April 28, 2025 • 58 mins
In this episode, Dr. Dan and good friend & therapist Bridget Saladino explore the transformative power of the Nurtured Heart Approach in parenting and relationships. They discuss personal experiences with psychedelics, the challenges of parenting, and how a shift in perspective can lead to profound changes in family dynamics. The conversation emphasizes the importance of emotional connection and understanding in nurturing relationships, particularly in the context of parenting intense children. In this conversation, Dr. Dan and Bridget explore the transformative journey of parenting through the Nurtured Heart Approach. They discuss the impact of fear on relationships, the importance of training and personal transformation, and the practical application of the approach in various contexts. The conversation emphasizes the significance of focusing on the positive aspects of relationships and the power of energy in shaping interactions. Through personal anecdotes and insights, they highlight the effectiveness of the approach in fostering healthier relationships and resolving conflicts.
Find out more about Bridget and her work at www.BridgetoRelationship.com
Takeaways
Find out more about Bridget and her work at www.BridgetoRelationship.com
Takeaways
- The Nurtured Heart Approach can transform relationships.
- Psychedelic experiences can lead to profound emotional insights.
- Parenting often comes with anxiety and fear for the future.
- Connection and love are essential in parenting.
- Every child is unique and may require different parenting strategies.
- The importance of creating a safe emotional space for children.
- Transformative experiences can happen through intentional practices.
- Parenting is a journey of continuous learning and adaptation.
- Emotional neglect can have lasting impacts on children.
- A shift in perspective can lead to significant changes in family dynamics. Fear can cloud our perception and interactions.
- Conflict can be reduced through understanding and tools.
- Training can lead to profound personal transformation.
- The Nurtured Heart Approach emphasizes positive reinforcement.
- Energy in relationships can be either constructive or destructive.
- The approach is applicable beyond parenting to all relationships.
- Recognizing and appreciating the positive is crucial.
- The two wolves parable illustrates the importance of focus.
- Commitment to the approach is essential for success.
- Every interaction is a transfer of energy that shapes relationships.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Hello, and welcome to the Meeting Project podcast. I'm your host,
doctor daniel A Franz, and as always, thank you for
this opportunity to bring a little bit of mental health
and meaning and purpose and resilience in psychedelia to your day.
And actually we hit probably on all of those topics today.
Good friend and a peer of the Integrated Psychiatry Institute,
(00:40):
Bridget Saladino, is with me today, not talking about psychedelics,
of course, that comes into the conversation a little bit,
but she introduced an amazing idea to me. She has
done work in the Nurtured Heart approach of parenting, but
that also extends into, as she describes it, just about
(01:01):
every darn relationship we have. And so it was a
great conversation diving into this approach that she had both
personal and now professional experience with and how it truly
transformed her life. So she's got the links. You can
check the show notes because it's called the Nurtured Heart approach,
(01:23):
but the books and the references have slightly different titles,
so we've included those in the show notes to pick
them up. I know I'm going to because I can
see how they apply to quite a few people I
work with in my office also to my own life
and relationships as well. So here's Bridget Saladino talking about
the Nurtured Heart approach. Enjoy afternoon, Bridget. Good to see
(01:52):
you again. Thank you for taking the time to be
on the podcast again. It's so wonderful to see. How
are you today.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
I am great, and I'm excited to be here, and
I love that you're doing this, and I'm excited for
our convo and it is wonderful to see you as all.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
As always as all of that as I yours, you know.
Thank you again. So just a quick recap for those listening.
I mean you literally I rereadit you with pretty much
saving my life in Oregon. Came off the plane just
ridiculously ill had to go. You know, I was really
excited for our psilocybin journey, and I caught the funk
(02:36):
after hopping three or four airplanes to get to Eugene, Oregon,
and you just step right up again. We had kind
of known each other from our home groups with the
Integrated Psychiatry Institute, but man, the stuff you recommended in
that little grocery store in Eugene totally saved my life.
And my mushroom experience.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Yeah, I completely forgot about that. Yeah, that was fun
to play fake naturopathic doctor for five minutes. Thank keeping
my guinea pig.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Perhaps it worked. It worked. And those those cough drops
you gave me, I'm such a fan man. I went
through those so quick.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
So yeah, on guard off drops. I buy them every
month and we burned through them. They're so good at
keeping the junk at bay.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
But absolutely so. Yes, we met through Integrative Psychiatry Institutes
Psychedelic assistant therapy training. We've been in the same home
group together every other week. That's been fun watching the
trials and tribulations of our peers going through all kinds
of things, including psychedelic assistant therapy. But the cool thing
(03:44):
about home group is we get to share about what's
going on in the real world as well. And then
we got to hang out and trip together in beautiful
Eugene or again like life changing, Yeah, and I mean,
do you want to share a little bit of about
how it changed your life?
Speaker 2 (04:01):
M Well, yes, I wasn't planning on that. I'm happy
to and I just made an interesting connection that might
be helpful on this podcast episode. You know, I've had
this tumultuous relationship with my younger daughter. She's now nineteen,
(04:22):
almost twenty, and we're going to talk a little bit
more about that today. But I went into my psychedelic
journey with this intention around, you know, what is needed
to bring more love, healing and connection in the world
with my clients, but in particular with my younger daughter.
(04:46):
I have two daughters. And that journey was you know,
it was more than one thing. It was a million
and one things, most of which cannot be described, but
leave the imprint of beauty and majesty and mystery and Thailand.
I had this wild imprint of Thailand. And then White
(05:09):
Lotus came out and was set in Thailand.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Oh wow, I didn't even think of that.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
I know, I know, it so funny, But I got
this feeling as a parent, we live with so much
fear and anxiety and worry and planning and excitement and
all of that idea that we can sort of do
something to save our kids, or fix our kids, or
put them on the right path, or control them in
(05:35):
any way.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
And I left my journey with the deepest, most profound
sense that my kid is okay. She doesn't aid me
she is going to be all right no matter what happens,
because it's so much bigger than this, and so my
journey was really very beautiful. I came out of it.
(05:59):
I joke, I'm kind of psychedelically naive, as they say,
but I came out and asked jokingly if they'd given
me MDMA instead, because I have never felt and I've
never had MDMA, but I have never felt so loved,
in love with everyone around me, and just at peace
(06:23):
with everything, like this beautiful sense that literally everything is
totally gonna be okay. So that was my journey. You've
probably shared on your podcast about yours.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
FN times, but I love that idea. I mean, that
is one of the most powerful things about psilocybin, is
that just overwhelming sense of everything's going to be okay.
And boy, I think we need more parents to try that,
because I just had that conversation this week with a
parent of young ones, like we get so especially with
our first one. I don't know, you know, I want
to assume most people with their first one are so
(06:57):
tight with everything's got to be perfect. Oh my god,
everything I do is going to affect this child's happiness
when they're twenty and ability to be product a productive
citizen when they're thirty. And how are they going to
feel wh they're forty If I don't give them the
right serial right now? WHOA Like if I don't have
the right TV shown right now, They're going to turn
out to be a criminal instead of a successful member
(07:18):
of society. It's like, WHOA. First of all, we don't
have that much power over parenting.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Most of us are trying to do the right thing
every day anyway, whether we're reading books are talking to therapists.
But it is a hard job. I used to joke
like it doesn't have a training manual. It has thousands
of training manuals if you go look at a bookstore,
online or everything, and we all have to kind of
find our own way. But boy, there's a lot of
anxiety there, so much.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
And it comes from the best place. Our worst fears
come from the best place of love.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
For you know, I'm taking that with me. Our worst
fear has come from the best place. That's beautiful. Did
you just make that up on the spot or is
that like a bridget wiseness? Okay, you need to bring
that into therapy office. Maybe the book, there was Yeah,
there you go. Now, I love how he's like you.
(08:15):
You came out of it just feeling this immense sense
of love. I know I had that too. I've described
kind of the moment I felt that you happened to.
This is one of that weekend of my entire time
with IPI and our training. What you said when you
came out of your journey or when we were processing
it is perhaps one of the funniest things I have
heard in all of our studies. Do you remember what
(08:38):
you said?
Speaker 2 (08:40):
No, I don't.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
You don't remember making everybody laugh uproariously, Oh you said,
I have. It was a pretty much what you just
said it out. I love you all.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Yeah so much. I love you all so much. I
don't remember exactly what I said, but something like this
that it might border on inappropriate, right.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
I love you all so much, and maybe a little
inappropriately or so along those lines. And I mean, we're
going around the room and everybody's kind of sharing, and
some people have rough journeys and pleasant journeys and lovely
Jersey journeys. But for you to say that, and everybody
was just like, we giggled, we laughed, we chuckled. We snorted,
but we were like, yeah, I you know what I was.
I was there and in a different in some ways,
(09:27):
so you just kind of summed it up so well,
thank you.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Yeah. I kept telling my sitter slash slash new best friend, Oh.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
My goodness, he's amazing.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
I was like, don't let me touch anyone like I
just I just want to hug. I don't think I
would actually do anything inappropriate.
Speaker 4 (09:49):
But I just like just and I'm Cuban and we're
just affectionate, and I just wanted to squeeze and incorporate
everyone into my being, just like, yeah, a lot of.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Leaves you feelings. So yeah, and that's that's one of
the reasons through our training when we talk about MDMA
and that experience and having a like, now, I'm not
even worried about studying MDMA really because it's not legal
yet and because of the cost, but because in my experience,
psilocybin is so similar and we're starting to see opportunities
(10:23):
to whether it's retreats or other situations, I think there's
definitely a future for it ahead of us.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm very excited where this whole field
is headed and Yeah, the beauty of transformation, which is
part of what we're here to talk about, and the
power of like shifting something inside of you, this deep
knowing that we don't get very often. And you know,
(10:49):
I joke, I don't have a horrible traumatic background, but
I'm very curious, and I like, I'm a little bit
of a control freak, and I like everything to kind
of go better, right, I just want everything kind of
like constant improvement. And so I've been in and out
of therapy for thirty years. You know, I get a hangnail,
call the therapist. Heg. You know, I just I like
(11:12):
that was an overstatement, but yeah, I was.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Just saying I didn't learn about that in grad school
and I haven't taken the training on it, but I will.
I will hangnail psychotherapy. I'm a big fan of psychotherapy.
Speaker 5 (11:23):
But like it's especially if you have insurance, especially if
it's just like, you know, a five dollars copay to
go talk to some expert and you can just like
blah and they're gonna give you something really meaningful or
humorous or helpful anyway.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
So I joke that I've been in and out of
therapy for thirty years, probably more out than in. But nevertheless,
and never ever in all of that time did I
arrive at the feeling or the knowing that I got
to in one psilocybin journey. And that's what blew my mind.
Speaker 6 (12:01):
Just yeah, yeah, yeah, And again for the listeners, we
are talking about a very therapeutic preparation, dosing, integration, therapeutic journey,
not what I've started to call the Dave Matthews version
or what some people call the grateful dead slash fish version.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Right, this isn't about popping a few mushrooms and going
off to a concert, which seems enjoyable from what I've heard,
except for those who haven't had a good time and
can induce paranoia and anxiety and all kinds of other
horrible feelings. The way we do it is definitely measured
and therapeutic and integrative, and even for those that may
have had a difficult time, but especially for those of
(12:40):
us that had a pleasant journey, it is amazing and
life changing and informative in all of these great things.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
So thank you, doctor Dan. Back around bringing it around,
that's all the way around. It is not you know,
don't try this at home, kids, And it is the therapeutic.
I mean the research even that you only get this
benefit that we're talking about if it is done in
a certain way, you know, through a ceremonial process, through
(13:08):
creating a very safe container. I mean, we created holy ground.
And I'm not a religious person, but it was so
beautiful what our little random cohort from all over the
world created together.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Yeah. Yeah, in a strip mall in you downtown Eugene,
literally created like this amazing sacred space. But that's part
of it, right, like doing the work to do that
and not just throwing them down your gullet to see
what happens. Yeah, but yes, I know we can talk
about this. We had a goal because you mentioned something
(13:43):
in group I believe it was an home group the
other day about the nurtured Heart approach, and I do
as I mentioned a lot of work with parents and
a lot of my friends or parents. We were actually
this may come into it. We were talking about a
method called kitty Jail that pretty interesting. Good friend says
(14:04):
it really worked well with their kid. As I was
reading it, I'm like, well, it was interesting and it
was helpful for them. I had to talked a lot
about retribution and repayment, So that was good. But you
talk about the nurtured Heart.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Approach, it doesn't involve like dog kennel's or anything like that,
does it.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
I can neither confirm nor deny that. I'm kidding. I'm kidding.
I believe they did refer to a yoga mat as
the timeout space, but even that yoga mat, some of
the time limits Kitty Jail was recommending is far more
than the what was it one minute per year or
something like that. It was. It was it was like timed,
(14:46):
somewhat like incarceration, like you have a sentence handed down
and you have to serve that sentence. So it's it's
an interesting idea I did see. I think the therapist
that created it may have been somewhat of a criminologist,
so I can see how it manifested, and I think
in desperate times, maybe desperate measures are needed. I'm not
sure I fully agree with that. I'd love to hear
(15:09):
more about the nurtured Heart approach though, and maybe how
because you both have personal and professional experience.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
I do, I do, so you know. The nurtured Heart
approach was founded by a child psychologist named Howard Glasser
about thirty years ago. And while I know nothing about
Kitty Jail other than what you've just described, I'm going
to venture a guess to say that the nurtured heart
(15:38):
approach is maybe quite the opposite, and it might not
be right. But so I found this approach because well,
I have an intense I have two daughters. My younger
(15:58):
daughter is very intense. She is a bright, freaking ray
of sunshine and a storm like she like like lightning,
like I think of the first humans who discovered fire
and didn't understand its power, its beauty, it's potency, it's danger.
(16:22):
And so I brought this incredible human being into the world,
or she came into the world through me. I developed
virus when she was in utero, and so you know,
she came out wildly different than her older sister, who
was a cakewalk, you know, just kind of an easy child.
(16:46):
Made me look like the world's best parent, probably because
I didn't have to do very much well. Aged difference
two years and two months.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
That's fascinating. And I'm going to get in so much
trouble if I continue to talk about my second born
on this podcast. But don't think she listens very similar now,
except for the virus, and I'm sure that has an impact.
But you're right, there's something about firstborns. And it may
be because I am one that I say this, but
it's like, we're so dang easy, and then number two
comes along and they just shatter all those expectations.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Yeah. Yeah. Years and years and years ago, I was
working with an early elementary school teacher who focused on reading,
and she I had taken my younger daughter to see
her for a little tutoring, and she made this comment
that has lingered forever, and she said, second children take
(17:39):
the weaknesses of the first child and make them their strengths.
So spot on, right, I'm one of I'm the oldest
of two girls. I have two daughters. I watched them interact.
You know, I've got these cute little pictures of when
they were together. The younger when kind of looking over
(18:01):
at the older one like you know, who are you whom?
What are we doing here? You know it's that there's
this sweet like what's my place? Right?
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (18:10):
I always saw that more as like that kind of
more nefarious, like how do I defeat you and take
your place? But I like the fact that you put
such a sweet I kind of kid, but maybe a
little serious, Like I have some of those pictures too,
and they're so beautiful. And now I look at it,
I'm like you were plotting, You were you were trying.
There was there was something very right right, like literally,
(18:35):
how do I make how do I make you? A
weakness is my strength?
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Oh gosh. Well, anyway, my my second daughter was beautifully
intense and challenging for me. And I was a single
mom for a lot of her childhood in particular, and
(19:03):
you know, we butted heads and we also like love fiercely.
I sort of talked about how what kind of a
lover I am, you know, and she's very much the
same way. In many ways. She was my mini me
and also my you know, nemesis. And when hormones kicked
in and sadly, I gave her a cell phone, which
(19:25):
that's a challenge every parent has to sort out and
feel and pay the consequences for. And YadA, YadA, YadA.
We're not here to talk about that.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Well and just to really like a side piece on it.
There's no great research about when and where and how
right we are all, Like the research is happening now
and might be out in five years and twenty years
from now, we're going to look back to that research
and say, oh, we had that so wrong. So you're right.
Every parent has to navigate that on their own.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
It is. It is excruciating, both the choice, the decision,
the kids pressuring you want, you know, wanting to be
the best bearing you can be, trying to figure out
what the right thing to do, and you know, also
help your kid not be completely ostracized. And there's that's
a whole.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
A seven more podcasts.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
It is. It is, well say, but you know, it
had an influence, like it has an influence on all
of us, and it felt to me as a parent
like the wheels started falling off the bus and things
started getting more difficult. The connection was starting to kind
(20:35):
of splinter and fracture a little bit. And I will say,
and I'm not here to talk about this, but we
had a very significant trauma in our family. And so
you add that to the age of thirteen, to a
new cell phone, hormones, middle school, big family trauma. My
focus went from you know, trying to I mean, we
(20:58):
all try to be the best parent we could be.
I was also running a startup company at the time,
and so I didn't have the energy for her that
she needed, and kind of in many ways, you know,
she was always really independent, so it was easy to
(21:19):
just sort of assume, I guess that she was going
to be okay anyway. In hindsight, right, I think she
experienced some emotional neglect, like did not get what she needed.
And then as we got in this kind of litigation
(21:41):
cycle that we were in, there was just a lot
of negative energy in the house, and she'd come out
of her room and being intense and being kind of
a you know, she's a force in the world and
she's supposed to be, but at the time I didn't
have eyes to see that, and so she'd come out
of her room and invariably do something in a way
(22:05):
that I didn't like, and so she'd get corrected a lot.
And she started to feel like every time she came
out of her room she got yelled at, and so
she started staying in a room more, and then she
started doing other things that angry teenagers find ways to do.
And over about three years, things really went to how
(22:32):
can I say hell on your podcast?
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Absolutely it sounds hellish.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
It was hellish. It was like a war zone and
police at our house, you know, running away, abstance abuse,
all kinds of heightened.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
And we're talking at like age sixteen.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
You're saying, right, fifteen, fifteen sixteen, terrifying, really terrifying, really scary,
really enraging. Right, I felt entitled to you know, her,
respect to her following the house rules. Right, I was enraged.
My voice, as it probably already has, can get animated,
(23:13):
it can get loud. I mean, I'm generally not like
a screamer, but we humans, we get angry, we get disregulated,
and it was happening with everybody in that family. Finally,
and I'm very well educated, I'm trained, I'm working with
other parents. I think I know my stuff, and then
(23:38):
I've got this intense kid. So I quote unquote tried
everything I've really thought. I tried everything. I powered through
every single book I could find. All of them were
helpful to me, but didn't really move the needle with
my kid. And then finally, one day, another therapist on
(24:01):
some online group commented, check out the Nurtured Heart approach,
and the book is called the Book. The original book
by Howard Glasser is called Transforming the Difficult Child. I
was like, well, that titles Apropos sign me up. And
so I got halfway through this book. My kid was
(24:24):
still just coming absolutely unglued. I literally felt like I
somehow was the wrong parent for her, and I couldn't
do it anymore. And I took her to a hospital.
I was going to drop her off in a long
term residential setting, and I really felt like somebody else
(24:46):
needed to take over. I couldn't do it anymore. And
she did the whole intake and they came out and
she said, she's not suicidal enough. We can't keep her.
And I said, you can't send her home. Neither she
nor I feel safe, and they said, sorry, we'll call
you at the end of the day after we talked
(25:07):
to the insurance company. We'll see if we could do
anything else for you, but we can't help you. She
was furious, I mean, she was fearous that I was
taking her there, and then she was furious to come
back home because the intake at a residential facility, which
teenagers are terrified of for good reason, after some documentaries
have come out recently, right, she was terrified, still didn't
(25:29):
want to come home with me. So I said to myself, well,
I've read half of this book. I don't know what
else to do. I've got to give this a try.
It kind of makes some sense, the very little bit
that I knew, and I'll get into explaining it a
tiny bit. But I started it that afternoon, and the
(25:52):
next morning woke up, different house, different kid. She did
not recognize my voice normally.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Come on, I know we're talking. This is like as
miraculous as ketamine or psilocybin.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
Fraculous as anything in my life has ever been.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
And after that first morning, so I went to knock
on her door to wake her up for high school,
which she's skipping, and then she went right and couldn't
get out of her own and and literally this was
typically one of the worst parts of both of our days,
me trying to wake her up for high school, screaming
at me from inside her room, saying all kinds of
(26:34):
things that are not appropriate on air, calling me the
most vile yet creative things imaginable like brutal, you know,
And I would walk up to her door every morning,
I'm like, oh gosh, I can't believe I have to
do this again.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
This is how you're starting your day with that kind
of tension.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Every day, every day for both of us. It was
just awful. So anyway, I went up to her door.
But once I decided, once I felt like I understood
this approach enough and I decided to implement it. I
knew I had to like fully embrace this new approach,
(27:15):
and I did, and I had a real shift in
my heart, in my mind, in my mind's eye, and
so my voice, I believe was actually different. But I
knocked on our door to wake her up, and she said,
who's that. Who's at my door? Right? And I knocked
again and I said, sweetie, you know it's time to
(27:37):
get up for school or whatever I said. And her
sister was out of the country. But she said, is
that Bella or big sister? And I said, no, it's
your mom. She came out of her room, right. She
was curious what was different. She came out of her
(28:00):
I'm like, hey, you're up, You're out of your room.
It's great to see you. Looks sunny today. Right. Everything
shifted in that first week, and we had gone from
at least a year what I described as that ugly,
really really ugly morning routine. Every interaction we had was
(28:21):
like that for about a year. It was just unhinged.
We went from the dark underworld to having lunch together
three times in the first week of using this approach yep, yep,
lunch out like adults having lovely conversation about our lives.
(28:44):
I mean it, you know, Thinking back on that, it
was just it was unreal. I think I was just
as stupefied as she was. Neither one of us really
knew what was happening. I didn't declare to her that
I had read book or that I had changed the
way I was thinking at the end of that first week,
(29:05):
though I did write her an email. It actually started
with my own kind of journaling reflection on everything that
had changed and been different that week. And as I
started this kind of journaling, I was like, look at
all of the things that she's done differently and that
I've done differently. And I ended up eventually turning it
into an email that I sent to her because verbal
(29:28):
processing a lot of words for me was still too
much for her right so I just wanted her to
be able to read it on her own time. But
by the end of it, I was sobbing. You know
how we do when we have these kind of I
slash heart opening moments, and I realized that I had
(29:49):
been operating out of only fear, and my fear had
led me to see everything that I was worried about,
rite those worries that we talked about coming fro from
a really good place, a really good place of deep passionate, devoted,
loyal love for her. But it just, you know, that
(30:12):
fear just kept growing. And so anyway, I sent her
this beautiful email and then we went almost three years
with no conflict. So from years her entire life of
challenging interactions to three years without conflict. Now I'm not
(30:32):
saying that there weren't moments of frustration or escalation, but
conflict where you know, two people are in the dance
of escalation and dysregulation we did not have. I had
learned the tools to step back, to give space, to reframe,
(30:57):
to see things differently, to encourage something different in her,
and to get a different outcome. And so I very quickly,
you know, finished the book, found as many resources as
I could online. There was a training coming up. I
spent money I didn't have at the time. I knew
(31:17):
that our lives depended on it, and I went and
got training directly from the founder, and was this.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
Training for a parent or training for a clinician for
both all.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Of the above. It's a certified trainer intensive and so
most of the people are clinicians educators, and you know,
there were a handful of parents in there, but it's
geared towards people, you know, in kids' lives in one
way or another. But anyone can go. Anyone can go
(31:48):
to these trainings anyway. So it's a week long, forty hours.
I sobbed through the entire forty hours. I was in
a small little home group and they were like bridget
and I'm like, I'm okay, guys, don't worry about me.
This is good, this is healing. Like I'm so good.
But I literally sobbed through the entire week's training and
(32:08):
I was fundamentally on a cellular DNA level, a different
person after that training. And then because it was such
a positive experience, I went back to their next training,
got advanced training from the founder. And now it's been
how long's it been? Three and a half years. I
(32:32):
now serve on one of the boards of the organization.
I'm all in, like super and total evangelist. It's just
I give it and Howard Glasser who saw this and
came up with this very simple mob. I give him
credit with saving my teen daughter's life. I mean, things
were in a very dark place, and so you know
(32:57):
you're probably wanting to hear more about the approach.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Yeah, I gotta ask, like, what is the secret, sauce
what happened that m But before I do it, like,
you made a really good point when you said it
changed you on a molecular cell your level. I'm sitting
here thinking like, how do we right? Because I'm not
gonna sit here point fingers because i know as a parent,
I've been in those dances too, and I know most
of the parents I've talked to get in that dance
of getting to that point of getting ready to knock
(33:24):
on that door for something as simple as it's time
to get up and go to school. But when you've
experienced that negative reinforcement so many times, right, and so
many times could be five or fifty five, right, you
said it had been a whole year, you go knock
on that door, and that tension and that neural wiring
that has seen the same thing every day is is
(33:46):
just pois for battle. I could imagine, right, you feel
that tension your voice changes. What I'm like, I can't wait,
like I have so many questions and I can't wait
to hear, like, what is the what did you do
that magical? You just tried to put your daughter in
an institution less than twenty four hours before, correct, that's
(34:08):
what I heard you say. You took her to a
residential facility where they asked her intimate details about her thoughts,
her feeling, suicidality, and then they said, no, good luck,
take this kid home, and the next morning everything's changed.
If I was allowed to say BS on my own podcast,
(34:28):
I will yes your initials. Of course, there's no way.
But I know, I know you. You're an evangelist for this,
You're you're living proof. What what you can't give away
the whole ship? But what is the whole? What is
the secret? Sauce?
Speaker 2 (34:45):
Secret sauce? I will give this one caution and caaviat
that most people don't experience an overnight transformation. And I
feel almost guilty talking to about mine. I think that
I had some unique forces, not forces, I had some
(35:05):
unique tools and training already at play that really did help.
I don't know. I mean, the one thing I know
I did. Somewhere in the book, Howard says something along
the lines of the degree of crisis because most of
(35:26):
these kids, I mean the title transforming the difficult child,
So most people, you know are picking this up because
they know a difficult child and they think that there's
a crisis going on or whatever. And so he makes
this comment something like, you know, the degree of crisis
should equal the degree of intervention of applying this approach, right,
(35:47):
so you know, you're kind of not half assing it.
And I remember thinking at the time, I have the
worst kid in the world. I mean, I of course
I didn't, but at the time I believed we were.
I felt that way, right, I felt it in my
bones and my cell like I just and so I
(36:08):
was like, I've got the worst kid ever. I guess
I'm gonna have to hit this one hundred and ten percent.
And so I just freaking did what it's said to do,
which was very simple. The entire approach is boiled down.
I think of it like a reduction sauce of all
the wisdom. Of course, you know it's it's not perfect,
(36:29):
and I'm sure it doesn't apply to some people. But
I've yet to see anyone who hasn't had remarkable healing
and change in their relationships using this approach. And it
actually applies to all human relationships. I even use it
with my dogs sometimes. It is not a parenting approach.
That is how it first came about. That is the
(36:53):
title of the book, but there are now other books
for you know, married couples. It's the same thing. It
is really just a It is a relational approach that
changes the way I don't know if you can hear
that weird beeping in the background in my computer's malfunctioning
(37:13):
a tiny bit, but okay. It is a relational approach
that changes the way we the way that we feed
or energize the good and the bad in a relationship.
And so I guess I was saying. I think of
(37:36):
it like a reduction sauce, where Howard has boiled it
down to something so simple you can't really forget it
when you're in the hornet's nest or the heat of
the moment. It's one of one, two, or three things.
It's all you have to remember. The entire approach boils
down to what he calls stands, but three stands or
(37:58):
you know, approaches and quickly. The stands are one stand one,
and he calls them stands because you have to take
a stand. This isn't easy. This is actually the opposite
of you know how our brains are hardwired to see
the negative to keep us alive, YadA YadA, old conditioning
(38:19):
and patterning. Right, So we're we're turning something inside out.
We're turning our brains inside out. So you have to
take a stand to do this. But stand one, did you.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
Have to commit one hundred and ten percent admit it something? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (38:35):
Yeah. So stand one is I will not it's no.
The first word is no, No, I will not energize
the negative and what I don't want to see more of.
And that was I had been doing. I had fallen
into the trap of only seeing the negative and energizing that,
(38:57):
giving it all my time and lecture and juicy relational connection.
Was do you have a one o'clock cli it or
do you need to go wow, we've been not talking
for a while. Okay, So stand one, No, I will
not energize the negative and what I don't want to
see more of. And then, of course each stand extrapolates out.
(39:20):
There's a lot of training about kind of how to
do that, and we're not just ignoring kids, and we're
not just letting them run wild. And right, there's more
to it, but the reminder of I'm just not going
to energize what or don't want to see more of it.
Stand two is yes, I will absolutely energize the positive.
I will look for and recognize and appreciate all that
(39:45):
is going well around me. And guess what, there's always greatness.
There is always a million and one thing's going right.
There are also always a million and one thing's going wrong.
It is easy to so easy to find. Ask me
to describe what was wrong with my dining experience a
(40:06):
couple of nights ago. I could go on and on
and on. Ask me to describe what is going right
with you know, the person suffering from homelessness on my sidewalk.
I'm at a loss to describe what's going right. I'm
not anymore. But right, that's our conditioning of how we think.
And then Stand three is clear or clarity, and so
(40:32):
finding our real clarity, not all of our wishy, watchy
wants and you know, partial demands. And Stand three is
where we get clear. It's where consequences live. But I'm
not even going to take time to talk about that.
And you know, no surprise to you. Every parent who
(40:55):
comes to me with a kid in crisis, they're like,
help me understand stand three, help me understand the consequences.
And I'm like, nope, not until you understand the major
mental shift of stand one and stand two. And so
you and your listeners have probably heard the Parable of
the Two Wolves.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
Yes, but please share your version anyway, because that is
such a beautiful story and I can totally see where
it fits right here.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
Yep, fits right here. And I feel like this parable
really helps people kind of feel the approach. And so
it comes from a Cherokee Native parable. A grandfather and
grandson are talking. The grandson comes home from school where
(41:46):
he got angry and he broke a friend's toy, and
he says, grandfather, I'm sad I hurt my friend. I
just I don't know why I get like this sometimes,
And the grandfather said, I understand. I feel that way
sometimes too. Sometimes I feel like I have this wolf
inside of me that is anger and fear and jealousy,
(42:09):
and when that wolf gets awakened, it takes over my
whole spirit and it harms the people I love, and
it hurts our community. But I also feel like I
have another wolf that lives inside of me, and this
wolf is goodness and love and kindness and patience. And
this wolf also, when it gets awakened, it takes over
my whole spirit. And I bring love to our family,
(42:32):
to our community. But sometimes, Grandson, I feel like these
two wolves are at war inside of me. And the
grandson says, well, Grandfather, which wolf wins in the end,
And the grandfather says, whichever one I feed. And I
love that so much, And to me, that is kind
(42:56):
of my north star of this approach. Now, I learned
at some point after learning about the approach. This isn't
in the book, but I learned that one of the
first laws of science is that energy can neither be
created nor destroyed, so it already exists. It can only
(43:17):
be transferred or transformed. And so everything, every conversation, every
material or living item around me, is just some transfer
of energy that has already existed, right, So we're just
giving or receiving energy. And so what am I energizing?
(43:39):
What I'm energizing I am feeding? What I'm feeding grows?
What do I want to see more of in my daughter.
I can focus all day law and did for years
on what I didn't want to see more of. But
guess what, that's where she got relationship from me. That's
(43:59):
where I showed up. That's where I gave her time
out of my very busy schedule. Right. So the second
kind of bookend, So this idea of energy and kind
of what we're feeding is I think of it as
one of two bookends of the approach. And the other bookend,
really quickly, is that we can't give what we don't have.
(44:24):
If I need a hundred bucks and you don't have
it in your account, you can't give it to me,
no matter how hard do you want to. And what
we know from our work is that most people want
to do well, and most people do the best they can,
including our kids, including our basflle intense, passionate, creative children.
(44:46):
They want to do well. They don't want to be
in trouble, most of them, as we know statistically, it's
a tiny fraction, tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of the population
that genuinely doesn't want to do well, and guess why
because of childhood trauma. So let's assume the best right
our kids. They want to do well, and they can
(45:09):
only do as well as the inner wealth, as Howard
puts it, as the inner wealth that they possess inside
of them. And So, if I want my child to
be responsible, but I'm constantly pointing out ways in which
she's irresponsible, how does she begin to think of herself? Right?
Speaker 7 (45:30):
If I see a tiny, microscopic seed of responsibility somewhere anywhere,
the tiniest I am now feeding with miracle grow and
watering and holding that in the sunshine and energizing that,
you know what, out of it, and telling her how
(45:53):
responsible she was in that moment, and that I loved
seeing her responsibility, right, really reflecting what people, all of
us already possess.
Speaker 2 (46:06):
Right, your wife, Like, let's take this out of the
parenting dynamic for a split second. Your wife possesses all
kinds of I mean, I assume you're married. I think
you're married.
Speaker 1 (46:16):
Yeah, right, I'm going to have to ask her about today.
I don't know. I may have made a mistake, but
I think today I am still wait.
Speaker 2 (46:23):
I'm making assumptions here, But yes, I think I've heard
you talk about your wife. In fact, now I remember
that you have, But anyway, your wife has wonderful qualities,
tons of them. It's why you fell in love with
so many.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
Feel like you've met her absolutely.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
And I'm guessing she'd gotten under your skin before. And
annoying what we annoy each other? What's part of just
being human. We're so like beautifully messy, and we have
these amygdalas and these nervous systems that they're just trying
(47:00):
to keep us alive, and they get in the way
of a lot of right, and so you know, what
do we do. We get our feelings hurt by our partner,
buy a colleague, buy a boss, and we focus on
that and we talk about it. We want everyone to
understand why our feelings were hurt or why we're mad,
(47:21):
or why that's not acceptable instead of and there's way
there's not enough time to talk about how we really
kind of implement nurtured heart. I mean, stand one where
we're not energizing the negative, but for the sake of brevity,
we just don't energize what we don't want to see
more of. And there's a lot of ways that we
(47:41):
do that, but we then reframe. So part of this
is cognitive behavioral therapy, right, reframing. I literally in that
first day, that afternoon that I had to start the approach,
as I kind of was barely getting my head wrapped
around it. I was like, there, there is nothing good.
There's no good. What am I gonna What am I
(48:03):
gonna find that I'm gonna energize or recognize or appreciate.
There's nothing. She comes out of her room a vile
monster towards me, right literally, and that's how she saw
me as well. I wasn't brightening up my face when
I saw her. I was bracing every time her doorknob.
She has the noisiest doorknob in the house, right, every
(48:24):
time her doorknob, with everyone in the family would brace, right.
Speaker 1 (48:28):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (48:29):
Oh, And so I made a list. I'm like, okay,
I know how to do CBT. I'm going to attempt
a reframe. I made a list of the top ten
things I hate about her, and I reframed all of them.
Speaker 1 (48:46):
That's a tough list, but I like how you reframed it.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
It's a tough list. But I was hurting and I
was angry, and I was in crisis, and so many
more parents are than want to admit it, and it
is ugly in those dark moment, and I was doing
it not to make the list of things I hate.
I was doing it as a way to find the reframe, right,
And you can.
Speaker 1 (49:08):
Choose right there, you make that list, and like you did,
you can feed the opposite because every negative has a positive,
every positive has its shadow, and you chose to feed
the positive. But many of us can make that list
and be like ooh and this one, and I really
er right, you can really dive into that and feed
that negativity. I love the idea when you boil it down,
(49:30):
that this really it's I'm sure in its exposition it's
not simple, but the way you describe it, it's a
choice to energize the positive or the negative, to make
a meaningful decision, to focus on one thing or another.
Speaker 2 (49:46):
Good summary. Yep, Yeah, it's on and on and on.
Speaker 1 (49:51):
Oh I love it. Okay, So I totally wasn't going
to bother picking up the book, But now I'm picking
up the book because I can think of quite a
few people in my office that would benefit from this.
And you know, I love the idea that it's a
heck of a relationship approach too. This isn't just about kids,
but this is about couples and relationships friendships as well.
Speaker 2 (50:13):
Yeah, one of my favorite stories to tell is my
partner is this big construction guy. He's a superintendent. Well
he isn't at the moment. He's doing some design and
inventing stuff, which is amazing, But he's this construction guy
and he was in superintendent for years on big commercial
job sites, working with lots of subs, big company. And
(50:35):
he uses the nurtured heart approach on his construction job
sites and with very well, he uses it pretty much
with everyone now, but he uses it with very difficult owners,
difficult you know, stakeholders. And this. I've got two great
little vignettes. But one was he was in a staff
(50:56):
meeting and all the superintendents, you know, we're asked the question,
how do you keep your subs in control? How do
you keep them in line? How do you keep them
on time?
Speaker 1 (51:04):
You know?
Speaker 2 (51:04):
And all these subs, and most of them are older
and gruffer, you know, are going around the room, the
virtual room. Well, I threaten them with this, and I
you know, I've got my demand letters ready to go,
and all iterations of threatening and energizing negative right, And
(51:24):
my partner, who's a little bit quieter, a little bit shy.
He said to himself. He's like, I have to say something.
Speaker 1 (51:32):
You know.
Speaker 2 (51:32):
He didn't speak up in a lot of meetings, but
he's like, well, guys, honestly, I think our subcontractors are
like most humans, and they appreciate being appreciated for what
they're doing well. And my subcontractors they make mistakes, but
they do a lot of things well. And I find
that when I recognize what they're doing well and when
(51:55):
I show appreciation, they show up for me. They stay
after hour, they show up on the weekend, and you know,
truth be told, he was one of the most beloved
superintendents by his colleagues, by his bosses, by the owners. Anyway,
(52:17):
Another quick little vignette is he had a very difficult
developer as a client who was refusing to pay for something.
And it was, you know, out of this multimillion dollar project.
We're talking less than ten grand, but it was a
hassle and the guy had drawn a line and he
wasn't going to pay for it. And there were all
(52:37):
these emails back and forth for months, and it was
getting very very heated, and my partner was sitting there
one day and we were at the dining room table
in the evening and he was like, I don't know
what to do anymore. I don't know how to reply
to this guy. And I think I had just come
out of my second CTI nurtured heart training, and I
was like, let me have a stab at it. So
I take the email. I nurtured hard it right. Just
(53:01):
the main content stayed the same, this is what we need,
but I changed the language. I started out with recognizing
how patient he's been the owner, how you know, he
forced the whole team to learn it and grow, you know,
to find new resources. Appreciated him for that. And then
the clarity, the stand three clarity, right, And there's precise
(53:23):
language that we use around stand three clarity. It's time
or I need you to and you say it with
neutral clarity. But it's not what she washed She right, right,
And fifteen minutes later, you know, my partner sat the email.
Fifteen minutes later, the owner's assistant called and said, we'll
pay for it. So you know, from romance to construction
(53:49):
job sites to parenting old or not difficult, it's it's
it is a relational approach that I think heals. I
think it's healing in the world. I think it heals reallyships.
It's everywhere around the planet. And so it's the big book,
it's not really that big. If the main book, Transforming
the Difficult Child is too much or too big, there's
(54:10):
now an audiobook. There's also a little cliffs Notes work
book called Transform the Intense Child work Book and that
you can get through in a weekend.
Speaker 1 (54:22):
I tell you what, I'm going to ask you to
send me to the links to that. We will definitely
put it in the show notes. So I think here
in the past hour, in this little old podcast, we've
solved all the world's problems in a little you know,
a little bit of mushroom and a lot of nurtured
Hart approach, and everybody's gonna be okay, whether it's difficult kids,
(54:45):
or difficult relationships or difficult jobs. Like I love this
and it I mean, we bridget We could spend days
talking about it because it goes so it really expands
on just good psychology, good research past one hundred years.
There's there's a phenomenon in kids called the Gollum effect
and the Pigmalion effect. Right when you when you focus
(55:07):
on the negative kids will be negative. When you focus
on the positive, kids will be positive. Right, And that
just boils down to you know, some good cognitive all
these things we've been studying for decades. I really think
this is quite a spectacular approach and I'm certainly going
to read it. I hope other people do. Once again,
it has been a joy to chat with you. Thank
(55:28):
you so much for taking the time to share with
my audience, to share personally your story of difficult parenting.
It's you know, I think it's it's affirming to many
of us to like for many people to recognize, hey,
we therapist maybe have studied a lot and work a
lot in these areas, but even we struggle, and when
we do, we've got to figure out, you know, what
solutions work for us. And this is definitely a positive
(55:50):
and powerful.
Speaker 2 (55:53):
Thanks Dan, Thanks for asking and listening and understanding. I mean,
it just resonates.
Speaker 1 (56:00):
So yeah, yeah, well, I think we had at least
one more home group or another cloud. We are wrapping
up I PI, which is bittersweet, mostly sweet, a little
bitter because then you know, I hear you're hosting a
retreat for all of us to get back together out there. Importantly,
so can't wait for that. And our good friend Nick
Tea Cups is gonna is gonna come out and be
(56:22):
there too.
Speaker 2 (56:24):
I love it. I can't wait to go.
Speaker 1 (56:28):
Absolutely you have a wonderful afternoon. Thanks again, Bridget, Thanks
you too, Bye and there you go. What a amazing story,
what a beautiful soul, what a great conversation, and what
a fun time. As I've said before, I am so
lucky to have this job and to get to meet
(56:51):
these people and share these ideas with you. So I
hope you go out there and grab the book. It
will be in the show notes. It is the show Notes,
and you know that's a good place to start. If
you want to find out more about Bridget and her work,
you'll probably have to get a hold of me. I
don't think she's got a website, and I think she's
got a pretty full caseload, but I can always make
(57:13):
an introduction if you're interested in the Meanwhile, grab the
book about the Nurtured Heart Approach. If if I want
to find out more about what I'm up to, what
kind of work I'm doing, and any upcoming ketamine or
psychedelic assisted retreats, feel free to take a look at
daniel A Franz dot com as d A n i
e l A f r a n Z dot com,
(57:34):
or you're always welcome to check me out on the socials.
I think the podcast has always posted on Twitter and Facebook.
I do a little bit more on Facebook, some work
on on LinkedIn. Look. As I've shared before, not great
with the social media, but it's out there. The best
way is to contact me directly via email and check
out the upcoming Meaning project community In the meanwhile, thank you,
(57:56):
as always for this opportunity to bring a little bit
of mental health meaning, purpose and resilience to your day.
Take care, H
Hello, and welcome to the Meeting Project podcast. I'm your host,
doctor daniel A Franz, and as always, thank you for
this opportunity to bring a little bit of mental health
and meaning and purpose and resilience in psychedelia to your day.
And actually we hit probably on all of those topics today.
Good friend and a peer of the Integrated Psychiatry Institute,
(00:40):
Bridget Saladino, is with me today, not talking about psychedelics,
of course, that comes into the conversation a little bit,
but she introduced an amazing idea to me. She has
done work in the Nurtured Heart approach of parenting, but
that also extends into, as she describes it, just about
(01:01):
every darn relationship we have. And so it was a
great conversation diving into this approach that she had both
personal and now professional experience with and how it truly
transformed her life. So she's got the links. You can
check the show notes because it's called the Nurtured Heart approach,
(01:23):
but the books and the references have slightly different titles,
so we've included those in the show notes to pick
them up. I know I'm going to because I can
see how they apply to quite a few people I
work with in my office also to my own life
and relationships as well. So here's Bridget Saladino talking about
the Nurtured Heart approach. Enjoy afternoon, Bridget. Good to see
(01:52):
you again. Thank you for taking the time to be
on the podcast again. It's so wonderful to see. How
are you today.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
I am great, and I'm excited to be here, and
I love that you're doing this, and I'm excited for
our convo and it is wonderful to see you as all.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
As always as all of that as I yours, you know.
Thank you again. So just a quick recap for those listening.
I mean you literally I rereadit you with pretty much
saving my life in Oregon. Came off the plane just
ridiculously ill had to go. You know, I was really
excited for our psilocybin journey, and I caught the funk
(02:36):
after hopping three or four airplanes to get to Eugene, Oregon,
and you just step right up again. We had kind
of known each other from our home groups with the
Integrated Psychiatry Institute, but man, the stuff you recommended in
that little grocery store in Eugene totally saved my life.
And my mushroom experience.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Yeah, I completely forgot about that. Yeah, that was fun
to play fake naturopathic doctor for five minutes. Thank keeping
my guinea pig.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Perhaps it worked. It worked. And those those cough drops
you gave me, I'm such a fan man. I went
through those so quick.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
So yeah, on guard off drops. I buy them every
month and we burned through them. They're so good at
keeping the junk at bay.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
But absolutely so. Yes, we met through Integrative Psychiatry Institutes
Psychedelic assistant therapy training. We've been in the same home
group together every other week. That's been fun watching the
trials and tribulations of our peers going through all kinds
of things, including psychedelic assistant therapy. But the cool thing
(03:44):
about home group is we get to share about what's
going on in the real world as well. And then
we got to hang out and trip together in beautiful
Eugene or again like life changing, Yeah, and I mean,
do you want to share a little bit of about
how it changed your life?
Speaker 2 (04:01):
M Well, yes, I wasn't planning on that. I'm happy
to and I just made an interesting connection that might
be helpful on this podcast episode. You know, I've had
this tumultuous relationship with my younger daughter. She's now nineteen,
(04:22):
almost twenty, and we're going to talk a little bit
more about that today. But I went into my psychedelic
journey with this intention around, you know, what is needed
to bring more love, healing and connection in the world
with my clients, but in particular with my younger daughter.
(04:46):
I have two daughters. And that journey was you know,
it was more than one thing. It was a million
and one things, most of which cannot be described, but
leave the imprint of beauty and majesty and mystery and Thailand.
I had this wild imprint of Thailand. And then White
(05:09):
Lotus came out and was set in Thailand.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Oh wow, I didn't even think of that.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
I know, I know, it so funny, But I got
this feeling as a parent, we live with so much
fear and anxiety and worry and planning and excitement and
all of that idea that we can sort of do
something to save our kids, or fix our kids, or
put them on the right path, or control them in
(05:35):
any way.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
And I left my journey with the deepest, most profound
sense that my kid is okay. She doesn't aid me
she is going to be all right no matter what happens,
because it's so much bigger than this, and so my
journey was really very beautiful. I came out of it.
(05:59):
I joke, I'm kind of psychedelically naive, as they say,
but I came out and asked jokingly if they'd given
me MDMA instead, because I have never felt and I've
never had MDMA, but I have never felt so loved,
in love with everyone around me, and just at peace
(06:23):
with everything, like this beautiful sense that literally everything is
totally gonna be okay. So that was my journey. You've
probably shared on your podcast about yours.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
FN times, but I love that idea. I mean, that
is one of the most powerful things about psilocybin, is
that just overwhelming sense of everything's going to be okay.
And boy, I think we need more parents to try that,
because I just had that conversation this week with a
parent of young ones, like we get so especially with
our first one. I don't know, you know, I want
to assume most people with their first one are so
(06:57):
tight with everything's got to be perfect. Oh my god,
everything I do is going to affect this child's happiness
when they're twenty and ability to be product a productive
citizen when they're thirty. And how are they going to
feel wh they're forty If I don't give them the
right serial right now? WHOA Like if I don't have
the right TV shown right now, They're going to turn
out to be a criminal instead of a successful member
(07:18):
of society. It's like, WHOA. First of all, we don't
have that much power over parenting.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Most of us are trying to do the right thing
every day anyway, whether we're reading books are talking to therapists.
But it is a hard job. I used to joke
like it doesn't have a training manual. It has thousands
of training manuals if you go look at a bookstore,
online or everything, and we all have to kind of
find our own way. But boy, there's a lot of
anxiety there, so much.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
And it comes from the best place. Our worst fears
come from the best place of love.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
For you know, I'm taking that with me. Our worst
fear has come from the best place. That's beautiful. Did
you just make that up on the spot or is
that like a bridget wiseness? Okay, you need to bring
that into therapy office. Maybe the book, there was Yeah,
there you go. Now, I love how he's like you.
(08:15):
You came out of it just feeling this immense sense
of love. I know I had that too. I've described
kind of the moment I felt that you happened to.
This is one of that weekend of my entire time
with IPI and our training. What you said when you
came out of your journey or when we were processing
it is perhaps one of the funniest things I have
heard in all of our studies. Do you remember what
(08:38):
you said?
Speaker 2 (08:40):
No, I don't.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
You don't remember making everybody laugh uproariously, Oh you said,
I have. It was a pretty much what you just
said it out. I love you all.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Yeah so much. I love you all so much. I
don't remember exactly what I said, but something like this
that it might border on inappropriate, right.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
I love you all so much, and maybe a little
inappropriately or so along those lines. And I mean, we're
going around the room and everybody's kind of sharing, and
some people have rough journeys and pleasant journeys and lovely
Jersey journeys. But for you to say that, and everybody
was just like, we giggled, we laughed, we chuckled. We snorted,
but we were like, yeah, I you know what I was.
I was there and in a different in some ways,
(09:27):
so you just kind of summed it up so well,
thank you.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Yeah. I kept telling my sitter slash slash new best friend, Oh.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
My goodness, he's amazing.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
I was like, don't let me touch anyone like I
just I just want to hug. I don't think I
would actually do anything inappropriate.
Speaker 4 (09:49):
But I just like just and I'm Cuban and we're
just affectionate, and I just wanted to squeeze and incorporate
everyone into my being, just like, yeah, a lot of.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Leaves you feelings. So yeah, and that's that's one of
the reasons through our training when we talk about MDMA
and that experience and having a like, now, I'm not
even worried about studying MDMA really because it's not legal
yet and because of the cost, but because in my experience,
psilocybin is so similar and we're starting to see opportunities
(10:23):
to whether it's retreats or other situations, I think there's
definitely a future for it ahead of us.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm very excited where this whole field
is headed and Yeah, the beauty of transformation, which is
part of what we're here to talk about, and the
power of like shifting something inside of you, this deep
knowing that we don't get very often. And you know,
(10:49):
I joke, I don't have a horrible traumatic background, but
I'm very curious, and I like, I'm a little bit
of a control freak, and I like everything to kind
of go better, right, I just want everything kind of
like constant improvement. And so I've been in and out
of therapy for thirty years. You know, I get a hangnail,
call the therapist. Heg. You know, I just I like
(11:12):
that was an overstatement, but yeah, I was.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Just saying I didn't learn about that in grad school
and I haven't taken the training on it, but I will.
I will hangnail psychotherapy. I'm a big fan of psychotherapy.
Speaker 5 (11:23):
But like it's especially if you have insurance, especially if
it's just like, you know, a five dollars copay to
go talk to some expert and you can just like
blah and they're gonna give you something really meaningful or
humorous or helpful anyway.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
So I joke that I've been in and out of
therapy for thirty years, probably more out than in. But nevertheless,
and never ever in all of that time did I
arrive at the feeling or the knowing that I got
to in one psilocybin journey. And that's what blew my mind.
Speaker 6 (12:01):
Just yeah, yeah, yeah, And again for the listeners, we
are talking about a very therapeutic preparation, dosing, integration, therapeutic journey,
not what I've started to call the Dave Matthews version
or what some people call the grateful dead slash fish version.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Right, this isn't about popping a few mushrooms and going
off to a concert, which seems enjoyable from what I've heard,
except for those who haven't had a good time and
can induce paranoia and anxiety and all kinds of other
horrible feelings. The way we do it is definitely measured
and therapeutic and integrative, and even for those that may
have had a difficult time, but especially for those of
(12:40):
us that had a pleasant journey, it is amazing and
life changing and informative in all of these great things.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
So thank you, doctor Dan. Back around bringing it around,
that's all the way around. It is not you know,
don't try this at home, kids, And it is the therapeutic.
I mean the research even that you only get this
benefit that we're talking about if it is done in
a certain way, you know, through a ceremonial process, through
(13:08):
creating a very safe container. I mean, we created holy ground.
And I'm not a religious person, but it was so
beautiful what our little random cohort from all over the
world created together.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Yeah. Yeah, in a strip mall in you downtown Eugene,
literally created like this amazing sacred space. But that's part
of it, right, like doing the work to do that
and not just throwing them down your gullet to see
what happens. Yeah, but yes, I know we can talk
about this. We had a goal because you mentioned something
(13:43):
in group I believe it was an home group the
other day about the nurtured Heart approach, and I do
as I mentioned a lot of work with parents and
a lot of my friends or parents. We were actually
this may come into it. We were talking about a
method called kitty Jail that pretty interesting. Good friend says
(14:04):
it really worked well with their kid. As I was
reading it, I'm like, well, it was interesting and it
was helpful for them. I had to talked a lot
about retribution and repayment, So that was good. But you
talk about the nurtured Heart.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Approach, it doesn't involve like dog kennel's or anything like that,
does it.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
I can neither confirm nor deny that. I'm kidding. I'm kidding.
I believe they did refer to a yoga mat as
the timeout space, but even that yoga mat, some of
the time limits Kitty Jail was recommending is far more
than the what was it one minute per year or
something like that. It was. It was it was like timed,
(14:46):
somewhat like incarceration, like you have a sentence handed down
and you have to serve that sentence. So it's it's
an interesting idea I did see. I think the therapist
that created it may have been somewhat of a criminologist,
so I can see how it manifested, and I think
in desperate times, maybe desperate measures are needed. I'm not
sure I fully agree with that. I'd love to hear
(15:09):
more about the nurtured Heart approach though, and maybe how
because you both have personal and professional experience.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
I do, I do, so you know. The nurtured Heart
approach was founded by a child psychologist named Howard Glasser
about thirty years ago. And while I know nothing about
Kitty Jail other than what you've just described, I'm going
to venture a guess to say that the nurtured heart
(15:38):
approach is maybe quite the opposite, and it might not
be right. But so I found this approach because well,
I have an intense I have two daughters. My younger
(15:58):
daughter is very intense. She is a bright, freaking ray
of sunshine and a storm like she like like lightning,
like I think of the first humans who discovered fire
and didn't understand its power, its beauty, it's potency, it's danger.
(16:22):
And so I brought this incredible human being into the world,
or she came into the world through me. I developed
virus when she was in utero, and so you know,
she came out wildly different than her older sister, who
was a cakewalk, you know, just kind of an easy child.
(16:46):
Made me look like the world's best parent, probably because
I didn't have to do very much well. Aged difference
two years and two months.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
That's fascinating. And I'm going to get in so much
trouble if I continue to talk about my second born
on this podcast. But don't think she listens very similar now,
except for the virus, and I'm sure that has an impact.
But you're right, there's something about firstborns. And it may
be because I am one that I say this, but
it's like, we're so dang easy, and then number two
comes along and they just shatter all those expectations.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Yeah. Yeah. Years and years and years ago, I was
working with an early elementary school teacher who focused on reading,
and she I had taken my younger daughter to see
her for a little tutoring, and she made this comment
that has lingered forever, and she said, second children take
(17:39):
the weaknesses of the first child and make them their strengths.
So spot on, right, I'm one of I'm the oldest
of two girls. I have two daughters. I watched them interact.
You know, I've got these cute little pictures of when
they were together. The younger when kind of looking over
(18:01):
at the older one like you know, who are you whom?
What are we doing here? You know it's that there's
this sweet like what's my place? Right?
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (18:10):
I always saw that more as like that kind of
more nefarious, like how do I defeat you and take
your place? But I like the fact that you put
such a sweet I kind of kid, but maybe a
little serious, Like I have some of those pictures too,
and they're so beautiful. And now I look at it,
I'm like you were plotting, You were you were trying.
There was there was something very right right, like literally,
(18:35):
how do I make how do I make you? A
weakness is my strength?
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Oh gosh. Well, anyway, my my second daughter was beautifully
intense and challenging for me. And I was a single
mom for a lot of her childhood in particular, and
(19:03):
you know, we butted heads and we also like love fiercely.
I sort of talked about how what kind of a
lover I am, you know, and she's very much the
same way. In many ways. She was my mini me
and also my you know, nemesis. And when hormones kicked
in and sadly, I gave her a cell phone, which
(19:25):
that's a challenge every parent has to sort out and
feel and pay the consequences for. And YadA, YadA, YadA.
We're not here to talk about that.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Well and just to really like a side piece on it.
There's no great research about when and where and how
right we are all, Like the research is happening now
and might be out in five years and twenty years
from now, we're going to look back to that research
and say, oh, we had that so wrong. So you're right.
Every parent has to navigate that on their own.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
It is. It is excruciating, both the choice, the decision,
the kids pressuring you want, you know, wanting to be
the best bearing you can be, trying to figure out
what the right thing to do, and you know, also
help your kid not be completely ostracized. And there's that's
a whole.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
A seven more podcasts.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
It is. It is, well say, but you know, it
had an influence, like it has an influence on all
of us, and it felt to me as a parent
like the wheels started falling off the bus and things
started getting more difficult. The connection was starting to kind
(20:35):
of splinter and fracture a little bit. And I will say,
and I'm not here to talk about this, but we
had a very significant trauma in our family. And so
you add that to the age of thirteen, to a
new cell phone, hormones, middle school, big family trauma. My
focus went from you know, trying to I mean, we
(20:58):
all try to be the best parent we could be.
I was also running a startup company at the time,
and so I didn't have the energy for her that
she needed, and kind of in many ways, you know,
she was always really independent, so it was easy to
(21:19):
just sort of assume, I guess that she was going
to be okay anyway. In hindsight, right, I think she
experienced some emotional neglect, like did not get what she needed.
And then as we got in this kind of litigation
(21:41):
cycle that we were in, there was just a lot
of negative energy in the house, and she'd come out
of her room and being intense and being kind of
a you know, she's a force in the world and
she's supposed to be, but at the time I didn't
have eyes to see that, and so she'd come out
of her room and invariably do something in a way
(22:05):
that I didn't like, and so she'd get corrected a lot.
And she started to feel like every time she came
out of her room she got yelled at, and so
she started staying in a room more, and then she
started doing other things that angry teenagers find ways to do.
And over about three years, things really went to how
(22:32):
can I say hell on your podcast?
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Absolutely it sounds hellish.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
It was hellish. It was like a war zone and
police at our house, you know, running away, abstance abuse,
all kinds of heightened.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
And we're talking at like age sixteen.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
You're saying, right, fifteen, fifteen sixteen, terrifying, really terrifying, really scary,
really enraging. Right, I felt entitled to you know, her,
respect to her following the house rules. Right, I was enraged.
My voice, as it probably already has, can get animated,
(23:13):
it can get loud. I mean, I'm generally not like
a screamer, but we humans, we get angry, we get disregulated,
and it was happening with everybody in that family. Finally,
and I'm very well educated, I'm trained, I'm working with
other parents. I think I know my stuff, and then
(23:38):
I've got this intense kid. So I quote unquote tried
everything I've really thought. I tried everything. I powered through
every single book I could find. All of them were
helpful to me, but didn't really move the needle with
my kid. And then finally, one day, another therapist on
(24:01):
some online group commented, check out the Nurtured Heart approach,
and the book is called the Book. The original book
by Howard Glasser is called Transforming the Difficult Child. I
was like, well, that titles Apropos sign me up. And
so I got halfway through this book. My kid was
(24:24):
still just coming absolutely unglued. I literally felt like I
somehow was the wrong parent for her, and I couldn't
do it anymore. And I took her to a hospital.
I was going to drop her off in a long
term residential setting, and I really felt like somebody else
(24:46):
needed to take over. I couldn't do it anymore. And
she did the whole intake and they came out and
she said, she's not suicidal enough. We can't keep her.
And I said, you can't send her home. Neither she
nor I feel safe, and they said, sorry, we'll call
you at the end of the day after we talked
(25:07):
to the insurance company. We'll see if we could do
anything else for you, but we can't help you. She
was furious, I mean, she was fearous that I was
taking her there, and then she was furious to come
back home because the intake at a residential facility, which
teenagers are terrified of for good reason, after some documentaries
have come out recently, right, she was terrified, still didn't
(25:29):
want to come home with me. So I said to myself, well,
I've read half of this book. I don't know what
else to do. I've got to give this a try.
It kind of makes some sense, the very little bit
that I knew, and I'll get into explaining it a
tiny bit. But I started it that afternoon, and the
(25:52):
next morning woke up, different house, different kid. She did
not recognize my voice normally.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Come on, I know we're talking. This is like as
miraculous as ketamine or psilocybin.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
Fraculous as anything in my life has ever been.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
And after that first morning, so I went to knock
on her door to wake her up for high school,
which she's skipping, and then she went right and couldn't
get out of her own and and literally this was
typically one of the worst parts of both of our days,
me trying to wake her up for high school, screaming
at me from inside her room, saying all kinds of
(26:34):
things that are not appropriate on air, calling me the
most vile yet creative things imaginable like brutal, you know,
And I would walk up to her door every morning,
I'm like, oh gosh, I can't believe I have to
do this again.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
This is how you're starting your day with that kind
of tension.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Every day, every day for both of us. It was
just awful. So anyway, I went up to her door.
But once I decided, once I felt like I understood
this approach enough and I decided to implement it. I
knew I had to like fully embrace this new approach,
(27:15):
and I did, and I had a real shift in
my heart, in my mind, in my mind's eye, and
so my voice, I believe was actually different. But I
knocked on our door to wake her up, and she said,
who's that. Who's at my door? Right? And I knocked
again and I said, sweetie, you know it's time to
(27:37):
get up for school or whatever I said. And her
sister was out of the country. But she said, is
that Bella or big sister? And I said, no, it's
your mom. She came out of her room, right. She
was curious what was different. She came out of her
(28:00):
I'm like, hey, you're up, You're out of your room.
It's great to see you. Looks sunny today. Right. Everything
shifted in that first week, and we had gone from
at least a year what I described as that ugly,
really really ugly morning routine. Every interaction we had was
(28:21):
like that for about a year. It was just unhinged.
We went from the dark underworld to having lunch together
three times in the first week of using this approach yep, yep,
lunch out like adults having lovely conversation about our lives.
(28:44):
I mean it, you know, Thinking back on that, it
was just it was unreal. I think I was just
as stupefied as she was. Neither one of us really
knew what was happening. I didn't declare to her that
I had read book or that I had changed the
way I was thinking at the end of that first week,
(29:05):
though I did write her an email. It actually started
with my own kind of journaling reflection on everything that
had changed and been different that week. And as I
started this kind of journaling, I was like, look at
all of the things that she's done differently and that
I've done differently. And I ended up eventually turning it
into an email that I sent to her because verbal
(29:28):
processing a lot of words for me was still too
much for her right so I just wanted her to
be able to read it on her own time. But
by the end of it, I was sobbing. You know
how we do when we have these kind of I
slash heart opening moments, and I realized that I had
(29:49):
been operating out of only fear, and my fear had
led me to see everything that I was worried about,
rite those worries that we talked about coming fro from
a really good place, a really good place of deep passionate, devoted,
loyal love for her. But it just, you know, that
(30:12):
fear just kept growing. And so anyway, I sent her
this beautiful email and then we went almost three years
with no conflict. So from years her entire life of
challenging interactions to three years without conflict. Now I'm not
(30:32):
saying that there weren't moments of frustration or escalation, but
conflict where you know, two people are in the dance
of escalation and dysregulation we did not have. I had
learned the tools to step back, to give space, to reframe,
(30:57):
to see things differently, to encourage something different in her,
and to get a different outcome. And so I very quickly,
you know, finished the book, found as many resources as
I could online. There was a training coming up. I
spent money I didn't have at the time. I knew
(31:17):
that our lives depended on it, and I went and
got training directly from the founder, and was this.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
Training for a parent or training for a clinician for
both all.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Of the above. It's a certified trainer intensive and so
most of the people are clinicians educators, and you know,
there were a handful of parents in there, but it's
geared towards people, you know, in kids' lives in one
way or another. But anyone can go. Anyone can go
(31:48):
to these trainings anyway. So it's a week long, forty hours.
I sobbed through the entire forty hours. I was in
a small little home group and they were like bridget
and I'm like, I'm okay, guys, don't worry about me.
This is good, this is healing. Like I'm so good.
But I literally sobbed through the entire week's training and
(32:08):
I was fundamentally on a cellular DNA level, a different
person after that training. And then because it was such
a positive experience, I went back to their next training,
got advanced training from the founder. And now it's been
how long's it been? Three and a half years. I
(32:32):
now serve on one of the boards of the organization.
I'm all in, like super and total evangelist. It's just
I give it and Howard Glasser who saw this and
came up with this very simple mob. I give him
credit with saving my teen daughter's life. I mean, things
were in a very dark place, and so you know
(32:57):
you're probably wanting to hear more about the approach.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Yeah, I gotta ask, like, what is the secret, sauce
what happened that m But before I do it, like,
you made a really good point when you said it
changed you on a molecular cell your level. I'm sitting
here thinking like, how do we right? Because I'm not
gonna sit here point fingers because i know as a parent,
I've been in those dances too, and I know most
of the parents I've talked to get in that dance
of getting to that point of getting ready to knock
(33:24):
on that door for something as simple as it's time
to get up and go to school. But when you've
experienced that negative reinforcement so many times, right, and so
many times could be five or fifty five, right, you
said it had been a whole year, you go knock
on that door, and that tension and that neural wiring
that has seen the same thing every day is is
(33:46):
just pois for battle. I could imagine, right, you feel
that tension your voice changes. What I'm like, I can't wait,
like I have so many questions and I can't wait
to hear, like, what is the what did you do
that magical? You just tried to put your daughter in
an institution less than twenty four hours before, correct, that's
(34:08):
what I heard you say. You took her to a
residential facility where they asked her intimate details about her thoughts,
her feeling, suicidality, and then they said, no, good luck,
take this kid home, and the next morning everything's changed.
If I was allowed to say BS on my own podcast,
(34:28):
I will yes your initials. Of course, there's no way.
But I know, I know you. You're an evangelist for this,
You're you're living proof. What what you can't give away
the whole ship? But what is the whole? What is
the secret? Sauce?
Speaker 2 (34:45):
Secret sauce? I will give this one caution and caaviat
that most people don't experience an overnight transformation. And I
feel almost guilty talking to about mine. I think that
I had some unique forces, not forces, I had some
(35:05):
unique tools and training already at play that really did help.
I don't know. I mean, the one thing I know
I did. Somewhere in the book, Howard says something along
the lines of the degree of crisis because most of
(35:26):
these kids, I mean the title transforming the difficult child,
So most people, you know are picking this up because
they know a difficult child and they think that there's
a crisis going on or whatever. And so he makes
this comment something like, you know, the degree of crisis
should equal the degree of intervention of applying this approach, right,
(35:47):
so you know, you're kind of not half assing it.
And I remember thinking at the time, I have the
worst kid in the world. I mean, I of course
I didn't, but at the time I believed we were.
I felt that way, right, I felt it in my
bones and my cell like I just and so I
(36:08):
was like, I've got the worst kid ever. I guess
I'm gonna have to hit this one hundred and ten percent.
And so I just freaking did what it's said to do,
which was very simple. The entire approach is boiled down.
I think of it like a reduction sauce of all
the wisdom. Of course, you know it's it's not perfect,
(36:29):
and I'm sure it doesn't apply to some people. But
I've yet to see anyone who hasn't had remarkable healing
and change in their relationships using this approach. And it
actually applies to all human relationships. I even use it
with my dogs sometimes. It is not a parenting approach.
That is how it first came about. That is the
(36:53):
title of the book, but there are now other books
for you know, married couples. It's the same thing. It
is really just a It is a relational approach that
changes the way I don't know if you can hear
that weird beeping in the background in my computer's malfunctioning
(37:13):
a tiny bit, but okay. It is a relational approach
that changes the way we the way that we feed
or energize the good and the bad in a relationship.
And so I guess I was saying. I think of
(37:36):
it like a reduction sauce, where Howard has boiled it
down to something so simple you can't really forget it
when you're in the hornet's nest or the heat of
the moment. It's one of one, two, or three things.
It's all you have to remember. The entire approach boils
down to what he calls stands, but three stands or
(37:58):
you know, approaches and quickly. The stands are one stand one,
and he calls them stands because you have to take
a stand. This isn't easy. This is actually the opposite
of you know how our brains are hardwired to see
the negative to keep us alive, YadA YadA, old conditioning
(38:19):
and patterning. Right, So we're we're turning something inside out.
We're turning our brains inside out. So you have to
take a stand to do this. But stand one, did you.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
Have to commit one hundred and ten percent admit it something? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (38:35):
Yeah. So stand one is I will not it's no.
The first word is no, No, I will not energize
the negative and what I don't want to see more of.
And that was I had been doing. I had fallen
into the trap of only seeing the negative and energizing that,
(38:57):
giving it all my time and lecture and juicy relational connection.
Was do you have a one o'clock cli it or
do you need to go wow, we've been not talking
for a while. Okay, So stand one, No, I will
not energize the negative and what I don't want to
see more of. And then, of course each stand extrapolates out.
(39:20):
There's a lot of training about kind of how to
do that, and we're not just ignoring kids, and we're
not just letting them run wild. And right, there's more
to it, but the reminder of I'm just not going
to energize what or don't want to see more of it.
Stand two is yes, I will absolutely energize the positive.
I will look for and recognize and appreciate all that
(39:45):
is going well around me. And guess what, there's always greatness.
There is always a million and one thing's going right.
There are also always a million and one thing's going wrong.
It is easy to so easy to find. Ask me
to describe what was wrong with my dining experience a
(40:06):
couple of nights ago. I could go on and on
and on. Ask me to describe what is going right
with you know, the person suffering from homelessness on my sidewalk.
I'm at a loss to describe what's going right. I'm
not anymore. But right, that's our conditioning of how we think.
And then Stand three is clear or clarity, and so
(40:32):
finding our real clarity, not all of our wishy, watchy
wants and you know, partial demands. And Stand three is
where we get clear. It's where consequences live. But I'm
not even going to take time to talk about that.
And you know, no surprise to you. Every parent who
(40:55):
comes to me with a kid in crisis, they're like,
help me understand stand three, help me understand the consequences.
And I'm like, nope, not until you understand the major
mental shift of stand one and stand two. And so
you and your listeners have probably heard the Parable of
the Two Wolves.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
Yes, but please share your version anyway, because that is
such a beautiful story and I can totally see where
it fits right here.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
Yep, fits right here. And I feel like this parable
really helps people kind of feel the approach. And so
it comes from a Cherokee Native parable. A grandfather and
grandson are talking. The grandson comes home from school where
(41:46):
he got angry and he broke a friend's toy, and
he says, grandfather, I'm sad I hurt my friend. I
just I don't know why I get like this sometimes,
And the grandfather said, I understand. I feel that way
sometimes too. Sometimes I feel like I have this wolf
inside of me that is anger and fear and jealousy,
(42:09):
and when that wolf gets awakened, it takes over my
whole spirit and it harms the people I love, and
it hurts our community. But I also feel like I
have another wolf that lives inside of me, and this
wolf is goodness and love and kindness and patience. And
this wolf also, when it gets awakened, it takes over
my whole spirit. And I bring love to our family,
(42:32):
to our community. But sometimes, Grandson, I feel like these
two wolves are at war inside of me. And the
grandson says, well, Grandfather, which wolf wins in the end,
And the grandfather says, whichever one I feed. And I
love that so much, And to me, that is kind
(42:56):
of my north star of this approach. Now, I learned
at some point after learning about the approach. This isn't
in the book, but I learned that one of the
first laws of science is that energy can neither be
created nor destroyed, so it already exists. It can only
(43:17):
be transferred or transformed. And so everything, every conversation, every
material or living item around me, is just some transfer
of energy that has already existed, right, So we're just
giving or receiving energy. And so what am I energizing?
(43:39):
What I'm energizing I am feeding? What I'm feeding grows?
What do I want to see more of in my daughter.
I can focus all day law and did for years
on what I didn't want to see more of. But
guess what, that's where she got relationship from me. That's
(43:59):
where I showed up. That's where I gave her time
out of my very busy schedule. Right. So the second
kind of bookend, So this idea of energy and kind
of what we're feeding is I think of it as
one of two bookends of the approach. And the other bookend,
really quickly, is that we can't give what we don't have.
(44:24):
If I need a hundred bucks and you don't have
it in your account, you can't give it to me,
no matter how hard do you want to. And what
we know from our work is that most people want
to do well, and most people do the best they can,
including our kids, including our basflle intense, passionate, creative children.
(44:46):
They want to do well. They don't want to be
in trouble, most of them, as we know statistically, it's
a tiny fraction, tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of the population
that genuinely doesn't want to do well, and guess why
because of childhood trauma. So let's assume the best right
our kids. They want to do well, and they can
(45:09):
only do as well as the inner wealth, as Howard
puts it, as the inner wealth that they possess inside
of them. And So, if I want my child to
be responsible, but I'm constantly pointing out ways in which
she's irresponsible, how does she begin to think of herself? Right?
Speaker 7 (45:30):
If I see a tiny, microscopic seed of responsibility somewhere anywhere,
the tiniest I am now feeding with miracle grow and
watering and holding that in the sunshine and energizing that,
you know what, out of it, and telling her how
(45:53):
responsible she was in that moment, and that I loved
seeing her responsibility, right, really reflecting what people, all of
us already possess.
Speaker 2 (46:06):
Right, your wife, Like, let's take this out of the
parenting dynamic for a split second. Your wife possesses all
kinds of I mean, I assume you're married. I think
you're married.
Speaker 1 (46:16):
Yeah, right, I'm going to have to ask her about today.
I don't know. I may have made a mistake, but
I think today I am still wait.
Speaker 2 (46:23):
I'm making assumptions here, But yes, I think I've heard
you talk about your wife. In fact, now I remember
that you have, But anyway, your wife has wonderful qualities,
tons of them. It's why you fell in love with
so many.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
Feel like you've met her absolutely.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
And I'm guessing she'd gotten under your skin before. And
annoying what we annoy each other? What's part of just
being human. We're so like beautifully messy, and we have
these amygdalas and these nervous systems that they're just trying
(47:00):
to keep us alive, and they get in the way
of a lot of right, and so you know, what
do we do. We get our feelings hurt by our partner,
buy a colleague, buy a boss, and we focus on
that and we talk about it. We want everyone to
understand why our feelings were hurt or why we're mad,
(47:21):
or why that's not acceptable instead of and there's way
there's not enough time to talk about how we really
kind of implement nurtured heart. I mean, stand one where
we're not energizing the negative, but for the sake of brevity,
we just don't energize what we don't want to see
more of. And there's a lot of ways that we
(47:41):
do that, but we then reframe. So part of this
is cognitive behavioral therapy, right, reframing. I literally in that
first day, that afternoon that I had to start the approach,
as I kind of was barely getting my head wrapped
around it. I was like, there, there is nothing good.
There's no good. What am I gonna What am I
(48:03):
gonna find that I'm gonna energize or recognize or appreciate.
There's nothing. She comes out of her room a vile
monster towards me, right literally, and that's how she saw
me as well. I wasn't brightening up my face when
I saw her. I was bracing every time her doorknob.
She has the noisiest doorknob in the house, right, every
(48:24):
time her doorknob, with everyone in the family would brace, right.
Speaker 1 (48:28):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (48:29):
Oh, And so I made a list. I'm like, okay,
I know how to do CBT. I'm going to attempt
a reframe. I made a list of the top ten
things I hate about her, and I reframed all of them.
Speaker 1 (48:46):
That's a tough list, but I like how you reframed it.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
It's a tough list. But I was hurting and I
was angry, and I was in crisis, and so many
more parents are than want to admit it, and it
is ugly in those dark moment, and I was doing
it not to make the list of things I hate.
I was doing it as a way to find the reframe, right,
And you can.
Speaker 1 (49:08):
Choose right there, you make that list, and like you did,
you can feed the opposite because every negative has a positive,
every positive has its shadow, and you chose to feed
the positive. But many of us can make that list
and be like ooh and this one, and I really
er right, you can really dive into that and feed
that negativity. I love the idea when you boil it down,
(49:30):
that this really it's I'm sure in its exposition it's
not simple, but the way you describe it, it's a
choice to energize the positive or the negative, to make
a meaningful decision, to focus on one thing or another.
Speaker 2 (49:46):
Good summary. Yep, Yeah, it's on and on and on.
Speaker 1 (49:51):
Oh I love it. Okay, So I totally wasn't going
to bother picking up the book, But now I'm picking
up the book because I can think of quite a
few people in my office that would benefit from this.
And you know, I love the idea that it's a
heck of a relationship approach too. This isn't just about kids,
but this is about couples and relationships friendships as well.
Speaker 2 (50:13):
Yeah, one of my favorite stories to tell is my
partner is this big construction guy. He's a superintendent. Well
he isn't at the moment. He's doing some design and
inventing stuff, which is amazing, But he's this construction guy
and he was in superintendent for years on big commercial
job sites, working with lots of subs, big company. And
(50:35):
he uses the nurtured heart approach on his construction job
sites and with very well, he uses it pretty much
with everyone now, but he uses it with very difficult owners,
difficult you know, stakeholders. And this. I've got two great
little vignettes. But one was he was in a staff
(50:56):
meeting and all the superintendents, you know, we're asked the question,
how do you keep your subs in control? How do
you keep them in line? How do you keep them
on time?
Speaker 1 (51:04):
You know?
Speaker 2 (51:04):
And all these subs, and most of them are older
and gruffer, you know, are going around the room, the
virtual room. Well, I threaten them with this, and I
you know, I've got my demand letters ready to go,
and all iterations of threatening and energizing negative right, And
(51:24):
my partner, who's a little bit quieter, a little bit shy.
He said to himself. He's like, I have to say something.
Speaker 1 (51:32):
You know.
Speaker 2 (51:32):
He didn't speak up in a lot of meetings, but
he's like, well, guys, honestly, I think our subcontractors are
like most humans, and they appreciate being appreciated for what
they're doing well. And my subcontractors they make mistakes, but
they do a lot of things well. And I find
that when I recognize what they're doing well and when
(51:55):
I show appreciation, they show up for me. They stay
after hour, they show up on the weekend, and you know,
truth be told, he was one of the most beloved
superintendents by his colleagues, by his bosses, by the owners. Anyway,
(52:17):
Another quick little vignette is he had a very difficult
developer as a client who was refusing to pay for something.
And it was, you know, out of this multimillion dollar project.
We're talking less than ten grand, but it was a
hassle and the guy had drawn a line and he
wasn't going to pay for it. And there were all
(52:37):
these emails back and forth for months, and it was
getting very very heated, and my partner was sitting there
one day and we were at the dining room table
in the evening and he was like, I don't know
what to do anymore. I don't know how to reply
to this guy. And I think I had just come
out of my second CTI nurtured heart training, and I
was like, let me have a stab at it. So
I take the email. I nurtured hard it right. Just
(53:01):
the main content stayed the same, this is what we need,
but I changed the language. I started out with recognizing
how patient he's been the owner, how you know, he
forced the whole team to learn it and grow, you know,
to find new resources. Appreciated him for that. And then
the clarity, the stand three clarity, right, And there's precise
(53:23):
language that we use around stand three clarity. It's time
or I need you to and you say it with
neutral clarity. But it's not what she washed She right, right,
And fifteen minutes later, you know, my partner sat the email.
Fifteen minutes later, the owner's assistant called and said, we'll
pay for it. So you know, from romance to construction
(53:49):
job sites to parenting old or not difficult, it's it's
it is a relational approach that I think heals. I
think it's healing in the world. I think it heals reallyships.
It's everywhere around the planet. And so it's the big book,
it's not really that big. If the main book, Transforming
the Difficult Child is too much or too big, there's
(54:10):
now an audiobook. There's also a little cliffs Notes work
book called Transform the Intense Child work Book and that
you can get through in a weekend.
Speaker 1 (54:22):
I tell you what, I'm going to ask you to
send me to the links to that. We will definitely
put it in the show notes. So I think here
in the past hour, in this little old podcast, we've
solved all the world's problems in a little you know,
a little bit of mushroom and a lot of nurtured
Hart approach, and everybody's gonna be okay, whether it's difficult kids,
(54:45):
or difficult relationships or difficult jobs. Like I love this
and it I mean, we bridget We could spend days
talking about it because it goes so it really expands
on just good psychology, good research past one hundred years.
There's there's a phenomenon in kids called the Gollum effect
and the Pigmalion effect. Right when you when you focus
(55:07):
on the negative kids will be negative. When you focus
on the positive, kids will be positive. Right, And that
just boils down to you know, some good cognitive all
these things we've been studying for decades. I really think
this is quite a spectacular approach and I'm certainly going
to read it. I hope other people do. Once again,
it has been a joy to chat with you. Thank
(55:28):
you so much for taking the time to share with
my audience, to share personally your story of difficult parenting.
It's you know, I think it's it's affirming to many
of us to like for many people to recognize, hey,
we therapist maybe have studied a lot and work a
lot in these areas, but even we struggle, and when
we do, we've got to figure out, you know, what
solutions work for us. And this is definitely a positive
(55:50):
and powerful.
Speaker 2 (55:53):
Thanks Dan, Thanks for asking and listening and understanding. I mean,
it just resonates.
Speaker 1 (56:00):
So yeah, yeah, well, I think we had at least
one more home group or another cloud. We are wrapping
up I PI, which is bittersweet, mostly sweet, a little
bitter because then you know, I hear you're hosting a
retreat for all of us to get back together out there. Importantly,
so can't wait for that. And our good friend Nick
Tea Cups is gonna is gonna come out and be
(56:22):
there too.
Speaker 2 (56:24):
I love it. I can't wait to go.
Speaker 1 (56:28):
Absolutely you have a wonderful afternoon. Thanks again, Bridget, Thanks
you too, Bye and there you go. What a amazing story,
what a beautiful soul, what a great conversation, and what
a fun time. As I've said before, I am so
lucky to have this job and to get to meet
(56:51):
these people and share these ideas with you. So I
hope you go out there and grab the book. It
will be in the show notes. It is the show Notes,
and you know that's a good place to start. If
you want to find out more about Bridget and her work,
you'll probably have to get a hold of me. I
don't think she's got a website, and I think she's
got a pretty full caseload, but I can always make
(57:13):
an introduction if you're interested in the Meanwhile, grab the
book about the Nurtured Heart Approach. If if I want
to find out more about what I'm up to, what
kind of work I'm doing, and any upcoming ketamine or
psychedelic assisted retreats, feel free to take a look at
daniel A Franz dot com as d A n i
e l A f r a n Z dot com,
(57:34):
or you're always welcome to check me out on the socials.
I think the podcast has always posted on Twitter and Facebook.
I do a little bit more on Facebook, some work
on on LinkedIn. Look. As I've shared before, not great
with the social media, but it's out there. The best
way is to contact me directly via email and check
out the upcoming Meaning project community In the meanwhile, thank you,
(57:56):
as always for this opportunity to bring a little bit
of mental health meaning, purpose and resilience to your day.
Take care, H
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