
the disconnected family, and I andI when I talk about these families,
it can be any socioeconomic group.It can be a two parent family,
it can be a divorce family,it can be a one parent family that
there's no demographic delineator. These typesapply to everyone. In the disconnected family.

(39:16):
The parent is often trying very veryhard to provide for the physical needs
of their children, but not necessarilythe emotional needs of their children. And
these are families that just put outtoday's fire today and move on to tomorrow

(39:37):
and put out tomorrow's fire tomorrow.Nobody has goals, nobody talks things through.
There's not opportunities to kind of learnfrom what happened yesterday, and it's
just whatever life is coming at meat the moment. We're going to deal
with children and disconnected families, andI've worked with men any disconnected families with

(40:01):
significant financial resources where both parents areout of the house working making money all
day, and the kids are kindof left to fend for themselves. Very
often an older spouse will be theone to remind a younger spouse about their
homework or something like that. Butthe thing that's missing from these families,

(40:25):
there's tons of really good, successfulfamilies where both parents work full time,
but you still need to be Yourchildren still need to depend on you.
You can't when you come home fromwork have used all of yourself up in
that time. It has nothing todo with how much people are working and

(40:50):
much more to do with how thechildren feel that you are there for them.
Okay, so that's the disconnected family. The next family is what I
call the perfect family. Now,I grew up in a perfect family.
We all did exactly what we should. Every family's ideas of should are different

(41:14):
based on their culture, based onall kinds of stuff. But I learned
growing up that if you just didthe right thing and married the right person
and all these things, that lifewould be wonderful, and there were no
feelings allowed in my family. None. I never, ever, the whole

(41:37):
time I was growing up, sawmy mother cry. I also never saw
my mother without makeup on, becausebefore anybody would see her, she would
be dressed and beautiful first thing inthe morning. And that's how my family
was perfectly quafft beautiful clothes, andthat's what we did, and we thought

(42:00):
that would be enough. If myparents were still alive, they would have
very little appreciation of this life Ihave created for myself right now, because
it just was not what they thoughtI should do. Well. I was
going to say, it's interesting thatyou're using the word should, And one

(42:22):
of the things that I know helpedme is when I realized that I needed
to stop shooting on myself right exactly. That's a phrase I use all the
time. But you know, evenif if we don't see it out loud,
it lives in that hamster wheel ofnegative voices that we have in our
head. And everybody should sor aboutdifferent things depending on what your family taught

(42:46):
you. Yes, so if yougrew up in a perfect family, or
if you're trying to raise a perfectfamily, I just would say, to
give yourself some grace, and maybethe step is to acknowledge to yourself what
you're really feeling. You don't haveto tell anybody, But when you grow

(43:07):
up not allowed to have feelings,it's really hard to have them as an
adult, and it's hard to letyour child, your children have them because
you're just uncomfortable with them. Okay, yeah, do that makes sense?
Okay, the next So then weI talk about the real family. Excuse

(43:35):
me. The real family is afamily where there's no feeling that's out of
bounds. We can talk about anythingin in the real family, we can
say what we feel. But thereal family is led by a parent or

(43:58):
two parents that are generally equal andboth have impact on the family, and
both step into the driver's seat whenit's most appropriate, each one of them
does. In the real family,the key to the real family is respect

(44:20):
and expression. We can talk aboutwhat we need to talk about with respect
to other people. We learn aboutother people, about compassion, We come
to understand that people have less thanus or more than us, but that
we're still worthwhile. All of thosekinds of things happen in the real family.

(44:45):
I always talk about real families beingmessy. In a perfect family,
kids get into the car after schooland the parent might say, how is
your day, and the kids willsay fine, and that's kind of the
end of the discussion. In themessy family, this kid gets into the
car and starts to cry, andthat kid gets into the car and starts

(45:06):
screaming at this kid for crying,and the parent is able to try to
bring everybody back to the moment andtalk through what needs to be talked through.
That's the real family, that isthe goal. The other unfortunate family
is so the disconnected family has noone in charge. The next level up

(45:32):
is a family where there is oneperson in charge who very much might be
a dictator who thinks that that personknows how every person in the family is
supposed to act and think and feeland believe. That's also a family that
doesn't allow for real feelings. Thetheme of that family is fear. And

(45:54):
when you grow up in a familyof fear, it's really easy to automatically
we do what it was done tous. It's very easy to grow up
and automatically think I need to bein charge, even I need to be
in charge and do it differently,but in the real family, it's more

(46:17):
of a democracy between the parents,and there is not a dictator, and
the goal is for everyone in thefamily to be heard. And you bring
up a good when you mentioned aboutthe dictator and people carrying that on.
I don't know if there's percentages oranything, but do you find that there

(46:37):
are more people that try to carrythat same thing because that's all they know,
or do you find an equal amountof people that rebel one hundred and
eighty degrees against it and then essentiallymake no decisions. Yes, Well,
what I would say is I've workedwith many people that grew up with a

(46:58):
dictator and hated being a dictator.Okay, what they learned with a dictator
was generally how to be a pleaserand how to and I try to give
people a lot of credit for thatbecause it was a life saving what we
call maladaptive behavior. At the time, it was adaptive. But as an

(47:22):
adult to always need to be apleaser to make your situation safe is is
hard to do and usually not andoftentimes not helpful. I won't say usually
I'm a pleaser. It's worked forme a lot of the time. I'm
a huge please pleaser. Yes,but I would say that one of this

(47:49):
I've done a lot of work inthe area of domestic violence, excuse me,
and the single biggest risk factor fora bully growing up in a home
with a violent father is that hewill just automatically model that behavior. When

(48:10):
you grow up with an angry parent, especially a boy with a father,
you learn that that's how you dealwith difficulty is by being angry. So
that's something that I would say.But I've worked with many people that had
angry mothers, angry fathers and said, at some point in my life,

(48:32):
I knew I was never ever goingto do that to my kids. I
would say I've had more of thosethan the other. The book is called
What Drives You? Ellen. Unfortunatelywe have run out of time. If
somebody wants to get a hold ofyou in the best places to get the

(48:52):
book, what are some other thingsyou'd like to share? On my website,
Ellen I shoot dot com. Youcan buy the book on the website.
You can listen to my podcast onthe website. Amazon is the best
way to find What Drives You,but you can also order it through any
local place you get your books,and it is an easy read, but

(49:19):
a very very powerful book that willhelp you to understand yourself and those people
in your family in a much morecompassionate way and to be able to be
more intentional about how you want tolive as an adult. Very well said,
and I second that I agree thatit is. It's an easy read.

(49:44):
It's in sort of a workbook format. So yes, you constantly feel
like you're growing, and that wasthe feeling. And so again for anybody
out there, we'll make sure thatall of the information is also on our
site answers dot now work, soyou'll get the right spellings and everything to
be able to great find Ellen onthe website and to be able to order

(50:07):
the book. Ellen, thank youso much, and not just for coming
on the show and talking about this, but for putting out a book that
really is it's a work book ofhow you can improve your life and the
life of all of your family members. Thank you Allan, I really appreciate
it. Thank you so much.You're so welcome. Now, for everybody

(50:30):
out there, i'd like you tojoin us the next two weeks. Okay,
so not just next week, butthe next two weeks, because we're
going to have an Answers Network HolidaySpecial. We've got two episodes that truly
embraced the mission of this show,One for its ability to help couples who

(50:52):
are struggling in their relationship to findthe reset button and regain the passion that
brought them together. The other forshowing us now improving our immune system can
be the single most important thing wecan do to improve our overall health and
longevity. So on December twenty fifth, we will feature the show that we

(51:12):
did with Chris Parsons and his bookis The Healthy, Happy Marriage Reset,
And it was awarded to that showbecause it got the most comments in twenty
twenty three from you, our viewersand listeners, and on this show and

(51:34):
in his book, Chris guides us, one step at a time into an
exciting, innovative strategy to heal yourrelationship and elevate it to new heights you
hadn't even imagined where possible. InJanuary first, twenty twenty four, our
New Year's show will feature the showthat we did with doctor Michael J.

(51:55):
Shay and his book The Biodynamics ofthe Immune Systm. It was awarded to
this show because it was the mostdownloaded show from the platforms that you find
Answers Network on. But Michael explainshow the five element theory of Eastern medicine
offers a method to reclaim our bodyand how in order to enact the full

(52:17):
benefits of the immune system, weneed to nurture a deep sense of safety
inside our own body. Now,I believe that the doctor of the future
will prescribe for many people and enthusiasticsocial life, strength training, a high
protein and good fats diet, hydration, grounding, sun exposure, and ten

(52:39):
thousand steps a day. And oneof the greatest gifts that you can give
your family and the world is ahealthy you, which is a very good
way to start the new year.So from all of us at Answers Network,
wishing you great health, incredible joy, and continued blessings for this holiday
and the season beyond. Thank youthat that that that