 Welcome to the show, Vienna, so great to have you. Thank you, excited to be here. And I wanted to kick things off with a fun phrase that you mentioned in the book from Brene Brown, to borrow it from our childhood shit. And how does it create patterns in our relationships, behaviors, and communication? Yeah, no one likes to go there. It's not a fun place to lean in. We want to just move on with life. We want to leave the past in the past. You know, we're convinced that it's not running the show or that we've addressed it properly. And what I say is that if there's any unwanted patterns in our lives right now, you know, the ones that we just can't shake, we keep coming back to them. We say never again, we're going to do it differently the next time. That's that's the indicator that we have a resolution in our past. And so I think there's so many folks who want to use the narrative that they, the adults, our parents, our caretakers, you know, they did the best that they could. They were far better than how their parents were to them. There's a lot of different narratives that people throw around. And you know, this book is, it's not an invitation to throw parents under the bus. This isn't an invitation to point the finger and hang out and blame. This is an invitation for us to acknowledge our story and honor it, right? And like really learn how to do that so that there is a path forward. I think that's certainly the area where people are most concerned because to look back into their life, to try to figure out where the origins of some of these patterns had come from, that they feel that they're going to discover some abuse or something terrible that maybe they suppressed in order to move forward or discover something or realize something for the first time that they feel is going to rock them moving forward in their lives. In preparation for this interview, we had a discussion earlier today. And as much as we have talked about how we were raised and trauma and being able to heal from it and to progress, no matter how you were raised, there are going to be pluses and minuses to that environment. Even if you feel that you have been raised in an abuse of relationship, guess there's going to be some downsides to that, but there's going to be other areas where you've become stronger due to that. And what we're looking to do is unwind a lot of this so that we can understand in adult life where those troublesome areas are and correct them to be stronger to move forward and to improve in those areas and then to also actualize and realize these parts of where we're strong, where we can lean in, what, where those strengths can help us in moving forward. One of my favorite quotes, I share this in the book, a colleague of mine says, our gifts and our pain are next door neighbors. And you're like, right, yeah, that's it. Because so many people say, I'm not who I am without the story. I wouldn't be this person without what got me here. And I think that can feel concerning for folks to address that because our gifts, the strengths that we have, John, do often develop from the pain. And so this idea that we're gonna lose our edge, that we are going to lose the qualities of ourselves that have been birthed out of these stories and experiences. I think that that is a concern, but it's a fallacy. And I think that to the point of what are the constraints? What keeps us from turning back? And yeah, a lot of times in therapy, people say it gets a little bit worse before it gets better. A lot of couples are like, oh, I don't wanna do it because I know we're gonna drum up some stuff that I would rather not touch. And this is about moving forward. This isn't about getting stuck. I say that in the book over and over again. It's like swivel head, we're not trying to hang out in the past forever, but we do need to acknowledge and we also need to understand what the constraints are that keep us from wanting to acknowledge. I also think we can't really come to terms with our weaknesses without learning and understanding what brought the strengths. And for us and our clients, it's about helping them find their X factor. And in finding that X factor, what their strengths are, what makes them unique and special is certainly having a grip on where they have come from, that environment they were raised in and rounding out the areas that they can improve and lean into those strengths and where they're strong. Yeah, our strengths can either be motivated by the pain or it can be motivated by the healing. And I think for people when you're talking about the X factor, when you're talking about people stepping into their greatness, their success, whatever you wanna call it, this idea, this space between having the pain be the thing that motivates, having the darkness be the thing that motivates versus having your healing be the thing that actually gets you the same outcome, if not better. But again, I think to your point, John, there can be a lot of fear that if I go there, wherever there might be, I'm going to lose the X factor, I'm going to lose the gift that I know is right here next to me. There's another side of the coin that we have to discuss because some people listening might really look fondly on their childhood and say, I wasn't abused, I had loving parents, I had great communication and this wound comparison, as you call it, will often keep us from exploring as well because we'll just say, oh, well, I mean, it certainly wasn't as bad as Johnny or AJ, so why do I need to explore it? Yeah, and there's reality to that. Not everybody has this awful, abusive, negligent childhood. And I think why use the language wounds instead of being so focused on traumas. Like a lot of people are like, I don't have trauma. You know, that's not something that I identify with, right, wounds are different. Pain is different and we don't have to have the worst story in the room. In fact, when we do that wound comparison, right, that is one of the things that becomes a distraction away from us acknowledging and addressing the story. And so I talk about five wounds in the book which are about the experience of not feeling worthy, the experience of not belonging, the experience of not feeling like a priority in the important people in our lives, not feeling safe and not having a sense of trust. And I think when I was writing the book, I was like, I'm pretty sure that every single one of us brushes up against a worthiness wound at some point in our lives, right? I think like wounds are a human experience. And of course wounds can happen at different points in our lives. Not everything has to be our childhood or our teenage years, but I love to look at and really understand through the lens of our family of origin, right? Through the lens of our family system, this place where our first education is given to us, where we are the observer and the experiencer of all of the things that are happening around us. And if any of us had the takeaway that I was not good enough or valued enough or I was only good enough if I was performing or pleasing or the comic relief or, or, or, or, or, right? It's like those are the things that we have to address. It does not always have to be the big stuff. And that again is like one of the things that just moves us away from acknowledging the pain. That was certainly what happened to me as I was reading your book. I had a beautiful childhood in the 80s. My fondest memories, I had two great parents. And then I'm going through your book and I realize, yeah, you actually say you might have one or you might even have more than just one of those wounds. And I very clearly saw two, I was like, wow. And then throughout, as you walk through the healing process and how that influences our boundary setting, our conflict resolution, our communication styles and which we'll certainly talk about later as well. And I realized, yeah, that's me. Like because of this wound, I'm often passive in my conversation, especially around family members. And yeah, no trauma, definitely not any trauma that I know of, but certainly these small little wounds that, you know, 30 years later still show, manifest themselves in my day-to-day behavior that was really eye-opening. Yeah, that's incredible to hear. You know, that's, that's one of the stories that feels so important to me, right? It's like, yeah, I don't think that I have much. And then being able to identify with wounds and see how that behavior shows up today. I'll also invite the listener to consider that even if you don't think that any of these will resonate with you, I imagine that you will find your partner in some of them, your best friend, your child, your sibling, right? It's like, you're not just reading this book for yourself. You are reading this book to understand the other people in your life, right? The people you love and why there might be these friction or tension moments where there's a breakdown in communication. Like you said, Michael, like why can't I bring this forward or why can't this other person bring this forward? So yeah, I think there's a tremendous amount of awareness that comes from this framework. And also empathy for those around us because now that we know their wounds or we think we know their wounds or what their wounds might probably be, like there's this amazing amount of empathy that, yeah, I don't like their behavior, but it totally makes sense. And then using those techniques that you share in the book to make it easier for them and to have the right conversation. Yeah, context, it does allow for empathy. It's not an excuse. And I think here we're talking about partners and friends and siblings, but also when we think about our parents, our caregivers, the adults in our lives too, right? It's like they were once tiny humans in a family system navigating a lot of things as well. And that is not an excuse for behavior that we didn't wanna have happen, but it does allow us to hold compassion and grace when we start to think about them through that human lens. I think this would be a great point to now go into what our telltale signs for us to identify and come to an understanding that we have wounds that need to be dealt with. All right, first one is reactivity, which kind of feel like every human has this one, right? I was like, you can't really put your hand down on this one, but any place where we notice ourselves reactive is like a very good sign that there's irresolution here. Meaning, okay, what are we getting activated about in this conversation, in this conflict, in a boundary being crossed, whatever it might be. It's like our reactivity is the neon sign. It's pointing us in the direction of something that is unresolved in our past. Kind of the same thread, but blowing things out of proportion, right? When you feel like, whoa, that did not match what happened here, whether that's you and you are recognizing that for yourself or whether it's somebody else having a really strong response to something where you're like, this doesn't line up. That's a really good indicator as well. One of my favorites is being able to give advice that you can't take. Anybody ever be able, yeah. It's like, oh yeah, we know the right thing to say to this person, don't text your ex when they text you. And then when your ex texts, you're responding immediately or just be confident or go in and go for the job interview and believe in yourself and you can't. Or like, oh, you're such an incredible human or don't alter your photos on Instagram and you've just spent two hours face tuning or whatever the kids do these days. And it's like when you can speak the advice but you have a hard time integrating it yourself, it's like, ah, okay, there's something that's missing there. And then any place where we sabotage, sabotage we know is a form of self-protection, there is something that's protective about it but when we are behaving in sabotaging ways, there is an irresolution that's going on. And then the dysfunctional patterns, like I was saying before where I led with is like the unwanted patterns that we have in our lives that we cannot shake are pointing us. Patterns are pain's way of trying to grab our attention. If you take it in for a second, it's like patterns are pain's way, pain is clever, pain's really clever. That's pain's way of grabbing at us, pulling at us. Then please turn around, please look at this. I will find clever ways to keep bringing this unwanted pattern back into your life over and over and over again until you will acknowledge me and address me properly. And so when we can shift, right, like that reframe instead of oh, pain is out to get me or oh, here's my life doing its thing again and again, it's like no, it's an offering for us to turn back and acknowledge something that we have been avoiding, something that we've been distracting ourselves from. And we've had Dr. Glover on the show and it was one of our most downloaded episodes and a lot of our audience members relate to nice guy, nice gal syndrome, people pleasing, putting others' wants and needs above their own. And you're right in the book that there are a variety of origin wounds that can create this pattern of communication and behavior, but it seems really prevalent in our audience. And when they hear that and they hear this idea, well, actually you're creating covert contracts where you're actually making assumptions about the other person without communicating any of those assumptions and patterns of behavior expecting certain patterns of behavior back from the other person and you're constantly let down, it creates this self-fulfilling prophecy because it creates you with a pattern of communication and behavior only attracting certain people in your life. You only attract people and you repel people who don't wanna be around someone who's constantly sacrificing their wants, needs and values for other people who's constantly avoiding saying what's really on their mind, who's hiding in a place of self-judgment instead of being authentic. That was me for a long time. I really embodied what I thought was the cool girl persona, which meant that I was boundaryless. It meant that I had no needs. It meant that I presented as a human being who was totally fine, unaffected by anything, go with the flow. And the origin story around that is that my parents went through a nine-year divorce process. Starting when I was in first grade, I'm an only child. There was a tremendous amount of chaos that was happening in the system around a lot of psychological abuse, manipulation, gaslighting, paranoia, emotional flooding. It was really awful. And I shared that I was an only child just because I think that context feels important as a little human in this system, not having anybody else to bounce the experience off of. No sibling, neither one of my parents repartnered, remarried, no other adults in this space to, I don't know, I guess I had the fantasy that an adult would give you an eye and be like, I get it and I know and I see, right? And so there was none of that. And so I was this tiny little human seeing the adults in my life crash and burn around me. And the belief that I took away from that was that there wasn't room for me to not be okay. It was very clear to me that they both were not okay. And so my takeaway was I needed to be fine. I needed to be okay. I needed to be unaffected. I needed to be a well-rounded little kid and then teenager and adult and all was okay. And so from a really early age, that's what I took on. And I was a needless little girl who turned into a needless woman. And again, that cool girl persona and people walked all over me. There was no sense of self. You can't have boundaries without a self, right? There's no authenticity because you're hiding that you are affected by anything. I didn't know how to be with my pain. I was like, oh, my parents divorced didn't affect me at all. I started grad school. Bless my professors and advisors and supervisors. Cause I was like, my parents divorced didn't affect me at all. And they're like, ah, sweet girl. You know, welcome to your degree in marriage and family therapy. But I held, I clung to that for a really long time. It was too scary for me to feel. It was too vulnerable for me to say that I was affected that I was in pain, that there were wounds until I got to a point in my mid late twenties. I was dating someone and his ex came back into the picture. So I went to get back together with him. He was contemplating getting back in the relationship with her. We were together at the time and cue it. I was like, absolutely. I totally understand this must be a really hard decision for you, you know, cool girl, needless therapist. You know, they're like, ah, there's context. Of course, you have a story, right? And I was doing that for a couple of weeks and then I remember it clicked in. And I was like, ah, there it is. You know, like there's the same role that I have had my whole life. And I like, I found it in a moment in a conversation with a friend. It was like, ah, that's the little girl. You know, that's, I have always been in this role where I have put everybody else's experience above my own. I have disconnected from how I actually feel. I don't even know how I feel because I'm so busy hiding that and pretending that I can't even let any form of authenticity come forward. And I remember ending the relationship and saying that I was not actually okay with what was going on and that I felt disrespected. And that was life changing. And it was, that is not hyperbolic for me, right? It's like this moment for someone who has never said, I'm not okay, for a person who has never said, I am affected, I'm hurt, I'm in pain, right? To say those words was significant. And my husband now laughs because he's like, I never met that woman who doesn't speak how she feels. Right, so there was no turning back after that. But it was this like moment. And I talk about the pivot in the book, right? It's like, I needed to acknowledge something. I needed to witness the pain that was there from long ago. I needed to grieve. I really needed to feel what had been lost by stepping into this role. And I think in any type of dysfunctional family system, we take on roles that are not meant for us, right? We have to because we're trying to figure out how to make the system function, right? And that's what I had taken on. And I had held onto that for decades until this moment. This was the moment of me getting off the track. This was the moment of me setting up a new track for myself where I could start to feel where myself was, where I could start to feel where my boundaries needed to be, where my expression needed to be. I kind of wish this was like a might drop moment in my life where it's like, I feel so empowered. You know, it's like, no, I was like crying for two months and it was really hard. It wasn't just like, I'm so empowered. I just did the thing. This was hard. And of course there were these moments, I hoped that he would come back and say, I made the worst mistake in my life, you know, in my mid, late 20 year old self. But it did set the path. And it's why it's so important for us when we realize like, what is the role that I hold onto? Whether it's being a pleaser, whether it's being a performer or believing that we need to show up in a certain way in order to feel good enough or worthy of love, connection, attention, praise, validation, calm, safety. It's like the conditions of the relationship, right? And I think to your point, AJ, where you started with the pleasers and maybe you said the perfectionist too, is like we learn in our family systems who we need to be in order to get love, connection, attention, right, attachment. We learn how we need to show up in the world. Is it straight A's, is it a hat trick on the field? Like what do I need to do in order to get the outcome that I want? Do I need to be the comic relief so dad stops hurting my sister? You know, do I need to be the straight A student so mom is less depressed? Like what do I have to lean into in order to get that? I think sometimes when we have figured out what the conditions are, we hold on to that throughout our adult lives too. Oh, what I wanna point out there that is really important for everyone to hear and I've gone through it myself is, yes, your husband didn't experience that part of you but he also wouldn't have stuck around for that version of you. Yeah. Right, so what you're talking about is recognizing that wound, healing from it and then changing your communication, changing your boundary setting, changing how you handle yourself in conflict and all of a sudden you level up the quality of relationships and people in your life because you're no longer repelling those people with these behaviors that are just coming from a place of pain inside. Yeah, that's right. I also wanna point out in that is where people run these patterns and tend to find themselves in the same relationship over and over again and reason why it continues to fail and if we're not growing, right? If we're not taking responsibility on that end that pattern will continue. Yeah, sometimes people wanna change the partner first instead of connecting with self and sometimes people will choose the repetition pattern. Sometimes other people though will choose the oppositional pattern. Well, it can look a couple of ways. Sometimes people swing in romantic relationships so they choose somebody who's super combative in communication or conflict and then the next person they date is the total nice guy or gal, like you said before and then they swing back and then they swing back or you grow up in a family system where high conflict and conflict is really charged maybe high conflict means a lot of yelling or it might mean abuse or it can mean so many different things to so many people but this idea that because this was so painful for me I do a 180, right? So instead of being attracted and drawn to what is familiar I 180 it and I am drawn to the person who will never bring up anything and even though the latter may be enticing because no conflict sounds good, looks good, right? But the reality of it is that when we are existing in repetition or opposition we are not existing in integration and I think it's really important because to the public I think we talk about repetition a lot. Oh, it's the same thing as when you grew up and we don't give opposition enough of a spotlight and so I'd like to just give opposition a moment here with us. Be like, you have to look out for that part too because that is not resolution, right? That's an avoidance of something and an avoidance isn't the resolution that we're looking for. And that opposition can come in many forms. So as a parent you might say, well my parents abused alcohol so I'm never gonna touch it, right? So you can look for opposition in behaviors that don't actually heal you but you're acting in a totally different manner so you on the surface think, okay, well I'm not doing I'm breaking that pattern I'm not doing what my family did to me so therefore I'm healing and moving forward when in actuality it's surface level it's not meaningful to the wound that was caused. But it's so subtle, right? Because no one's gonna argue with you if you choose not to drink. Right, they're not gonna say you should be drinking. Right, like no one's gonna be like, ah, that's a bad decision or low conflict. No, tisk, tisk, right? It's like, these are the ones where it can feel like, oh, you can get away with it because you're making a choice that objectively looks pretty good to the observer, right? And so it's so important, right? This is such a nuanced conversation of no, if you just choose that path without the resolution, right? You are not actually addressing and healing it properly. So let's talk about healing and unpack once we've identified a origin wound or two what steps we can take to heal. I know you mentioned earlier, witnessing either your own or through therapy or you found witnessing in your husband. What does that mean and what are some other steps we can take to heal? Before you answer, I just wanted to connect this for our audience who are more familiar with the terms of breaking these patterns rather than the healing process. So let's link those together so that our audience has that understanding. Yeah, I was just gonna say one or two or five. A lot of people are like, is it possible to have all five of these? Check every box, perfect. Yeah, check every box, absolutely. Yeah, I'm so good at this wound stuff. Yeah, and I actually love the language, John, of breaking the pattern. I coincidentally started our conversation with the unwanted patterns, right? That we don't want to keep having in our lives. And so it is consistent language. I am a really big believer that you cannot heal without witnessing. Obviously we have to identify what our wounds are that pick up the book, read it, see what resonates. We also really have to be in the connection to, the feeling of, and when I say witnessing, every single one of us can witness ourselves. That's a great place to start, to move all the distractions and noise aside, right? To stop trying to minimize it, distort it, intellectualize it, to stop touching it, right? Let it just be, right? And to witness your pain, to see yourself without any of those distractions, without anything that pulls you away from it, and just view it, feel it, connect to it. I do think being witnessed by another is monumental. I don't know that just witnessing the self is enough. And the example that I give in the book, and I'll share it very quickly, I was having a conversation with a family member that was going exactly the way that the conversation goes every single time. It's one of those things where you're like, I'm surprised that the thing that's not surprising is happening, right? And you're like, ah, stop being surprised by this. But hence, we all try to change it in some way. And maybe if I say it this way or do it that way, it's gonna give me a different outcome. But this particular time, my phone was on speaker and Connor, my husband, heard the conversation, the same one that I had over and over and over again. And the call ended and he said, I get it. And it was the first time that anybody else, and again, only child, nobody else, these are not the conversations I'm having with anybody in the family. And he said, yeah, I see exactly what you're talking about. And it was such a tiny moment that was so big because in that moment, my experience, right? I see what you see, I feel what you feel, right? Was being so validated and to be witnessed that way, to have someone say, I see what you see, I feel what you feel, I experience what you experience is powerful. It's a profound moment. And what was so interesting about it was that once that happened, I no longer needed the other person to get it. That is important because I think sometimes we cling to this idea that the person who puts the pain there in the first place or like, we need mom to get it. And we need dad to understand that what he did was so painful and did it. We don't actually need that person to participate, right? We just need someone to witness the pain. We just need someone to acknowledge it and validate it. And yes, of course, us being able to do that with ourselves without the distraction is very important. And I would always encourage us to start there, but to also have an onlooker, right? Somebody else witnessing us alongside of us is huge. I just wanna point out that this is something you can't force upon somebody. You can lay out what you're going through and they're either going to catch it or they're not going to catch it. And if they're unable to grasp it, they're not gonna make a very good witness because you're not gonna feel wholeheartedly a scene and heard. This goes deep. You have to feel connected where you have to search out like-minded people who are working on the same things that you are. This is why if you're a growth-oriented person, demia in the midst of other growth-minded people because they're actively challenging these patterns to accomplish their goals. So if you have a lot of aspiration in your life and you're looking to achieve those things, you're gonna have to come into direct contact with all of these wounds. And you're going to have to defeat them. You're gonna have to process them as Michael likes to say, these are the dragons that you wake up to every day and you either submit to them or you slay them. And as you wipe these out, you will work closer to those goals. And so being around other people who know the challenges to use that metaphor, again to wake up and fight the dragons every day, well, you know that you're surrounded by people who understand how difficult it is to break these patterns, to witness these patterns, to come to face them and go, oh, I found another one, I have to work through it and here's the work that I'm going to do. Hey, I've been there. I remember when I went through that pattern, I remember that exact process. Here's how I went through it. Here's what you can expect. And guess what? When you freak out late at night as you're going through this, shoot me a text, shoot me a call. I'll be there for you. This is often so beautiful to see in our online courses where people for the very first time come into our live Q&A coaching call and the first realization they have is what am I not alone? Everyone struggles with that. I'm not the only one who's a little bit scared to talk to strangers on the street. Like all of you are like this as well and we can grow together and also sharing one of their struggles and then everyone else going, yeah, I get it. Either I'm there as well or I've been there a couple of weeks ago or a couple of months ago. Let me show you the way out. Let me let us do this together. But I get it that you're struggling with that. It's beautiful to see how their hearts open up. It's like, wow, I'm no longer alone. Like these folks get me. Yeah, there's such power in community and you can't slay without the witnessing. And I think the like-minded part is we can only see others as far as we've seen ourselves vice versa. So being around people who are, yeah, actively in quote unquote, the work, whatever you want that to mean, but it's like that is it. Whether it's a partner who you are matched with, whether it's community of like-minded individuals or people who are working towards similar goals, whether it's working with a therapist, it's like those are the people who are going to witness you well. And it can also be strangers, I think, to your community that you're talking about. It's like, I just met you, but oh my gosh, you struggle with that too. And there's something about seeing the humanness in a stranger who's able to just hold that space for you. It's like, I've been there before and I'm here and I can connect to this moment with you. Yeah, life changing, life changing. And along with that witnessing these patterns, I mean, they're there for a reason. They're gonna come up again, right? The conversation with your relative is gonna happen again. As you said, they're not gonna change just because you witnessed it and now you recognized it. And in the work with my therapist, he said, this is AJ on his white horse coming in to help the family. And then there's like a few months later having another session, he's like, well, there's that white horse again, right? And just gave me pause of like, okay, this is still a pattern. Even though I've recognized it, even though I've witnessed it, even though I felt heard and seen and validated by my therapist, like this is still a pattern in my internal family system that's gonna continue to play out because no one else in the group is working on themselves, is working to break that pattern. That's all they know. That's their default behavior at this point. That's their default communication and conflict resolution. I think that's just oftentimes when we see these concepts on social media and we see clips online and we people doing the work, we think it's just, okay, I've had this realization, I've had this beautiful moment with my husband and okay, onto the next wound. Yeah, not enough. And unfortunately it isn't enough. Yeah, witnessing leads us to grief, which is the authentic expression of the emotion that's present, right? That like when we actually witness the self, it's going to lead us, if we allow it, right? If we're not blocking feeling, if we're not blocking or hiding or protecting, right? Like if we can actually be there, it will lead us to the authentic expression of our emotion and grief is what moves things. And it's hard, right? People are like, how do you grieve? We love a how to question, right? It's like, oh, follow these two steps and this will be you grieving and you can't answer it that way, right? It's like it has to be an authentic expression of where you go to what you allow yourself to feel because there is a tremendous amount of grief that presents when we start to witness our pain. In the book, you go through the difference between what grief is and what grief isn't. And I think that would help our audience because that word, everyone has a picture of what that means for them. So for our purposes, let's clarify that. So everyone is clear on what that is and that'll help them be able to work through it. But just saying grief, that's a reason why people are not gonna wanna go back and do the past, they don't wanna see. So let's make sure we clear that up. Oh, yeah, right. It's, well, we are a grief, I think, what's his name? Steven Jengensen would say we are a grief phobic society. And so, yeah, to your point, right? It's like, no one wants to grieve. That sounds awful. We're like, I'm just gonna sit in my feelings and cry and be on the floor, you know, whatever it is. And I think when you think about grief, obviously when we think about death, losing people, grief is something that presents in any transition that we go through, expansion and grief always. And that's why I say the authentic, right? This, you cannot force yourself to grieve, right? In the same way, John would say, like you can't force someone to witness, right? It's like, this is not a designed thing that we do. I think I'd share this in the book. I remember the first time when I started doing this practice, one of the memories that stands out to me quite a bit is as a little girl, I would perch myself atop the stairs at my mom's house and I would listen in on conversations that my mom and dad were having, not unlike many children. I also got very good at picking up the second line in both of their homes. If you just wait until they're yelling, they don't hear you pick up the phone. And so I would do this all the time, right? Because I wanted to understand what was happening. Like I said before, there's a lot of psychological abuse and lying and all this. And I needed to hear with my own two ears what was happening, so I was informed. And when I first, when I first started doing this practice, I remember envisioning it closing down my eyes and envisioning little Vienna, who was like seven, eight, nine years old, somewhere around there and just witnessing her perched at the top of the stairs and sitting there alone, listening to this as a little tiny human, just taking in all of that information. And when you don't distract and mess with it, right? It's like then the emotion that is just there does begin to present, right? Like to feel for her. For me, that looked like connecting with my seven, eight, nine year old self. For others, that might look like a totally different age or a totally different moment in your life, but it's when we connect to that, right? Grief naturally comes. You might cry, you might laugh, you know what I mean? Like there's no way in which grief looks for every single person. And so trying to fit into some box is not gonna work. Trying to construct, I think grieving looks like me, you know, having tears streaming down my face is not going to work, right? Grief is just you opening yourself up to feel, right? It's removing the barriers. It's removing all of the constraints that we are so good at putting there, protecting ourselves from and allowing ourselves to go to this place of seeing and witnessing and feeling what is there for us as we connect to a younger version of ourselves who went through something that was hard and hurtful and painful. I think this also has to do with the phenomena of, there's a new social media app that is showing everyone their teenage self. Okay. It's a filter, but it's the way it's imposed and everything is a very high-tech now. People are seeing themselves without the wrinkles and everything, but basically being a 14-year-old, 15-year-old again, and they're seeing that picture and then moving in the way they are moving, it gives it life and they are overwhelmed with emotion. And that emotion has a lot of sadness in it, has a lot of joy in it as well, but they're coming face to face with somebody they haven't seen in a long time and they have ignored for a long time. And I think that avoidance of that person has a lot to do with that and in reading the book and hearing in this discussion, I think it's an neglect of that person and avoiding some of those patterns that connect us to that person where those emotions are. Yeah, absolutely. It's interesting to hear. I had not seen that app before. I'm curious about it. I think sometimes photos or videos from the past can provoke something in us. And exactly this is to see ourselves in that way when we have banished it for so long is to avoid what that person went through and to allow ourselves to connect with what that person us went through at a very different point in our lives. Now, when we think about connection, obviously it involves relationships and other people. So I'd love to talk a little bit about how understanding and healing from your origin wound actually impacts your current relationships and future relationships, the way you show up in conflict, the way you communicate, the boundaries that you draw. So we've talked a lot about recognizing our past and growing from our past, but if we start to look towards the present and the future, how does this help and serve us in our relationships? If we witness and grieve, that's the thing that helps create more space between stimulus and response. I think many of us are really familiar with the quote that's attributed to Victor Frankel about between stimulus and response, there is a space, right? It's a pause, right? Where we wanna really respect this pause we talk about. And in that pause is our opportunity for freedom. And yeah, freedom, breaking our patterns, right? Like that's what that is, right? I wanna break the breakdown in communication. I want to move through conflict differently. I want to set or lift a boundary with the people in my lives. I cannot expand that pause without witnessing and grieving. That is the thing that makes that pause longer, right? Because in the moments where our relationships present all of our activation, right? Communication, conflict, boundaries, it happens in those spaces all the time, right? Is that when we have an understanding of what is showing up in that moment, right? It's like, oh, my worthiness wound is activated right now. Or my prioritization wound is activated right now. And when we have spent time witnessing that and grieving alongside of that, then that space, that pause is longer, which means that we have an opportunity to choose differently based on our understanding of ourselves. Also, ideally based on the understanding of the other person, right? We have more access for the self, but if we're moving through this with a partner, for example, or a dear friend or a sibling, right? It's like, hopefully we know a lot about their story as well. But that's it, right? It's like, we need that space to expand so that we don't just automatically move to the same old response, right? To the same pattern, to Michael's point before, now that I realize that I have this wound, right? In that pause, if I take a little bit of time to be with it, right? If I can witness it a bit, and if I can be with whatever the grief looks like, then I have an opportunity to move from being a passive communicator to someone who's going to express the self, right? I'm going to actually bring something forward that I would normally hide. I will actually share how I feel instead of pretending like I'm fine. I will allow somebody to be disappointed if that means that I am being authentic with myself. It doesn't mean that it's easy, right? But the space allows for us to begin to choose differently because we know what's on the other side of that, right? Which is a stronger relationship with self, right? Which is authenticity, which is our healing. And you end these, I think all of those exercises, healing exercises for each particular origin wound with this question that's based on the miracle question and it goes something like, if I didn't have a belonging wound, then what I would be doing right now is X, which is behavior. You have your pause, you've created this pause, you've elongated this pause through grief. Now you have a little bit of a pause between stimulus and response and where does the change come from? It comes from different behavior, walking a new path, trying something out for the very first time. Something that we do in our Unstoppable program is this Unstoppable is all about building your own confidence and dealing with your inner critic. And the first question we ask participants is, if you had unlimited confidence, what would you be doing? And what they very often find out is that, well, this is what I would be doing is this and this and this. And it's actually not that difficult. I've just never, ever done it before, but it's just taking a step to the right instead of taking a step to the left. And so we start with behavior. And then we borrowed this quote from Dr. Roshares and the Toward and the Away move because Unstoppable is built on acceptance and commitment therapy, which is all about building, bringing that behavior about despite the difficult stuff that's going on. I saw so much of that in your pivoting move. This is what I would be doing. If I were my best self, the future self that I want to be, this is what I would be doing. So let's go and do exactly that and learn techniques, of course, on the way just because we decide to now be a better communicator and we decide to now set better boundaries doesn't mean we instantly know how to do it. But those are techniques that are fairly easily learned, I would say compared to all the work that has gone before to make the decision, okay, from here on out, I'm gonna set more healthy boundaries. Let's learn how to do that. Yeah, I love that point, right? That it's that what we would be doing is actually not that far off, right? That it's not so far out of reach. But if we don't understand what the constraints are, we'll just keep spinning those wheels, right? Like we'll just keep finding the reason not to set the boundary because if I am so afraid of being rejected, if I stand up for myself and rejection hasn't been addressed because there's a wound there, it's like we're gonna continue to avoid it. Because it makes sense. It makes sense to repeat that. It makes total sense, yeah. Like our systems are brilliant. They are trying to protect us, but oftentimes they are protecting us with outdated measures, right? Outdated tools, the things that helped us survive back in the day, right? It's that we don't need the majority of that today, right? And so, yeah, this approach to, I love that question. It's like, what would I be doing differently if this weren't here? Okay, so then what do I need to do to lift the thing that is here, right? That's the question, right? It's like, if this weren't here, oh, here's what I would be doing. Here's what I'd be saying. Here's what I'd be going after. Beautiful, great. That's not that far out of reach, got it. Okay, but that thing is there, right? So you have to look at that thing. You have to address that thing. You need to be with that thing so that you can lift that thing and go after the life and the relationships that you have been desiring for however long, decades probably. So, you know, when it comes to communication, conflict, boundaries, like all of the dysfunction that's there, it serves something, right? Why do we communicate in the way that we do? Why do we engage in conflict in the way that we do? Why do we set or keep boundaries in a certain way that we do just to protect us from something, right? It tries to protect us from something. If we can accept that our systems are brilliant and they're working for us in the way that they think is right, right? And we can get curious about that. That's gonna help us. I'll share a story to try to make this clearer. I was in a fight with my husband. He wasn't my husband at the time we were dating. We were not engaged yet. And I have no clue what we were fighting about, but I know that I could not stop trying to prove my point over and over and over again. And Connor was like, I got it. I understand. And I'm doubling down. I'm tripling down. I just keep going. And he's like, I got it. I understand. But I'm in this moment, right? I'm in this moment where I can't stop. And I have a bit of an out-of-body experience where I'm like seeing myself engage this way. I'm like, Vienna, stop. It's like so unattractive. This is not good. And then finally, it comes to an end. And certainly for a moment, I had shame and embarrassment. I'm like, I don't know if he's gonna want to be with me if I'm engaging this way. Like this isn't good. And then I replaced shame with curiosity. Okay. Why did I need to be right? Why did I need to keep proving my point? What does that behavior serve? In what way is that trying to protect me? And that line brings us directly to my childhood again, which is growing up with a father at the time who was psychologically abusive, manipulative, gaslighting, not towards me, mostly to my mom, but seeing that and seeing the, like it was quite literally crazy making for her, right? And seeing that is a lack of safety, right? If you allow somebody to do that, right? Cause not being right means you're wrong in that context. And being wrong in that context means you're unsafe and unwell. And when I was able to tie those things together, I was able to have so much more compassion and grace for myself, right? To be like, oh, I'm proving my point. I'm needing to be right because this is me trying to protect myself. I'm not aware of it in the moment, right? I don't wanna, you know, this again is not an excuse for the behavior. In fact, I really needed to step into my partner is a safe person. He is not trying to do those things. I cannot bring this behavior into the relationship and expect that it's gonna be successful and that it's going to work, right? It's like there are conditions for us being in a healthy, thriving relationship but to have that awareness and that understanding. It's so important and so powerful and to be able to bring that to him and have a conversation about that was so opening for us. And that's why I say when you reflect on where you have the breakdown in all of these areas, right? Instead of just living in your shame, living in your embarrassment, doubling down on it. This is just how I am, right? Instead of going to those things, bring curiosity forward and understand what your behavior is trying to protect you from because I guarantee you it is connected to a wound somewhere. And if you can start kind of circling back around addressing those wounds, then we can address these behaviors that are dysfunctional, right? These behaviors that are not actually allowing for our highest performance in life and love. And you brought this up earlier which is being able to reach a certain amount of freedom and in order to do that, there's certain restraints that must be removed. There's external restraints and some of those were able to take responsibility for and figure out how to undo them. Some of those were unable to but then there's also the internal restraints and that's being imprisoned in our own mind and this is the work to be able to get through that and that freedom, what comes with it is being able to relax to not have all this anxiety because knowing that subconsciously you're in another pattern and you may be conscious of it or not but because subconsciously you're recognizing the triggers and the pattern coming up there's an anxiety coming on that is going to have to deal with you knowing what's coming. So gaining consciousness of this naming it, witnessing it, creating that space and then to be able to pivot into new behaviors and actions that free you of those patterns. When we can make a meaning of something like that's where the freedom is and I think when we're not able to prioritize connection it means that we are prioritizing protection and we can sit here all day and I think most humans would say, no, I want connection. We know at the underside of it all we want connection but if you can't prioritize connection something is getting in the way because you're screaming or because you're being passive aggressive or because you are doubling down like I did is like when those behaviors are happening your wall is so high up and you won't let anybody get close to you. Whatever it is, that's you prioritizing protection and if you are prioritizing protection then you have your resolution there. And when we say connection it's not the swinging pendulum, right? It's not like the 180 is like I need to stay connected at all costs and that means no boundaries and that means I'm never gonna say anything that I think is gonna hurt somebody's feelings because I don't want them to leave me, right? The intersection of connection and protection is what we're looking for but I think I trust that we can have a nuanced conversation and that our listeners can too is that if we cannot prioritize connection in a healthy way then it means that we are absolutely protecting something and that is the big star, right? That's the light going off. What are you protecting? Because if you are in protection mode there is something that is in pain or fear, right? And that needs our attention because again, breaking patterns, liberation having the life and love that you want in your life we all want that. Those goals, those things that you're chasing down, right? If that stuff is getting in the way of that you have to or I would encourage you you have the choice of course but to look at this in order to get to the outcome that you've been saying you want. Beautifully put, we love asking everyone of our guests what their X factor is. What do you think makes you unique and extraordinary, Vienna? I would say my integrity and my commitment to excellence there's a few pillars in my life that feel very important to me always. My integrity is one of them and being committed to operating in the world and in relationships, my work with excellence is the other. I could throw a few more in there but those are the two that feel like, yeah, that is the thing that lets me stand out and I think I have a way of talking about this for people that gets through and hopefully feels clear that it takes sometimes hard and complex issues and topics that we don't necessarily want to lean towards and offers a way to do that that's maybe a little less scary and hard. Well, it definitely came through in the book The Origins of You, how breaking family patterns can liberate the way we live and love. Excellent exercises, questions to ask yourself to work through the book. Where can our audience find out more about the book and all of your work? Yeah, you can find me on Instagram at MindfulMFT as a Marriage Family Therapy, NewYorkCouplesCounseling.com, ViennaFahren.com, all the things that I have going on are on the sites in my bio, the book is sold wherever books are sold. And yeah, just honored and grateful to be here and thank you for having me on and this conversation. Really powerful, thank you. Thank you. Thank you.