The Real Reason You're Afraid to Be Yourself - Dr. Deniz Ahmadinia

you are a psychologist and a trauma specialist and uh before we get to all that I wonder if you're comfortable doing so could you share a little bit about your own history what was your childhood like and what are the things you needed to overcome to be where you are today yes I will give you as brief of a version of that as possible um yeah I appreciate you asking this because so often when I'm doing like a podcast or any kind of interview it's so important to remember that you know the person giving you that clinical advice um or perspective often has a lived history of their own so for me when I share something especially on Instagram it's not just um coming from a place of professional or clinical input it's it's also from lived experience um I you know if you look at my Instagram I do have in my titles psychologist mama and um Survivor on there um so I am someone who has a history of child sexual abuse and grew

up in a you know relatively dysfunctional family on top of that um my journey has not been a straight line as most people's are not um it has been a series of really what I believe is kind of parts of me drawing me honestly to certain people and this work in General to try to understand myself understand experiences I've had feelings I've experienced um I would say not until I was sort of in my graduate school training honestly was I really able to start taking a look even just at my family system which I think is the case for many of us you know it's not until we get a little bit of a distance from it that we can see it differently um and working with my history of sexual trauma I have multiple traumas has been probably the hardest undertaking of my own healing process um depending on the age that something happened what memories were available to me so what has been so impactful in my

work is you know obviously building the skills and resources just through my training um but I'm someone who also goes to therapy I do the work and um the inner child healing that I talk about so often on Instagram and in my programs is work that I do person ly I continue to do uh along with many other modalities that have been really really healing for me um but as far as what I've had to overcome it's been I mean it's been complex it's been symptoms of PTSD symptoms of complex trauma my own self-perception um you know the faulty beliefs we all carry around with us um emotional flashbacks somatic flashbacks so there's been a lot that I've navigated through and continue to navigate through uh you know I never want to give anyone the impression that I'm just showing up here all 100% healed because I'm not sure any of us ever fully arriv there uh that's a continued journey and

process was there something that for you or a time where you've really felt the big shift kind of from healing to you know some version of healed or has it been just the accumulation of you know the dozens of little moments over the years years um two things stand out for me uh one has been actually three things um one goes into one campus relationships uh my relationship with my husband and becoming a mother was uh both of those things have been extremely healing and revealing all at the same time as you know relationships often are um you know that my marriage my relationship with my husband I think has been one of the primary things that has supported me in undoing a lot of and meshmen and unhelpful patterns and beliefs about myself you know sometimes just having one person standing in your corner cheering you on

in a different way is enough um and then of course having children like Reveals All these things to you about your own lived experience in childhood unmet needs and pains uh that you know allows you to see things differently and then the third for me is something that I've more recently undertaken that I haven't spoken about uh publicly at all but um doing psychedelic assisted therapy has been incredibly incredibly healing alongside you know in conjunction with some of the um more somatic and inner child work that I've done um those three pieces I think I would not be in the space that I am today without any of those can you tell me a little bit about the Psychedelic assistant therapy because it's such a popular uh topic these days and so many more people are getting into it uh what kind did you have and what was the experience like for you um the kind that I had was MDMA therapy uh which you know after talking with the clinician who I did this work

with we decided that was the best medicine for me given the experiences that I had and the goals that I had for doing that work work and um you know we talked a lot about just even what that medicine does in the brain I'm not I've always been interested in this but I personally am not trained in it so it was so helpful for me to understand how something like MDMA quiets your amygdala um and that's so important when you're revisiting trauma memories because that's what actually allows allowed me to go back to memories that I had sort of split off or dissociated from or just not been able to access with the same depth in regular therapy um but you're doing it with this really interesting kind of dual awareness where you have a foot in the present in your safety and where you are now but you're able to go back to really painful or traumatic moments without the level of fear or horror that you might experience when you're just

revisiting them kind of in a typical therapy setting and then what was uh it like for you after do having those experiences like coming out of it uh did you feel you know more healed or whatever word we want to use for it the word that I felt very quickly um you know that came up often in my integration sessions was whole uh and just to be clear one of the reasons that I pursued that therapy was I like many other drivers um always had a sense that there was something that I hadn't touched on something that had happened to me earlier in life and couldn't quite pinpoint had inklings of feelings of maybe pieces of dreams that showed up that I wasn't sure if this was something really that happened or not um so that's why I pursued it so being able to go into a space where all your protector parts and for me so much of my

protection the way that I survived really was dissociation and shutting down to have all those parts step back so that you can access what's been there all along for me that's what gave me a sense of wholeness there was no part of me that felt like you know my mind or body was hiding something from me anymore and it just felt like all the pieces kind of clicked into place um you know certainly I think we can get that experience from different modalities and different therapies but for me what I was being pulled towards that was so hidden from myself I don't know if I would have been able to access that otherwise yeah used the uh term parts and I kind of hear a little bit of ifs language I don't know if that's where it comes from um are you experienced with ifs have you used it for yourself do you help your clients with it uh and maybe just a quick if you would a quick introduction of what that is for anybody who doesn't know sure um I integrates components of ifs more so just kind of

from the inner child lens um most of us actually without realizing it speak this way often where even when we're making a decision we might say like part of me wants to do this but part of me wants to do that um and the idea in ifs in internal family systems is that we have a whole uh subsystem of personalities and parts that develop throughout our life um really you know these younger wounded parts of us other parts show up and develop as ways to protect us from Pain um and there's all sorts of terminology like Exiles and firefighters and managers and ifs uh the way that I tend to use it in sessions is really to help people understand our younger wounded Parts where and how you know that pain um was and how it's being protected now and I think for so many of us the ways that we survived which you you know as a reminder it's never a conscious Choice it's like your brain and your body making these choices for you to keep you safe um but those

are survival mechanisms that often stay with us longer than is needed right where we might be out of the situation or the environment or the trauma but our protector Parts stick around long after um and from this lens we often talk about how our younger Parts uh you know develop these but the protector Parts don't always recognize that we are the age we are now right that they often think that we're still these like younger more vulnerable helpless um versions of ourselves that really really need those protector parts around yeah uh for anybody listening who who's being introduced to this for the first time the book no bad parts by Richard Schwarz is sort of like the Bible of ifs and uh for me I think the biggest takeaway that you kind of touched on there a little bit uh indirectly is that there isn't just one inner child in us there's almost like this collection of inner children that are all Frozen in different times yeah and so um what's been your integration experience kind of collecting as C kind

of puts it collecting all these uh inner children and and uh letting them know that you're in charge now yeah oh you know my experience and I'll also share just like how I see this show up with with clients often is often s we're working so hard to push away our pain and the way that shows up in terms of Parts is like trying to push out cut out get rid of certain parts of ourselves that we don't like we're frustrated by maybe causing us problems in some way um so for me and my own experience has been really learning to not just acknowledge these younger parts that are there at whatever ages they show up um but befriending them and that's not always easy depending on what they're struggling with or you know some ages I think for most of us are easier to feel compassionate towards like little little selves um but oftentimes as we get older

those younger Parts you know as we move towards adolescence we have a lot more complicated feelings towards them as well uh but the experience of befriending apart and really helping it to feel seen heard and validated and the way that I think about this is like you know part just like any other person like what helps us feel seen what helps us feel regulated is to be acknowledged for someone to sit with us and listen to our story without judgment um to validate our feelings so you know on a whole person level we do that in therapy but when we're integrating Parts work um we're often getting to know different parts of ourselves whether it's like our wounded parts or our protector parts and listening to their story right listening to their fears to what happened to them to what they worry about um to what they need from us and it's ultimately just like any person which is why I love integrating this like just like any

person no one can grow or transform unless they feel seen and heard right there's so much safety in that that's how we feel regulated that's how we feel connected to each other um and our parts are really no different than that can you talk a little about the fear of being seen which is something that you uh uncover a lot about on your Instagram how does it develop how does it manifest and if I'm someone struggling with it how can I stop letting it control my life yeah this topic I I love because it's you know it transcends diagnosis transcends um gender ethnicity all sorts of things uh it is so much at the core of our safety the fear of being seen is you know to be clear all of us have this biological drive and need to be seen because we're social beings right so to be seen really for us is like the closest thing to feeling loved and when

I say seen I don't want just mean physically I I mean emotionally for someone to see us allow us to be as we are to accept us um you know being heard gets wrapped up in that as well um but because it's so associated with love and love is associated with survival right not consciously but just in our biology um even if we have this intense fear around people seeing us in some way we always have a part of us that has this drive um or this need to be seen by other people so what this can look like just more broadly is hiding hiding ourselves completely hiding parts of ourselves um molding ourselves in some way staying small not taking risks a lot of people talk about this concept of self-sabotage um you know if that word connects for you great but I think it misses the mark so much because underneath that is often safety concerns right like why would I self-sabotage it's so much more than that um and when we step back and look at like what are

some of the experiences that people might have when when they struggle with this um we're looking at a number of different things that in some shape or form basically you had some life experience somewhere whether from childhood through adulthood uh that made it unsafe for you to be who you are and that can look like so many different things but so often it does start in our homes growing up to be unsafe being who we are could mean unsafe expressing certain emotions right maybe only certain emotions were allowed in our families the positive happy ones um you're not allowed to be angry you're not allowed to be creative uh you're not allowed to be loud whatever it might be um and if you're punished for those things shamed for them retaliated against in some way like your system learns so quickly that I have to hide who I am like my authenticity I have to hide that

so that I can keep myself safe um people listening to this might be very familiar with Gabor mate he talks so much about this this kind of battle between attachment and authenticity and you know being seen in authenticity are such important Concepts to talk about together because when you think about what's your authenticity or where it comes from for me uh that's such a visceral experience and that's connected to your body it's connected to your emotions and the way that you express yourself so very often it can start early in life with different types of traumas um I recently posted a reel about how fear of being seen can also be related to sexual trauma um for anyone who's been victimized where you know your body being seen or your personality um and how those things can become paired with harm and risk so it really spans a lot of different experiences but certainly uh not you know I want to make a point that it also includes situations

or instances where people have been discriminated against for their appearance or their identity whether it's their gender identity their cultural identity religious identity um a number of things but really any experience especially when it happens repeatedly and I think that's the key here like certainly we can have big experiences that are super super impactful on us especially when there's harm attached in some way whether emotional or physical but even more so when it's a repeated experience and sometimes those are the harder ones to um pinpoint because they might be just like as we talk about in complex trauma they might be sort of like part of the fabric of our everyday lives where like that's our Norm for our parent to respond to that we don't know any different uh but over time it creates further disconnection from self and I think that's one of the most detrimental parts of trauma and this kind of wounding is the further we get away from ourselves right when we have to choose safety over being seen and being

authentic is we lose so much we lose so much of who we really are um some of us maybe never had the chance to get to know who we are um we lose our ability to trust ourselves we lose contact with our goals and our values a lot of times we give up so much of our power to other people because it's not safe to be within ourselves so when I work with fear of being seen whether it's like in the master class that I offered or individually or even touch on it in the group program so much of our work actually is about reconnecting you to your body which is a lot of trauma work um in different shapes and forms um so your question about like how do you start healing this right I think first and foremost always the first place we start is recognizing that this might be something that I resonate with um we can't always pinpoint exactly what experiences we've had that lead us to feel a particular way but when we can you know kind of gently reflect without

you know gripping tightly to like I must find the answer um often we are able to find experiences in our history where it wasn't safe for us to be ourselves in some way or we had to present a different version of ourselves to be loved accepted um physically safe whatever it might be so when we can at least start to entertain or hold space for some of those experiences it does over time start to open up a little bit more space for us to look compassionately at that because so many of us struggling with this or many other things it's so easy for us to be judgmental of ourselves right like especially if you're in those patterns of self-sabotage or not going for the big thing or downplaying something your achievements we can be really harsh on our elves we can shame ourselves why do I keep doing this what's wrong with me um and this can like feed into beliefs about being defective or not good enough when really if we can start to understand that this

was at some point your body's brilliant way of keeping you safe that starts to change our relationship with how we see ourselves over time so I would say always starting there um and then you know for example what I did in a a two-part master class would talk about some of the the reasons why this can happen but then really move into more of this inner child and parts work um is often if we can start to reflect on where this may have started we can connect at least with like an age range that we may have been um when some of this happened uh whether it's early on or later in life and from there we might also start to connect with how this sphere of being seen is actually a very protective part of us and we might talk about how that shows up in the nervous system for some people this might really map on to what we call the Fawn response um so fear of being seen often can have a lot of overlap

with fawn response and like people pleasing behaviors prioritizing others over yourself um again because it's a way to stay small to stay safe and make sure you know we stay very hypervigilant to what's happening around us so we also want to talk about the nervous system um and sometimes depending on where your nervous system is that we do need some more support and some tools around that but at the core of it uh we are connecting with our protector parts right how this part has protected us um what it's worried would happen if we weren't doing this right and this is where we start to like hit the edges of some of the trauma is if I wasn't staying small if I was in the spotlight if I did show this part of myself if I was vulnerable in this way you know we get the story of what we fear will happen and often that story is like a direct link to experiences or traumas that we've had and being able to hold some compassionate space for that and

like hear that and offer validation um is really the starting point of being able to work with that fear quite differently and start to transform it often with fear of being seen similar to the on response um a big part of that as a way to stay safe is that we often um are really skilled at meeting other people's needs and abandoning our own right it's a great way to stay out of the spotlight and make sure everyone around us is appeased and taken care of um so part of that work is also helping you connect back to yourself right and I I had mentioned that if you have this fear of being seen if you struggle with being authentic you don't know who your authentic self is uh the starting point for reconnecting back to that is starting in your body because your feelings are in your body so if we're to build capacity to you know kind of have our own inner Compass of like what is it that I want to share with the world what does light me up like what relationship

does feel good for me what doesn't feel good where do I need a boundary um all of that starts with us being connected and attuned to our our physical bodies so it's a lot of different p is that we're having to nurture all at the same time um but on a practical level what we're also nurturing is what is it that I wish I could do if this fear wasn't here right what would my life look like what relationship would I have what would I be pursuing um how would I be showing up into the world and sometimes the best way for us to start practicing that is um to be surrounded by people again even if it's just one person who values your authenticity who accepts you who wants to see more of you whether that's a partner a friend um a mentor a community that you're involved in um having a space where you are free to be yourself it's safe to be you and the more we practice being our authentic selves the more confidence we get in

doing it um and it's not a confidence that like no one will ever reject me right that's not what that confidence is that's not what self trust is it's that I will be okay if this happens U because I have this like safe adult with me now like you know companioning my inner child or my younger Parts um but also that the outcomes that are likely to happen are typically far less catastrophic than my mind tells me typically because those catastrophic outcomes come from a younger self who didn't have support didn't have resources uh tools and and you know the ability to leave or Escape whatever the situation is um so on a practical level every day we're also looking at where can I take a small step to stretch myself um this isn't about swinging the pendulum from one end to the other and this is so important if you are doing this work because you know our protector parts or your nervous system one in the same uh their primary goal is to keep

you safe so if there's a part of you that's working so incred incredibly hard to keep you safe and then you're trying to just completely abandon that protection and swing the other way everything in your nervous system is going be sending you alarms and saying this is too much this is too much and it almost is like our nervous system doubles down our protective Parts double down on us and that works against us so I would say think about this in small tolerable doses just like we talk about with somatic work like what's one little step where can I stretch just a bit more and that's also like a very skillful way to navigate this in relationships because not everyone is safe not everyone is trustworthy for us to show all of our parts to um so being able to share a little bit and for example see how somebody responds was that safe did that feel like you know it was reciprocated then I can share a little bit more so it's through these like small moments that we grow our capacity to show up more fully as ourselves um you know I will share just

like on a personal level today is actually the first time I've talked about my childhood experiences openly on any recording um first time I've talked about MDMA therapy like this this was my experience of making myself more seen and honestly my Instagram page aside from educational information has been such an experience of that for me whether I speak directly about myself or you know through the content um there's all sorts of ways I think many of us do use social media for that but there's so many ways that we can take those risks and show up authentically and it is scary right you don't know the response that you're going to get it doesn't feel comfortable but there's also something that comes with it where there's um a wholeness and an authenticity where you showing up into the world as yourself the people that will support you that will accept you those are the people like this is how we often find out who is good for us to be around and the people who don't accept that that you know it takes a lot of practice and

tolerance to allow those people to Fall Away first off just to say I'm really grateful and honored that uh you would share all this stuff with me for the first time so I just want to say thank you and and what you spoke about there about you know the doubts that come up when you're being authentic uh this is a situation where I've experienced this a lot and continue to kind of try and deal with and I think a lot of other people especially creators or people trying to be creators uh have this fear of I put too much of myself out there I've exposed too much so since you're kind of um in the state right now of sharing something new what would you do if you know an hour from an hour or the next day you started to have those kind of that that inner roommate start to speak up and say oh no you shareed too much oh no I should take that down or I should message this person to not share this right all these self-doubts that we have how will you go through that process yourself so that we can hopefully take uh that something away from that to use for ourselves as well yeah I appreciate

that question um for me I know those doubts will creep in so like the first place that I will probably go to is a lot of self-compassion um you know my protector parts are going to start talking to me about what I should or shouldn't have done or said and what might happen from there and so for me I will just start speaking very kindly to myself to validate that it makes so much sense that I would be worried about that um but also to remind the younger version of me who actually carry those carries those worries that like I am here now um there's an adult here who like accepts her and loves her just as she is and wants to hear her story and her story deserves to be told uh and helping her feel like that little version feels safe in doing so um The more I've practiced this you know I think for me I've gotten to a place in my life where the cost of keeping myself small

in whatever way that means right uh the cost of staying small not being seen almost became so great that there feels like there's not much other choice at this point even when that voice is still there um and there's for me I've just developed more of a confidence in knowing that there are going to be people who don't like what I say or how I show up um but those are not my people and the people that respond that way have unhealed things to work on themselves and that it's not about me and that has taken me a very very very long time to not personalize other people's reactions and in internalize it as guilt and shame about myself um and I'm I'm sure Snippets of that will still come up but really reminding myself that someone else's reaction to who I am what I share what I've experienced um is not my responsibility it is not mine to fix and no one gets to determine who I am except me because you

know so many of us who have experienced these kinds of things we spend so much time giving all of our power away and not um you know shining or flying and having our wings clipped by people that are critical or want to keep things quiet or whatever it might be um so I would say those are kind of the primary things and I also tend to write a lot to myself um whether it's through journaling or like talking directly to my inner child so there will probably be some of that after this as well yeah I love that so much and something that you said there uh made me think of Don Miguel Ruiz in The Four Agreements how he uh when you mentioned that's kind of like a them thing not a me thing where he talks about uh you know other people have poison and they're trying to give you the poison that's the only way for them to offload offload it and if I take that poison it becomes my poison but if I just say no that's yours then I get to continue living my life I love that yeah yeah oh

what a great what a great quote and that's I mean whether you identify with the fear of being seen or the fwn response or people pleasing or an unshed family I mean like that's what it is right we like we're taking other people's poison um we don't have boundaries whether it's emotional or physical boundaries psychological or spiritual boundaries um and moving in this direction is like to really see yourself as separate from other people uh where you can like protect yourself from those beliefs or that energy or those emotions rather than absorbing it and internalizing it um I yeah what a great quote thank you for sharing that a lot of this ties into kind of uh our early childhood experiences you said and our family situation and I heard you say um the person being a CYO breaker is taking a big risk which I thought was such an interesting idea do you remember how you meant that and you know how should we navigate that risk if if we're

that person yeah um I think this is how I meant it probably in in the context that I shared it in because I share a lot about kind of narcissistic families or emotionally mature families being a cycle breaker often means you know we carry the patterns of our families with us so being a cycle breaker often means doing things differently than the people who came before you and I do believe to some extent that most people try to do better than the generation before them but when you're a cycle breaker to actually break Cycles often you are having to call out dysfunction rather than go along with it and that is particularly the case for people who are in narcissistic dysfunctional families where the rules of the family are to keep the status quo at any cost even if it makes you the villain or the problem child or you know the scapegoat as I talk about um so it's a big risk right it's a big risk to

start talking about the things that are wrong in your family um and this isn't you know I want to be clear this isn't done with the intention of blaming it's with the intention of accountability for change right if we don't speak about things they can never change so to be a cycle breaker means you are pulling back the veil all the things that everyone has quietly accepted um you're saying like hey like that's not okay or like why do we always do this or like here you go doing that thing again like why can't we do this differently um and that causes a lot of upheaval a lot of upheaval because the system wants to stay the same it doesn't want change and there can be a lot of players in the family um you know and I would say this applies to other systems as well like work situations too for a lot of people um but there can be a lot of players that are participating or colluding in the system staying the same and depending on how rigid or dysfunctional

your family system is you know sometimes we will see systems start to slowly adapt even if it's just around the edges or other family members start to do their own cycle breaking work among siblings um but often what can happen is that person who is trying to do their work they get viewed in such a Negative light in the family and often I believe that is the case because it allows not only allows a system to stay the same it allows the person or people who are participating in that um to not take accountability and to not feel guilty also for the things that they may have done to you so to be a cycle breaker is not for the faint-hearted by any means um it's not just your individual work like individuals are connected to systems and families and other relationships so it's like you pull one thread and it has an impact um so for anyone who is doing that work like you

were doing some of the hardest work that really is I heard you say that when you started finding your voice in your family it came with huge backlash uh can you tell us a little more about what that experience was like for you and then how should anybody else going through that or even just thinking about speaking up for the first time prepare themselves for it yeah um I wish this is something that more therapists talked with clients about I think there's more movement now is so many of these topics are swirling around social media but no one prepared me for that um all I was hearing you know whether it was in graduate school classes or in my own therapy at the time was like a push to use your voice set boundaries be assertive but nobody had warned me about what would happen when I started doing that and for anyone who played the role in any relationship whether it's your family your romantic relationship or your friendship you know that disrupts how things are that disrupts how the relationship is for me I will share personally having my husband come into

my family we were dating at the time um and kind of echo some of the feelings that I was having was one of the primary supports that I had in really starting to use my voice and I hear that you know in comments from from people on Instagram on a lot of my reals is um whether they are the partner who married into the family or the opposite it sometimes is someone outside the system that comes in and sees it is like wait a second like what are is this what we're really doing here um so that was certainly the case for me and it did make it quite difficult on my relationship in the beginning um where I believe there was you know some negative light shed on me my now husband um my system adapted a bit but it wasn't without a lot lot of up people um in different relationships and the family I will say something that was freeing for me in that process was at some point I felt like there was sort of nothing I

could do to change someone's opinion like um someone's mind had been made up um that that almost allowed me after a while to unhook from the need for the approval and validation um where I just started to kind of live my life uh and I know everyone gets there quickly because you know our relationships are important I I come from a very close-knit family as many who struggle with these things do um so for me it wasn't a matter of like necessarily cutting out family members or or distancing in any way but allowing myself to be misunderstood uh was is something that I continued to become more comfortable with um but I would say what happened in addition to that is certain Rel relationships adjusted and there was a lot of conversations that had to be had about unmet needs and the Dynamics in relationships especially with um you know a sibling uh but friendships shifted as well right and I think this is what I people in my office are coming

and talking about a lot whether it's romantic or friendship is when they start finding their voice if it's a person who benefited from you not having any needs from you being small from you being quiet from you just doing what ever they wanted or going along with whatever they want or being Their audience that's a person that's not going to like you finding your voice they're going to feel threatened by it in some way and that's really tricky to navigate those relationships if it's someone you've had a long relationship with someone you love or a family member um so I think those are some of the most difficult Parts about finding your voice like on one hand it's incredibly freeing and you feel connected to yourself sometimes for the first time ever um but it does come with a lot of backlash often you mentioned the word boundaries here so many people struggle with setting those boundaries with the people they're closest to but I heard you mention that we only set boundaries with people we want to keep in our life which made me think that in a way it's almost like an

act of love yes and so can you speak a little more about that and how you think about it if we didn't want to have a relationship with someone like if it was so difficult for us we would not go through the effort and the strain and tension and pain of trying to set boundaries like when we set boundaries with someone it's because we actually want to still have some relationship with them but we're just trying to almost renegotiate the terms of that relationship so that it works for both of us um you know in families that are very narcissistic or very emotionally immature those boundaries are so often viewed as like a person personal affront or an attack or being selfish in some way and it can be a huge shift to see boundaries as an expression or expression of love as you said or um almost like an olive branch of like I want to continue having a relationship with you but I can only do it under circumstances where my needs are also

being met and of course some people are going to be more open into that than others but I think it's a huge shift because we often think about boundaries as these kind of like harsh lines that we draw on the sand but when you put it that way it it really is um you know to State your needs as an act of love to somebody speaking of of a narcissistic or emotionally immature parents what's important for people who suspect maybe that their parents fall under this classification but are only just starting to begin that work and uncovering that and and observing the family Dynamics what should their focus be uh both if they're still living with those parents or family members and forced to interact daily and then once they have a bit more distance and Independence how does that shift yeah when you're living in the same household as someone who has some of those characteristics you know the focus often

almost has to be more on just how do I protect myself while I'm here um how do I keep myself in how do I disengage you know kind of this idea of gray rocking um to minimize conflict really um so a lot of times it is boundary setting but oftentimes working to help people when it's possible to get them you know out of the same living space uh I've seen that so often you know with myself with my clients when you're out of that environment just the physical environment even if your like phone contact stays the same with that person there's something about being in a safe physical space that allows you to then shift the focus away from that person trying to get them to change trying to get them to be different see your point of view and the focus goes on directing all that hope towards yourself like what's the life you want to build now where are the people

um that are supportive of you or loving of you with you know space to pursue what it is that you want to pursue um so it is very different depending on the circumstances of if you're living with someone if you're in a marriage with someone uh versus if you have this person in your life but you're not in the same environment and just on a like on a nervous system level um there's different work that's available to us when your nervous system is in survival mode versus when your nervous system is in like an objectively safe space so to keep that in mind like your healing will probably go through different phases depending on what that looks like for you yeah you used the term uh gray rocking which I I first heard it uh when I was interviewing Dr Sher Campbell who also speaks uh a lot on toxic families and emotionally IMM mature families uh can you talk a little bit about what that is and then how do we actually in the moment uh use it to kind of protect

ourselves yeah so gray rocking is really kind of just making yourself as disinteresting as possible like a gray rock um you know this is spec really specific for somebody who's narcissistic because of that drive for narcissistic Supply that they want to engage you or bait you to get a rise out of you and um that's where they get that Supply from so if they're trying to bait you and you don't really engage or um you don't put a lot of emotion into your response you're very matter of fact or kind of short it sort of circumvents their game that they're playing with you and it allows you to maintain all your emotional energy um and eventually what we see is like those people give up even if it's just temporarily um trying to get that Supply from you for you know that conversation so what this might look like is somebody coming in

and um you know accusing you of something and just kind of Simply Having a statement that responds to it but not in a way that's like inflammatory right like that's not what happened or um you know I see it differently it sounds like we're remembering things differently we're not coming back with like how could you say that like you always accuse me of these things or you're gaslighting me like all of that is you're just like responding but making yourself very disinterested in the process it made me think of Dr Lindsay Gibson who also speaks on this topic about how she talks about uh kind of expect that they're going to be how they've always been when you go in so always thought that was a really great Insight because then you can prepare in this way uh just like you're saying with the gray rocking absolutely and I think that is a mindset shift because you know I am a big believer that people can change if they're willing to change and that's kind of one of the core difficulties with people who are on that

spectrum of emotionally immature to narcissistic is the willingness to change is often completely lacking um so to shift from you know how can I get this person to be different to the acceptance that this person is this way uh can be really difficult because we end up kind of grieving in the process of doing that but it also allows us to have some predictability in how they're going to respond and somebody who is truly narcissistic actually is very predictable when they're going to get inflamed and enraged over something um when something will feel like a personal attack for them you know all these kinds of behavioral patterns actually become very predictable so when we start to let go of how do I make them different how do I make them different and see who they are it allows us to be much better prepared for how to interact with them and this

is certainly not easy to be clear right gray rocking is not easy because we still have our feelings about what they're saying to us um but we're not giving our power Away by giving it to them in the moment we're you know saying our peace whatever that might be and then when you're alone in a safe space you go take care of your feelings I saw a video of yours I'd like to just kind of tee up for you to speak about I think you were sitting in your car and the text was about a child your child being uh not you specifically but any of our children being uh quote unquote disrespectful or talking back for anyone who hadn't seen that real was um you know an example of like a parent uh who might feel frustrated that their child is in quotes pushing back put that in quotes on purpose because what I'm really referring to is a child who's speaking up using their voice questioning things um and how historically we may have perceived that as disrespectful but the shift that I had was that that's actually a sign of

safety and you know this caused a lot of uh chaos in the comments because of people's ideas around parenting and respect and how you know instilling fear whether physical or emotional um towards children to be respectful um but what I was really referring to here circles back to fear of being seen right is if I've been emotionally or physically harmed in the process of expressing myself I'm going to be quiet and that can look like a really good obedient child um a child who performs a child who knows that it is not safe to speak up to use their voice and sure that could make parenting easier I have two little kids four and six like you know kids can be a handful they have a lot of questions they're looking for autonomy they're trying to understand the world they're trying to understand the rules but when we think about the consequences of a child not being able to use their voice not question authority in any way um and the ripple

effect that that can have Down the Line in an adult's life it can be extremely detrimental and what I had to clarify so much in the comments here was that there is a difference between a child expressing themselves expressing their feelings their opinions or questions and disrespect right it's our job as parents to help them Express themselves in a way that is respectful and the way that kids learn that really is through modeling not through punishment and harming um it was so alarming to me the number of people that responded to to that real promoting physical punishment still for children but I think these are the cycles that so many people are working to break right starting within yourself like can I allow myself to be authentic can I allow myself to express a thought a feeling or a question um and as we do that work I think that's what shifts us as parents that we come to see pushing back not as disrespect but as a sign that um I my child feels safe

enough with me me to share this yes it's still my job to help them express it in a way that's respectful or kind or regulate through it um but it is so much a sign of safety that they feel they can be their authentic selves with you I heard you say that the relationship with your therapist is more important than the modality they use which is counter to what a lot of people believe uh I think and so as a therapist yourself what makes you say that and do you think the modality even matters at all yeah um there's research called common factors research uh that I don't have the data information on hand but I remember even reading this in graduate school and that was kind of the conclusion is like the relationship is so significant and I absolutely agree with that on an individual personal level um as well as what I see with my clients because you know again think about like what is healing so much of it is healing your body healing your nervous system um

what helps your nervous system feel safe yes sometimes it's certain tools and techniques but if you don't feel safe or like you matter or like your voice is important or value to the person who's sitting across from you doing that work with you it doesn't matter how great the modality is it's all going to fall flat so I I do certainly think that you know modalities are important like otherwise I wouldn't have trained the way that I did in certain things but um I think we have have to absolutely recognize that relationship between therapist and client is of utmost importance um you know we get hurt in relationships we also heal in relationships that also includes our therapeutic relationship right kind of a a space and sometimes therapy is the first and only safe space someone has had to share their feelings share their story be validated be believed about something um the first time they disclose something to someone so yes the modality is important because we don't

want to absolutely do harm or do a therapy with someone that is you know not indicated for the issue that they're presenting with um but again like back to a good therapeutic relationship that therapist hopefully uh would refer out if they're not the right match if they're not trained in what that person needs but all of that starts with the safety and Rapport in in the utic relationship finally uh do you have any closing words for anybody who might be really going through it right now with a lot of the stuff that we're talking about you know I don't have anything profound or witty I just want to say keep going the hard place that you're in right now is not it for you keep going you are so much more than you've been made to believe who you are what you're worth and my wish is that that for every person healing any kind of trauma that you come to see yourself so clearly that anyone who doesn't see you that way or

treat you that way just Falls away easily and that you are able to show up and give yourself the gift of your own authenticity but keep going healing comes in waves pain comes in waves you will land um this is not it for you that sounded pretty profound me I appreciate so much your time uh speaking with me I love your Instagram and the content that you put out there and the work that you do so thank you so much for all that on behalf of all of us thank you thank you thank you so much for having me