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

You are a psychologist and a trauma specialist and before we get to all that, 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.

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 the person giving you that clinical advice or perspective often has a lived history of their own. So for me when I share something especially on Instagram it's not just coming from a place of professional or clinical input it's also from lived experience. If you look at my Instagram, I do have in my titles psychologist, mama and survivor on there.

So I am someone who has a history of child sexual abuse and grew up in a relatively dysfunctional family on top of that.

My journey has not been a straight line as most people's are not. 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. 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. I think this is the case for many of us: it's not until we get a little bit of a distance from it that we can see it differently. And working with my history of sexual trauma—I have multiple traumas—has been probably the hardest undertaking of my own healing process depending on the age that something happened, what memories were available to me.

So what has been so impactful in my work is obviously building the skills and resources just through my training. But I'm someone who also goes to therapy. I do the work and the inner child healing that I talk about so often on Instagram and in my programs is work that I do personally, that I continue to do along with many other modalities that have been really really healing for me. 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, the faulty beliefs we all carry around with us, emotional flashbacks, somatic flashbacks. So there's been a lot that I've navigated through and continue to navigate through.

I never want to give anyone the impression that I'm just showing up here all 100 percent healed because I'm not sure any of us ever fully arrive there.

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 some version of healed or has it been just the accumulation of the dozens of little moments over the years?

Three things stand out for me. One category is relationships. My relationship with my husband and becoming a mother, both of those things have been extremely healing and revealing all at the same time as relationships often are. 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 enmeshment 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. And then of course having children reveals all these things to you about your own lived experience in childhood unmet needs and pains that 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 publicly at all but doing psychedelic assisted therapy has been incredibly incredibly healing alongside in conjunction with some of the more somatic and inner child work that I've done. 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-assisted therapy because it's such a popular topic these days and so many more people are getting into it. What kind did you have and what was the experience like for you?

The kind that I had was MDMA therapy which 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. And we talked a lot about just even what that medicine does in the brain. 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 and that's so important when you're revisiting trauma memories because that's what actually 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. 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 revisiting them in a typical therapy setting.

And then what was it like for you after having those experiences like coming out of it did you feel more healed or whatever word we want to use for it?

The word that I felt very quickly that came up often in my integration sessions was whole. And just to be clear one of the reasons that I pursued that therapy was: I, like many other survivors, 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 it. I had inklings of feelings, maybe pieces of dreams that showed up, that I wasn't sure if this was something really that happened or not. So that's why I pursued it.

For me, so much of my protection, the way that I survived, was dissociation and shutting down. To have all those parts step back so that you can access what's been there all along, that's what gave me a sense of wholeness. There was no part of me that felt like my mind or body was hiding something from me anymore and it just felt like all the pieces kind of clicked into place. 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.

You used the term parts and I kind of hear a little bit of IFS language I don't know if that's where it comes from. Are you experienced with IFS? Have you used it for yourself? Do you help your clients with it? And maybe just a quick introduction of what that is for anybody who doesn't know?

Sure.

I integrate components of IFS more so just kind of from the inner child lens. 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.

And the idea in IFS, in internal family systems is that we have a whole subsystem of personalities and parts that develop throughout our life really these younger wounded parts of us. Other parts show up and develop as ways to protect us from pain. And there's all sorts of terminology like exiles and firefighters and managers in IFS.

The way that I tend to use it in sessions is really to help people understand our younger wounded parts where and how that pain was, and how it's being protected now. And I think for so many of us, the ways that we survived—as a reminder, these are survival mechanisms.

It's never a conscious choice. It's like your brain and your body making these choices for you to keep you safe. But those are survival mechanisms that often stay with us longer than is needed: we might be out of the situation or the environment or the trauma, but our protector parts stick around long after. And from this lens we often talk about how our younger parts develop these, but the protector parts don't always recognize that we are the age we are now. They often think that we're still these like younger more vulnerable helpless versions of ourselves that really really need those protector parts around.

For anybody listening who's being introduced to this for the first time the book No Bad Parts by Richard Schwartz is sort of like the Bible of IFS. And for me I think the biggest takeaway that you kind of touched on there a little bit 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.

And so what's been your integration experience collecting all these inner children and letting them know that you're in charge now?

My experience, and how I see this show up with clients, is: 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, that we're frustrated by, that may be causing us problems in some way.

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 but befriending them. And that's not always easy depending on what they're struggling with.

Some ages I think for most of us are easier to feel compassionate towards like little little selves but oftentimes as we get older those younger parts as we move towards adolescence we have a lot more complicated feelings towards them as well. The experience is befriending a part and really helping it to feel seen, heard and validated. The way that I think about this is: a part is just like any other person. 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, to validate our feelings. So on a whole person level we do that in therapy. But when we're integrating parts work we're often getting to know different parts of ourselves whether it's like our wounded parts or our protector parts.

We listen to their story, their fears, what happened to them, what they worry about, what they need from us. Ultimately, just like any person, no one can grow or transform unless they feel seen and heard. There's so much safety in that. That's how we feel regulated; that's how we feel connected to each other. 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 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?

This topic I love because it transcends diagnosis, gender, ethnicity, all sorts of things. It is so much at the core of our safety. To be clear, all of us have this biological drive and need to be seen because we're social beings. So to be seen really for us is like the closest thing to feeling loved.

When I say seen, I don't just mean physically. I mean emotionally: for someone to see us, allow us to be as we are, to accept us. Being heard gets wrapped up in that as well. But because it's so associated with love and love is associated with survival right not consciously but just in our biology 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 or this need to be seen by other people.

So what this can look like just more broadly is hiding ourselves completely, hiding parts of ourselves, molding ourselves in some way, staying small, not taking risks.

A lot of people talk about this concept of self-sabotage 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.

And when we step back and look at like what are some of the experiences that people might have when they struggle with this? 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 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. Being unsafe being who we are could mean feeling unsafe expressing certain emotions.

Maybe only certain emotions were allowed in our families the positive, happy ones. You're not allowed to be angry; you're not allowed to be creative; you're not allowed to be loud, whatever it might be.

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. People listening to this might be very familiar with Gabor Maté. He talks so much about this kind of battle between attachment and authenticity. And being seen and 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 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.

I recently posted a reel about how fear of being seen can also be related to sexual trauma for anyone who's been victimized where your body being seen or your personality and how those things can become paired with harm and risk. So it really spans a lot of different experiences.

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 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 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.

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, we lose so much of who we really are. Some of us maybe never had the chance to get to know who we are. 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 in different shapes and forms.

So your question about like how do you start healing this? I think first and foremost always the first place we start is recognizing that this might be something that I resonate with.

We can't always pinpoint exactly what experiences we've had that lead us to feel a particular way but when we can kind of gently reflect without gripping tightly to: I must find the answer. 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 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 ourselves. We can shame ourselves: "Why do I keep doing this? What's wrong with me?" And this can like feed into beliefs about being defective or not good enough.

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.

And then for example what I did in a two-part master class would talk about some of the reasons why this can happen. But then really move into more of this inner child and parts work. 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 when some of this happened whether it's early on or later in life. And from there we might also start to connect with how this fear 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 so fear of being seen often can have a lot of overlap with fawn response and like people pleasing behaviors prioritizing others over yourself again because it's a way to stay small to stay safe and make sure we stay very hypervigilant to what's happening around us.

So we also want to talk about the nervous system 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 we are connecting with our protector parts How this part has protected us, what it's worried would happen if we weren't doing this. This is where we start to hit the edges of some of the trauma: 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, what do I fear will happen?

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 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 fawn response a big part of that, as a way to stay safe, is that we often are really skilled at meeting other people's needs and abandoning our own. It's a great way to stay out of the spotlight and make sure everyone around us is appeased and taken care of.

So part of that work is also helping you connect back to yourself right. And 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 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 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? What relationship does feel good for me? What doesn't feel good? Where do I need a boundary? All of that starts with us being connected and attuned to our physical bodies. So it's a lot of different pieces that we're having to nurture all at the same time.

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? What would my life look like? What relationship would I have? What would I be pursuing? How would I be showing up in the world?

And sometimes the best way for us to start practicing that is 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 a mentor a community that you're involved in. 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. And it's not a confidence that like no one will ever reject me. That's not what that confidence is. That's not what self trust is. It's that I will be okay if this happens because I have this like safe adult with me now like companioning my inner child or my younger parts. 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, tools and the ability to leave or escape whatever the situation is.

So on a practical level every day we're also looking at where can I take a small step to stretch myself. 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 our protector parts or your nervous system one and the same their primary goal is to keep you safe. So if there's a part of you that's working so 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: 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. So being able to share a little bit and for example see how somebody responds. Was that safe? Did that feel like 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. 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 first time I've talked about MDMA therapy like 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 through the content. 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 a wholeness and an authenticity where you're showing up into the world as yourself. The people that will support you, that will accept you—this is how we often find out who is good for us to be around. And the people who don't accept that, 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 you would share all this stuff with me for the first time so I just want to say thank you. And what you spoke about there about the doubts that come up when you're being authentic. 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 have this fear of I put too much of myself out there I've exposed too much. So since you're kind of in the state right now of sharing something new.

What would you do if an hour from now or the next day you started to have those kind of that inner roommate start to speak up and say oh no you shared 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 something away from that to use for ourselves as well?

Yeah I appreciate that question. 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. 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 and validate that it makes so much sense that I would be worried about that. But also to remind the younger version of me who actually carries those worries that like I am here now. There's an adult here who accepts her and loves her just as she is and wants to hear her story and her story deserves to be told. I help that little version feel safe in doing so.

The more I've practiced this 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 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 and 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. 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 internalize it as guilt and shame about myself. And 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 is not my responsibility. It is not mine to fix.

And no one gets to determine who I am except me because so many of us who have experienced these kinds of things we spend so much time giving all of our power away and not shining or flying and having our wings clipped by people that are critical or want to keep things quiet or whatever it might be. So I would say those are kind of the primary things. And I also tend to write a lot to myself 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 made me think of Don Miguel Ruiz in The Four Agreements. When you mentioned that's kind of a them thing, not a me thing, he talks about other people having poison and trying to give you the poison. That's the only way for them to 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.

What a great quote. Whether you identify with the fear of being seen or the fawn response or people pleasing or an enmeshed family I mean like that's what it is right we like we're taking other people's poison. We don't have boundaries whether it's emotional or physical boundaries psychological or spiritual boundaries. And moving in this direction is like to really see yourself as separate from other people. Where you can like protect yourself from those beliefs or that energy or those emotions rather than absorbing it and internalizing it I yeah what a great quote thank you for sharing that.

A lot of this ties into kind of our early childhood experiences you said and our family situation. And I heard you say the person being a cycle breaker is taking a big risk which I thought was such an interesting idea.

Do you remember how you meant that and how should we navigate that risk if we're that person?

Yeah I think this is how I meant it probably in the context that I shared it in. Because I share a lot about kind of narcissistic families or emotionally immature families. Being a cycle breaker often means 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 the scapegoat as I talk about.

So it's a big risk right it's a big risk to start talking about the things that are wrong in your family. 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 you're saying "That's not okay," or "Why do we always do this? Here you go doing that thing again. Why can't we do this differently?" And that causes 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.

And I would say this applies to other systems as well like work situations too for a lot of people.

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. 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. 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 not only allows a system to stay the same it allows the person or people who are participating in that 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. 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.

So for anyone who is doing that work like you are doing some of the hardest work there is.

I heard you say that when you started finding your voice in your family it came with huge backlash. 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 I wish this is something that more therapists talked with clients about. I think there's more movement now as so many of these topics are swirling around social media. But no one prepared me for that. All I was hearing 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. 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 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 in comments from people on Instagram on a lot of my reels is 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 and is like: wait a second, is this what we're really doing here?

So that was certainly the case for me. And it did make it quite difficult on my relationship in the beginning where I believe there was some negative light shed on me and my now husband. My system adapted a bit but it wasn't without a lot of upheaval 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 someone's mind had been made up. That almost allowed me after a while to unhook from the need for the approval and validation where I just started to kind of live my life.

Our relationships are important. I come from a very close-knit family as many who struggle with these things do. So for me it wasn't a matter of like necessarily cutting out family members or distancing in any way. But allowing myself to be misunderstood is something that I continued to become more comfortable with.

But I would say what happened in addition to that is certain relationships adjusted. And there were a lot of conversations that had to be had about unmet needs and the dynamics in relationships especially with a sibling. But friendships shifted as well right.

And I think this is what 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.

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. 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. 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.

In families that are very narcissistic or very emotionally immature those boundaries are so often viewed as like a personal affront or an attack or being selfish in some way. And it can be a huge shift to see boundaries as an expression of love as you said or 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 to 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 really is to state your needs as an act of love to somebody.

Speaking 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 observing the family dynamics? What should their focus be 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 the focus often almost has to be more on: how do I protect myself while I'm here? How do I keep myself safe? How do I disengage? This kind of this idea of gray rocking to minimize conflict really. So a lot of times it is boundary setting. But often we're working to help people when it's possible to get them out of the same living space.

I've seen that so often 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 that are supportive of you or loving of you with space to pursue what it is that you want to pursue. So it is very different depending on the circumstances of if you're living with someone if you're in a marriage with someone 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 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 gray rocking which I first heard it when I was interviewing Dr. Sherrie Campbell who also speaks a lot on toxic families and emotionally immature families.

Yeah so gray rocking is really kind of just making yourself as uninteresting as possible like a gray rock. This is 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 that's where they get that supply from.

So if they're trying to bait you and you don't really engage or 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. And eventually what we see is like those people give up even if it's just temporarily trying to get that supply from you for that conversation.

So what this might look like is somebody coming in and 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 "That's not what happened," or "I see it differently. It sounds like we're remembering things differently." We're not coming back with "How could you say that? You always accuse me of these things," or "You're gaslighting me." 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 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 just like you're saying with the gray rocking.

Absolutely, and I think that is a mindset shift.

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.

So to shift from how can I get this person to be different to the acceptance that this person is this way 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 when something will feel like a personal attack for them all these kinds of behavioral patterns actually become very predictable.

So when we start to let go of 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. Gray rocking is not easy because we still have our feelings about what they're saying to us. But we're not giving our power away by giving it to them in the moment we're saying our piece 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 not you specifically but any of our children being quote unquote disrespectful or talking back.

For anyone who hadn't seen that reel, it was an example of like a parent 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 and how historically we may have perceived that as disrespectful.

This caused a lot of chaos in the comments because of people's ideas around parenting and respect, and instilling fear, whether physical or emotional, for children to be respectful.

But what I was really referring to here circles back to fear of being seen. 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 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 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 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. 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. It was so alarming to me the number of people that responded to that reel 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 can I allow myself to be authentic? Can I allow myself to express a thought, a feeling or a question?

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 my child feels safe enough with 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. 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 I think. And so as a therapist yourself what makes you say that and do you think the modality even matters at all?

Yeah there's research called common factors research 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 as well as what I see with my clients. Because again think about like what is healing so much of it is healing your body healing your nervous system.

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 valued 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 do certainly think that modalities are important like otherwise I wouldn't have trained the way that I did in certain things. But I think we have to absolutely recognize that relationship between therapist and client is of utmost importance. We get hurt in relationships. We also heal in relationships that also includes our therapeutic relationship.

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 the first time they disclose something to someone.

So yes, the modality is important because we absolutely don't want to do harm or do a therapy with someone that is not indicated for the issue that they're presenting with. But again like back to a good therapeutic relationship. That therapist hopefully 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 the therapeutic relationship.

Finally 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 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. This is not it for you.

That sounded pretty profound to me. I appreciate so much your time 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.