Synergy
Welcome to "Synergy" with your hosts, Daniel and Alicia!
Join us as we delve into the intricacies of relationships, parenting, business and the power of human connection.
In this podcast, we explore the dynamics that make relationships and businesses thrive and discuss practical tips and insights for creating synergy in your personal and professional life.
We bring a unique blend of expertise and personal experiences to the table. As business owners with team, being in a relationship together, and parents ourselves, we have dedicated our lives to understanding the building blocks of successful relationships and effective parenting. Each episode, we engage in thought-provoking conversations, sharing stories, strategies, and advice to help you navigate the challenges and celebrate the joys of connection.
In this podcast, we explore the dynamics that make relationships and businesses thrive and discuss practical tips and insights for creating synergy in your personal and professional life. Whether you're a couple looking to strengthen your bond, partners in business, a parent seeking guidance on raising happy and resilient children, or simply someone interested in deepening your connections with others, this podcast is for you.
We explore effective communication techniques to examining the role of trust and vulnerability in relationships, we leave no stone unturned. We also invite special guests from all facets of life, who bring their unique perspectives and share their wisdom and practical insights.
Get ready to be inspired, informed, and uplifted as Daniel and Alicia guide you on this transformative journey of love, parenting, and human connection. Elevating your human experience.
Synergy
Transform Your Relationships: Unpacking the Drama Triangle with Dr. Ashleigh Morland
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Dr Ashleigh Moreland is a therapist, coach, and founder of the Re-MIND Institute. She is on a mission to bridge the gap between cutting-edge scientific inquiry and real-world transformation. With a Ph.D. in neuroplasticity, Ashleigh is driven by an insatiable curiosity to understand how our brains work, how our minds develop, and how we can unlock our full potential to experience heaven on earth in business, relationships and life.
Unlock the secrets to transforming your personal and professional relationships in our latest episode of Synergy! Joined by the insightful Dr Ashleigh Morland, we promise you'll gain powerful strategies to recognise and reshape the roles you play in the drama triangle—whether as the aggressor, victim, or peacemaker. Ash dives deep into how childhood experiences shape these dynamics and the steps you can take to foster healthier relationships through awareness, education, and transformation.
We also explore the intricate connection between anxiety, neuroplasticity, and emotional processing. Discover how addressing stored emotions in your body can revolutionize your mental narratives and reactions. From personal anecdotes to practical advice, this episode is packed with actionable insights into embracing triggers as opportunities for growth. Learn how your romantic partners and children act as mirrors for your unresolved wounds, and how acknowledging these triggers can lead to profound healing and improved interactions.
Finally, we delve into the power of self-understanding, purpose, and clear communication in elevating relationships, whether you're managing the arrival of a new baby or navigating emotional regulation in parenting. Hear about the importance of genuine repair, positive reinforcement, and prioritizing the emotional well-being of each family member. This episode is your comprehensive guide to nurturing deeper connections and creating harmonious environments at home and in the workplace. Don’t miss out on these transformative insights!
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One, two, three, four. Welcome to Synergy, the podcast where we uncover the secrets to successful relationships, effective leadership and transformative parenting. I'm your host, Alicia.
Speaker 2:And I'm Dan, and we'll deep dive into relationships, friendships and, most importantly, the relationship we have with ourselves. Together, we'll explore different strategies, techniques and approaches that can help you achieve synergy in every aspect of your life.
Speaker 1:Stay curious, keep learning and embrace the power of synergy. Hello and welcome to Synergy. We have a very special guest today called Ash Morland. Congratulations for being here. We've talked about this for so long. Well, I did. I spoke to you about this like three years ago, I think, something like that.
Speaker 3:It was a while ago, so it's finally happening.
Speaker 1:Yay, how exciting. Thanks for having us.
Speaker 3:It's awesome to be here.
Speaker 1:And face to face. I know. Do you know how nice it is? We had like an online one last week, which was so good, but like it's so good having you're actually a second guest in person awesome.
Speaker 3:My whole entire podcast is just done online and it's such a different vibe to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, face it is totally love it. Well, thank you for being here in person. Yeah, all right, cool, we've got some juicy stuff to talk about today. We were just having a convo prior and I was like stop, stop, we need to stop this. We need to do this on the podcast. So, um, we've got some jam-packed stuff to talk about, about parenting and business and life in general. So I did ask you a question. Let's start with that around the top three? Um well, did I say the one or three?
Speaker 3:well, you said three, but I said honestly, the main one is relational dynamics. And then that just branches out, it explodes into the top 10. But I find that most things stem back to relational dynamics because within that you've got your childhood trauma, you've got your defense mechanisms and your fight flight freeze stuff, you've got your attachment styles, you've got so much yeah, well, okay, so that's like a category and then there's like an umbrella. It's the umbrella of relational dynamics.
Speaker 3:Okay, so if we talked to niche it right down rather than like going broad, what if we talked about because I'm kind of like what would best serve the people listening yeah so I think, understanding the interplay of our dynamics, because if we don't understand why we are the way that we are, first of all we have to understand how we are, but then, when we understand why we are the way we are, we're then empowered to do something about it.
Speaker 3:Yes, so one of the things that I was talking about is the main model I use is called the drama triangle, right, so we've got an aggressor role, and then we've got a victim role, and then we've got a peacekeeper role or a peacemaker role, and generally we are born into a relational dynamic. We are born to parents who have, because of their own childhood experiences and their own life experiences, they play a role. So we have to slot somewhere into a pre-existing triangle because we're born into a dynamic. And so, for me personally, I grew up with an aggressive father, a victim mother, and so I had to slot into the fixer helper, and so I was a I mean, I'm a therapist.
Speaker 1:So yeah, okay, that makes perfect sense.
Speaker 3:I mean, I'm a therapist so, yeah, okay, that makes perfect sense. Except in my life it was dysfunctional fixing and helping and major people pleasing. I would abandon myself in order to make sure that everything the environment was safe.
Speaker 1:So when you say, like if we can go into them because I think aggressor is an aggressive term, but like, what would that look like? So aggressor and victim and peacemaker, so what would be the like how could you identify the behaviours of those things?
Speaker 3:So people think, especially for women. They'll say I'm not an angry person, but there's frustration and so aggressor is the name of the role. But it can look lots of different ways. So it might look like a fight response where someone is overtly and outwardly coming at you or being snappy reactive, and so it might be that outward aggressor.
Speaker 3:But also there's passive aggression, and passive aggression might be things like silent treatments, it might be things like tone of voice that could be gaslighting or condescending. So those are all fall under the umbrella of the aggressor, right. So those are all fall under the umbrella of the aggressor Trying to exert your power or your dominance over someone else in a way to control or manipulate a situation. And none of this, no one wakes up and thinks how can I control?
Speaker 1:them today? Yeah, how can I be an aggressor today?
Speaker 3:Yeah, but it's purely just how we learn to survive in the dynamic we were born into.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think it's also important to note that you're not a bad person.
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 1:It's a behaviour. So, like you said, once you know and you learn about it, you can do something about it. Exactly.
Speaker 3:And that's what I find. So we work off three pillars the first is awareness, then education and then transformation. So those three pillars, when all done collectively, you first of all have to have awareness of where your dysfunction is playing out. Because if we don't have awareness, other people are still at the effect of our dysfunction, but we will blame them for their response to it or their reaction to it.
Speaker 3:So it's a massive dose of huge self-responsibility and I say to people when anyone's considering working with me, I have this really honest conversation going. You're going to have to see some pretty ugly things about yourself and that's confronting for a lot of people. But until you're willing to see the ugly things, there's nothing that you can do to have healthier workplace, healthier home, healthier relationship even with yourself, because you have to be willing to see these unconscious patterns of behavior that are playing out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you have to be able to shine a light on it, and go yeah, this is, this is the truth, and yeah, exactly. What can I do with that information?
Speaker 3:And then victim is the well, victim, I think, is the easiest to think about, because everyone knows someone who. It's never their fault. They always seem to have the problems, need to be helped, need to be bailed out. They're always coming to us with the problems, yeah, but they have no capacity for solution. They just want you to solve it yeah, it's just all your fault.
Speaker 1:Exactly got nothing to do with it yeah, how are you gonna fix it? Exactly, and so I mean, these are extreme cases, though, right.
Speaker 3:No, no, most people fall into the drama triangle.
Speaker 1:Because I was going to say I would say probably 90% plus of the population. What about, like, I'm hearing this and I'm like I'm all three 100%?
Speaker 3:Do you know what I mean? 100%. We play out and because it's an organic triangle and it's a dynamic, so we always we can jump up into different roles right, I even can play all those roles with no one else in my triangle.
Speaker 3:Right, let's say, I am trying to lose weight and I'll go oh, I'm gonna eat really healthy. Well, then I'm gonna jump up and be the aggressor to myself. And then I'm gonna feel bad because I've just been aggressive to myself and I'm gonna be the victim. And then I'm gonna try and rationalize and justify oh, it's okay, you can start again. And then I'm going to feel bad because I've just been aggressive to myself and I'm going to be the victim. And then I'm going to try and rationalise and justify oh, it's okay, you can start again. And then I'm going to try and keep the peace with my victim self. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:That's me, with doing 75 hard at the moment. Stop talking about me. Literally.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and so this stuff plays out. And then the alternative alternative. So that's the drama triangle, the alternative triangle, because then everyone's question is okay, well, if we don't want that relational dynamic, then how do we have a healthier one? Yeah, and everyone wants a healthier relational dynamic in their family, in their business. When you have a healthy relational dynamic, there's emotional and psychological safety so can I ask a question around that though?
Speaker 1:because do is it more that? So the people that don't is okay. Is it true that everyone wants that Like? Is that an inherent like? Is that an innate thing for humans to want connection?
Speaker 3:Yes, so can. Everyone, essentially, is divinely created for connection to all that is, and that's, the eternal part of us. So this is going to go really deep, really fast.
Speaker 1:Yeah, love it, let's go there.
Speaker 3:So we have this flesh, meat suit, which is our body, that has the nervous system and that's the thing that's obsessed with our survival, so it wants to avoid discomfort and ultimately, it's our meat suit and our nervous system and our trauma responses that's driving that drama triangle. We have an eternal part of us Now. I don't care for language. If you want to call it soul, if you want to call it the mind, consciousness, call it spirit whatever you want to call it, I don't care for the label, We'll just go with the whatever you call it.
Speaker 3:Let's call it our soul. Yeah, okay. So if we also have this soul, that's an eternal part of us that is here integrating into this human flesh, meat, suit, that when the body dies, the soul still exists and it's the soul part of us that is our true identity, that is really wired for connection to all that is because it is connected to all that is.
Speaker 2:It's never separated.
Speaker 3:And so that's why one of the deepest woundings of all humans is rejection and abandonment, because of this perception of isolation and separation from someone or something else.
Speaker 1:Because we, as humans, are not like. We're craving connection. That's what we're here for.
Speaker 3:Because we're disconnected from the soul part of ourselves. We're so over identified with this meat suit that's going to die. That's interesting. We completely abandon the essence of who we are in order to be liked, in order to have approval, in order to please people, in order to find our place in the world. Yeah, and I think that comes back to another one of the conversations we were having offline was around our wounding in our early life, right? So most people think that trauma is the big events that happen, like abuse or which it is, but it is. That is trauma that happen like abuse or which it is, but it is. That is trauma. However, from a nervous system perspective, trauma is just as much the things that don't happen, because trauma is not an event. It's the response in our body towards the event or as a result of the event so emotions are neurochemicals, they're physical.
Speaker 3:If you hooked me up to real-time blood monitors and heart monitors and brain monitors, you would be able to see the real-time effects of emotion in my bloodstream. But feelings are not the same as emotions emotions are physical.
Speaker 1:Let's okay what?
Speaker 3:yes, so this is where it gets really crazy, right. So we might feel sad, which is associated with a metaphysical story about something that's happened, but then we have an emotion of sadness, which is the biochemical response that is physically happening in our physical body, right which?
Speaker 1:okay, how do we okay? Go continue sorry, I've got so many questions.
Speaker 3:Yes, so what trauma actually is. Think about the cases of p, of PTSD, because it's the easiest to think about. What trauma actually is is the biochemical responses of the emotion in the body that have never been able to be processed. So they become encoded and trapped and stored. So in our early life if I'm experiencing something and I have an emotional response in my body, the actual biochemical response and that response meaning like I start producing hormones, I start producing so what would one feel if that?
Speaker 1:like as in, what would we see if that was to happen? Like would your heart be beating faster or absolutely?
Speaker 3:so, in the case of, say, fear or anger, you're going to see cortisol increase, you're going to see adrenaline increase. You're going to have physiological responses like your heart will beat faster, your core temperature will start to increase yeah exactly so.
Speaker 3:Most people associate that and call it anxiety. But really anxiety is partly a mind, a metaphysical thing, but it's stored emotion in our body from past events that we didn't know how to process. Wow, it's mental. So the physical response in our physical flesh meat suit of an emotion only takes 90 seconds to process. And then it's done. And even in the most traumatic event, if you can successfully process the emotion, the chemical cocktail of that emotion, out of your body, the trauma will only last 90 seconds and so in when you're, when you're saying the trauma will only last, as in, it will move through, yeah, and it won't be stored.
Speaker 3:From an emotion perspective. Right, you might still have story, so the story is metaphysical and there might be feelings associated with the story. But we can feel something and not have the emotional charge. So you know, like, like you might go oh, I feel a bit disappointed, but your body isn't suffocated by that disappointment, yeah, so that's kind of the difference.
Speaker 3:Okay, we can know we feel a bit frustrated by something, but experiencing the emotional charge of frustration in our body is completely different to feeling a bit frustrated, right. So one is physical, it's physical in our body is completely different to feeling a bit frustrated, right.
Speaker 1:So one is physical, it's physical, in our body, and the other is metaphysical, that only exists in our mind, right, okay, okay, this is really really interesting. Yes, oh, okay. So, cause I'm just hung up on this anxiety word, okay, like it's, there was something. It's so weird that you're saying this, because there was something in the last couple of weeks where I'm like the word just doesn't seem right to me, like I just I feel like everyone's saying oh, anxious anxiety, oh, that's anxiety, that's anxiety. But what you're saying is is it's a response to a trauma it's.
Speaker 3:It's an unprocessed emotion from something that happened in the past that is being brought to the surface by something that's happening now, or even from something that mind is thinking. So do we call that anxiety?
Speaker 3:Yes, that's what anxiety is, which is why it's so crazy Like I was a customer of the mental health system for 20 years. I had every label under the sun and I was medicated for anxiety for many years and I did a PhD in neuroplasticity and thought if I can change the brain, then why do I still have anxiety? And that's when I started to really go deep into going, because I wasn't a spiritual person whatsoever, which is why I then started to go hmm, everything we've done to treat anxiety is kind of at the brain level, yeah.
Speaker 3:But what about the mind? What? What about the body? Because it actually gets stored in the tissues of our body.
Speaker 1:But in the sense of anxiety, though, if it's treated from a brain level. Is it really anxiety though? Because what you're saying is, the anxiety is the stored emotion. Well, anxiety is a set of symptoms. Right.
Speaker 3:And that's what all psychological labels are even adhd, right. So adhd is you meet the criteria for adhd? If you have these symptoms, okay, which are behaviors or thought processes or feelings or emotional experiences. If you tick those boxes, then you get that label. But my perspective is I will not have conversations with people about the labels they want to bring to the table when they work with me.
Speaker 3:I want to know what is your behaviors, what are the sensations you feel in your body and when? How does your body respond? Where does your mind go? What awareness do you have in the present moment? Because all of that tells me what is stored in your body that we can actually get rid of and we can process out. Where is your mind going? That you're not even aware it's going. You just know the effects of where it goes and think that that's you, that's normal yeah.
Speaker 3:And when you can sort of address the stuff that's stored in the body and process that out, it means that it's like drawing a line in the sand, saying if I have a new experience, I'm only going to respond to that experience with clean, fresh emotion, not the emotion all the way back through my past that's stored in my body. So then I don't react to a 2 out of 10 situation with 11 out of 10 frustration. Right, and we have control over that 100%. Yeah, yeah and it's so easy.
Speaker 1:It's so easy. See, this is I think this is so important to touch on Cause, like that's kind of where I was going with. That is like is it like can it be cured? Yes, and is it easily cured, like Easily?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I had two clients cancel this week because they were doing so well they didn't need the sessions. One of them had done three sessions and the first session we just got background, that's it, yeah. And then we did two sessions of processing emotion from the past yeah, out of her body as well as, let's say, renewing her mind. So the stories, the metaphysical stories that had attached to the emotion stored in her body, we rewrote those to be more accurate so that when her mind was existing in her world, the things that her mind was perceiving as a threat, like, let's say, someone not responding to a text message, no longer activates this massive sense of grief and rejection and hurt her mind now.
Speaker 3:So she's processed all of that from the past out of her body, but also her mind is now able to assign a different meaning to not receiving a text and maybe she might go oh, I wonder what they got busy doing instead of why don't they love me?
Speaker 3:and it completely changes the whole entire dynamic between what's stored in the body and what's stored in the mind right, so pretty wild, it is so wild but it's so important to understand this stuff, like, okay, so families who are doing business together If we don't understand this about ourselves, then let's say, even if it's a family where it's only husband and wife, or two people, even if they don't have team, we need to understand the past experiences that made them them, because they will have triggers that are bringing up and activating old wounds in their body that have nothing to do with you.
Speaker 3:yeah, nothing to do with what's happening right now yeah it's transporting them back to something in the past that was never processed yeah so you might be.
Speaker 3:You might have a 40 year old man in front of you who starts behaving like a 14 year old, having a tantrum. That's because the emotion that's coming out, that's driving his behavior in that 40 year old man's body, is the unprocessed emotion of him at 14, who was experiencing something that is being reminded in him in that moment, coming to the surface and projecting out into the situation because his soul desperately wants to heal that situation as a 14 year old, that just gave me shivers, yeah, and so that that link of that your soul desperately wants to heal.
Speaker 1:So keep bringing it to the surface. I think for the listeners that's so important, because it's like sometimes we can think, oh, why does this keep happening? Or you know what, rather than thinking, okay, what is it that needs to be processed? What time? When did that happen and when's that bringing me back?
Speaker 3:to.
Speaker 1:So you regress right back to that age of when that happened and it wasn't processed.
Speaker 3:And this is what I think, reframing being triggered.
Speaker 3:A lot of people think that being triggered is this really awful thing, but it's a gift Because if you imagine, like, let's say, you and I were in relationship and obviously our romantic partners or the people we spend the most time with are the ones who just seem to be able to trigger us the most and or our kids well, I'm gonna get to our kids in a second, because they serve a really important part in our healing journey, right?
Speaker 3:But the most important thing is recognizing you're the teammate that I have chosen to mirror my wounding to me so that I know what I need to heal. So, let's say, you trigger me and I feel this emotional response in my body. My process of healing is, first of all, to be able to recognize that I'm experiencing an emotional response. Then, in order to honor the entity that is the safety of our relationship, I need to be able to communicate in a healthy way what's coming up for me, and then I need to be able to go and process what's coming up with me in a way that does not harm you emotionally or psychologically or physically. Yes, and that's how you do healthy dynamic of relationship, right, it's full self-responsibility. I don't have the right to say, well, you triggered me and so it's your fault you shouldn't have done this because the wound only was in me for you to come and touch yeah
Speaker 3:so true. So I like to see everyone in my environment as my teammates in my healing, because if they didn't trigger me, I wouldn't know what's there in order to be healed and transcended. And that's why it's so valuable for our kids, because our kids, obviously, from a physical DNA perspective, carry our DNA. So there's intergenerational and ancestral trauma all the way up through our bloodline which, when we take that approach and say Anything that triggers me, I'm going to take as my invitation to heal, they will be triggering ancestral trauma in me that isn't even mine and isn't even from my experiences, but when I see it, I can heal it and end it for my entire bloodline.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's fucking powerful.
Speaker 3:Isn't that batshit crazy? So my daughter I used to experience a lot of guilt and I gosh probably grief and heaps of emotions about my daughter and I really struggled to connect with her for a number of reasons. I had four miscarriages but then when I was pregnant with her, I didn't believe I'd get a baby at the end, so I struggled to connect with her during my pregnancy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because you were always thinking what if? Yeah, it was a self-preservation mechanism to not be hurt again.
Speaker 3:Yeah and then she was born and, oh my gosh, she. I remember she was about four and I found a photo of me at the same age and you couldn't tell us apart, like physically we were identical behaviorally. And in her attitudes and in her spirit she mirrors to me the parts of me that were too much for my parents. Oh, and so that makes me, yeah, right. So she mirrored to me the parts that I had to suppress, where I was constantly told I was too much. I was constantly told that, you know, I had to pull it together, or I was so triggered by her and challenged as her mum because she mirrored my own pain of me at that age right back to me, and it was my responsibility to see her as my little healing gift and go. You are literally a gift from heaven for my soul to heal the wounding that was inflicted on me because my parents didn't have the capacity to love all of all that I was.
Speaker 1:I think it's important to touch on as well that, like our parents did the best that they could what they had, yep and they're on their own journey.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they're on their own journey and I have recognized that. So my dad was a very aggressive alcoholic and it's not been until I had done so much of my own healing work that I was able to actually see him as this hurting, wounded man who that's in me. Yeah, his wounding is in me and it's in my DNA that I've had to process and I've had to kind of tear apart and you've had the opportunity to stop that from yeah and passed on.
Speaker 3:But not only that, also being able to create this like container of safety, to be able to love him, even though he caused me so much pain. But because I'm not carrying the charge of that pain anymore, I'm able to have a clean, fresh relationship with him.
Speaker 3:And it's not to ever say that the things that happened were okay, but what it does say is that the things that happened were okay. But what it does say is that the things that happened happened. I've been able to process them, the things that happened, and through my healing and my capacity to be able to love a man who potentially had never experienced a love like that in his life, he has gone on his own healing journey yeah, well, and we have the most remarkable relationship and I think that's what happens in my business is my business. It's really important has gone on his own healing journey. Yeah, wow, and we have the most remarkable relationship and I think that's what happens in my business is my business. It's really important to me that, even though the people who work in my business are not obviously my DNA family, but to me family is people who are coming together to heal.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And they're mirroring each other, which means there has to be space in my business for the worst of people yeah, and they're mirroring each other, which means there has to be space in my business for the worst of people yeah, as long as they are willing to partner with me to see their worst as their opportunities to grow into their best. And if they're not, then they don't fit our culture. They're not. They're not aligned, but the team that I have, you know one I was just saying to one of my friends. One of the craziest things I started doing was this is going to sound crazy. We love crazy here at Synergy.
Speaker 3:One of the craziest things that I've started doing is looking for jobs that my team would be qualified to do out in the marketplace, and I have been super open about telling them I'm presenting you with jobs that you would absolutely be qualified for and you would be an asset to that organization through that role. That pay a lot more than what I have the capacity to pay you right now. That might have better perks, that might, you know, advance your career in different ways, and I said, you know I will have your back the whole way if you want to take one of these opportunities. I will give you a glowing reference. And all of this not because I want you to leave, but because I want you to be clear on why you're choosing to stay, yeah, and recognizing that can be very confronting for owners.
Speaker 3:Super confronting because it means that I had to process my own fear of losing them, because they're such a valuable asset to me and I genuinely care about them. But also it brought us so close because then they had to really do some soul searching and go why am I actually here? Yeah, because if it was about money, well then it's a very clear choice, see you later, yeah, 100 but recognizing.
Speaker 3:Why am I here? And I think we, you know, we talk about purpose-led businesses and we talk about values and we talk about all these things. But I mean, even in relationship, my husband and I do something every single day where we hold space and we remain present in each other's energy and we choose each other. I'll say I choose you and he'll say I choose you every day, because it's it's recognizing that we're doing this out of choice and that there is, when we say yes to us, we're saying no to everything else.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And so I find that there's always going to be challenges, right, there's always going to be challenges in business. There's always going to be challenges in family. If you want any excuse to leave, there's plenty, plenty of excuses that you can choose If you want any excuse to quit and give up? There's plenty, yeah, so you got to know your reason to stay.
Speaker 1:That's why I think there's such an important emphasis on businesses that like, more so now, where times are really difficult for some people and it's like why are you?
Speaker 3:you know you want to be in a company that's purposeful and you're working towards something together yeah, yeah it's so important it's so, so important and so it's also if we sort of flip this and go okay, so we, we looked at the dysfunction. What's the antidote right? What's the take-home that people are going to get out of this, and what one is you really need to be willing to see?
Speaker 2:yeah, you gotta be.
Speaker 3:I literally have a note in my phone that is titled everything's an opportunity for healing, if you allow it to be. And anything in my life that just triggers me, that upsets me, that gets under my skin, any weird behaviors that I observe, like from myself, I will write it in there, Even if I don't have time to look at it. At that moment when I do have time and space, it's a priority for me to grow and heal.
Speaker 2:So I go back to it.
Speaker 3:And you know, there was one which was really interesting. My husband was working in WA last year and every time he was coming home like the whole time he was away I missed him so much. We talked a lot, I was excited to see him, but then every single time he came home we were fighting and I started to get curious about it. I was like what is going on right now? And when I really sat with it, I recognized that when I was younger I was really excited for my parents to come home when they had had this time away. But because of things I didn't understand at the time, I was so desperately excited to see them, but they were not like. It was as if I didn't even exist, right, like they'd never left. They had their own stuff going on, yeah, and so they were so focused on what was going on for them that it was like I was invisible and I got this message that I was rejected.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was so excited to see them, but they weren't excited to see me, and so every time my husband was coming home, we would be fighting and I was like, oh my gosh. I, my body, was regressing to that little girl who felt so rejected. She felt so excited to see this person who she loved, but there was such an unprocessed fear and hurt that they wouldn't be excited to see her.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:That I would unconsciously start nitpicking and starting a fight as a way to unconsciously control the situation, to protect myself from maybe feeling hurt if he wasn't excited to see me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so then, at least it was just protecting totally, totally self-protection, yeah.
Speaker 3:And so people will start to self-sabotage. People will sabotage their relationships. They'll set people up for failure. Because what happens if I set you up for success and you disappoint me? What does that mean about me? It means I'm a failure and I'm not good enough. And so all this stuff starts coming to the surface and it plays out like everywhere constantly yeah, you've got to have curiosity yeah, yeah, you've got to be really curious about oh, I'm curious, why that's happening.
Speaker 1:Or, yeah, like that's my behavior, that's curious, like what's that about? Rather than I think we can cast a lot of judgment on ourselves and others and others.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely 100% rather than but I think this is like, rather than understanding. But I think a part of the understanding is getting the information. You know, like, if we go back to parenting, like I feel like I'm like I need to learn about their brains and I need to learn about what age they're at and what's happening for them, so that I'm not making it about me, yeah to go. Okay, well, let me, let me understand that a bit more. Like, let me understand what they're going through, because otherwise I could just so easily just be, you know, flipping my lid and going off at all the little things that they're doing because you're reacting to the behavior exactly, not understanding the root source of the behavior A hundred percent.
Speaker 3:It's so powerful, something that you know. Coming back to this whole trauma thing I mentioned often trauma is the things that don't happen and people think that trauma is so irrational. But it makes so much sense, like, for instance, something that came up recently is someone had had a new baby and the older child was a stepchild, but she also had a child the same age. The stepchild had started exacerbating behaviors, seemed to not really care about the new baby and started exacerbating all these behaviors and so she was being really frustrated, with the stepchild wanting to punish the behaviors because they weren't okay. And the really interesting thing about trauma is when you understand that rejection is our deepest wound, rejection and abandonment from a human flesh body perspective, because it's not eternal. It recognises its mortality. One of the biggest traumas we can ever go through is the birth of a sibling, because we are not seen.
Speaker 3:when you think about a baby requires attention around the clock literally its survival is dependent on you, and so if you imagine your attention is going from your family unit to baby, what have you just done to them?
Speaker 1:yeah, abandon, just abandon them yeah completely abandoned?
Speaker 3:yeah, and now you haven't.
Speaker 3:But in their mind their nervous system experiences it as abandonment, and so in relationships, even a couple who bring a child into the world, quite often the man has had the woman's attention. Baby now gets woman's attention. Man's been abandoned. He carries on like a man child, because then he's regressing to his wounding of being a child who wasn't receiving the love and attention that he desired. Yeah, and so when you see this all play out and you can start to see what is really going on for them in that moment, if it were true that they were being rejected, oh my gosh, our heart can start to have compassion and understanding, and so you can respond to their hurt and their pain, instead of react to the behavior.
Speaker 1:Question what if because I observe this in a lot of relationships what if there is, you know, one of them in the relationship that is very, you know, like, would see that and go oh, that wasn't my intention, let's work on that. And you know, like, I acknowledge what you're going through or whatever, but the other person doesn't get that in return. What does that look like in a dynamic?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's really tricky. So I like to say, if you have one person in the relationship, let's say, is A, another person in the relationship is B and the entity of the relationship is 10. So you got the letters, which are the individuals, and the number, which is the entity that you collectively create. Now, if we want that healthy relationship and let's say, person A has a higher consciousness, they have greater awareness, they might have greater knowledge, they might have greater emotional intelligence and a greater desire to learn and grow. So they're elevating and pulling up the dynamic of the entity that is the relationship. But while ever you're pulling it up, this one is also trying to anchor it down. And so what kind of happens is we've got to recognize that the other person is not our relationship.
Speaker 3:The relationship is a separate entity that you are co-creating, and so the mistake I see a lot of people make is they think you are my relationship. But no what you bring and what I bring.
Speaker 2:Co-create this thing that we call this relationship that sits in between us, right.
Speaker 3:And so what happens is I say to people, if you are in a level of dysfunction and you're in agreement with that dysfunction, you're in agreement with that dysfunction, you're going to see it in the relationship, the health of the relationship. Now, if you start to elevate and grow, there's only a couple of options that can happen. As you start to elevate and grow, your relationship with self is becoming healthier, yeah, which means you will stop abandoning yourself in order to choose the dysfunctional person. So what you kind of got to do is see your focus on healthy relationship as the highest priority, not your person, right? So I look at as okay.
Speaker 3:Let's say, for me, in our home, loving each other well means it's okay to be angry. It's not okay to hurt people or things, even with words, yeah. And so if we love people well and that's what healthy relationship looks like then I don't get to choose and justify being angry as my reason for using harsh words, harsh tones, acting out, stomping feet, slamming doors, because that's not in agreement with our healthy relationship. So only a few. There's only a few options either. As one person grows, the other person will eventually have the emotional and psychological safety to step into their own growth and collectively you create this healthier relationship entity. Or you grow and they fall away, in which case you are still upholding the energy of that healthy relationship and the next person who comes in will be at that level with you. Or you grow, but your attachment to the person, instead of attachment and commitment to healthy relationship, will bring you back down right.
Speaker 3:And you'll settle in the dysfunction because the fear of not having the person is stronger than having a healthy relationship Is stronger than the desire of the healthy relationship.
Speaker 3:They're the only options, that's all there is. And so that's a spiritual concept where it's called agreements. Yeah, so let's say, if I am in agreement with the dysfunction of my relationship, I'm just living in my relationship totally head in the sand, don't even know it's dysfunctional. The next layer down is still agreement, but it's called non-agreement and it means that I see it but I don't like it. Right, but I'm not changing it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was going to say, but there's nothing that's going to be done about it.
Speaker 3:I see it and I don't like it, but I'm doing nothing about it, and so that's the victim mentality. And then the opposite to that is non-agreement, which is I see it. I don't like it and I'm not in agreement with it, so I'm going to change it Right, and this is the level of my new agreement. I still love you and I still want to do relationship with you. I am only going to do relationship with you if it looks like this and so their only option is to grow or leave.
Speaker 3:Now, what does that look like in a business? I was just about to say that's the same in a business, it's exactly the same. So when you start to recognise some of the gaps in your business, some of the dysfunction in your workplace culture, in your systems and processes, and then you start to elevate that business because the only thing that's different is you've taken out the relationship entity and put the business entity in, and so, as you start to lead a healthier business entity, what's your team options?
Speaker 3:Either rise to come and do business at this healthier entity. They fall away, in which case they deselect and you're going to hire people at that new level, or you go. Oh wait, I don't want you to leave me, so I'll just deal with all the dysfunction.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:No, please don't leave.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah.
Speaker 3:And so they're the only options. Yeah, and so when I'm mentoring business owners, you cannot fix stuff in your business without it filtering into your home. You cannot deal with stuff in the home without it filtering into the business, because all you're doing is you're swapping out the dynamic, but the principles are exactly the same well, not to mention like.
Speaker 1:You're the person in both of those scenarios yes, the common denominator the common denominator.
Speaker 2:Is you so?
Speaker 1:it's like, even with business, like I'm always thinking like, oh fuck, that was my fault or that was because of this, and it's always. You know, you can always look, travel up the chain and it's always the. The person who either owns it or the top, top leader or whatever that looks like, will always trickle down, yeah, into into the organization a hundred percent, percent.
Speaker 3:It's so fascinating. And so, like I have, I've worked with businesses before where they've had mass exodus and they're freaked out and I've said, hold the course, hold the course, hold the course, have faith, have faith, have faith, hold the course. And then they've had the most aligned people come in and they've gone. Oh my gosh, everything has changed. That literally happened to us it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, um, probably, I don't know. Seven years, six years ago, we had our entire team leave and we had the best team after that yeah like it, was it like on in hindsight, I'm like that's so magical, like, yeah, what actually transpired?
Speaker 3:yeah, I call it the death burial and resurrection yeah, and it's the same in relationships. So what I say to people is this entity has to die. Yeah, so you cannot take the dysfunction of the entity that you have built into this healthy entity up here you can't yeah, it can't go with you, no, so it has to die.
Speaker 3:and then when I say burial, what I mean by that is what happened in the past has to stay in the past when you create this new entity. None of that dysfunction exists in this entity. So you don't have any right to come back and say, oh, but three years ago you said this because that was in the old entity which we've buried, and the commitment is what is this resurrected entity that we want to co-create?
Speaker 3:We have to have a really clear vision for that. And then, who do we have to be? What are the systems and processes in place that's going to support that? What do we need to overcome? What do we need to heal? What are our dysfunctions that hold us back from having that? Because then, when both people or both teams either side of the entity, take responsibility for their own stuff and become who they need to be to uphold that entity, nothing from the past matters it matters where you're going and what you're creating.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so the death, burial and resurrection is my favorite thing ever, and it doesn't you know, it's actually a um like from experiencing that.
Speaker 1:It's actually a sense of relief hugely because, I. There was things because that was the point where my in my business, where I had stepped out, so that was. I just had my baby, my first daughter, and the team was so used to me being there all the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'd moved to melbourne and I had my kid yeah so, all of a sudden, the dynamic had completely changed and, in order for it to be like you were saying, that dynamic of this is now what it is, those people that didn't they served a purpose then yeah, didn't you know didn't want to step up to. This is how it's going to be. Yeah, or they weren't okay with it, whatever that looked like for them, and they chose to leave. But the new version was like we literally were like we can start fresh. Like what does that look? Like, like what types? We were so clear on who we wanted to hire. We were so clear on where we were going. We saw. We were so clear on the profit that we wanted to make, because it was a fucking shambles prior to that. Like we're like, how do we even fix this? Yeah, like it was. It was a moment of like and we said this multiple times like we just wish we could start again yeah and like I mean, what you speak out is what you get, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the amount of times I'm like how did we ask for this? And Melissa's like have you been asking to start again? I'm like, yes, she's like me too. I'm like, okay, well, this is that you know. So when you go through that like it looks like in the moment, it feels like your whole world is crumbling and you're like what do I, what do I do? Or you can go okay, fuck yeah, like let's, let's do something and create the higher level relationships and business and purpose, exactly so that one is soul, the first one is flesh meat.
Speaker 3:Suit right, because your soul is literally only here to experience, evolve and grow, and if it's not experiencing evolving and growing, it feels like death.
Speaker 2:So when people.
Speaker 3:I see this a lot. I work a lot with what I call success trauma, where people you look at their lives they've got all the money, they've got all the toys, they've got everything that money could buy, but they're deeply unfulfilled and they feel dead inside. Yeah, because they don't understand that they've been chasing this identity that would give them status and give them acceptance and give them all this importance in the world. All the trauma responses, exactly Because they don't know who they really are. The essence of who they are is at soul level who wants to experience and evolve and grow. Now, that means resolving the traumas. Yeah, that means dealing like your whole. Priorities will start to change and it's not about just earning shit tons of money anymore. It doesn't mean to say you won't earn shit tons of money because you're clearly very good at business. Yes, yeah, but what it means is that it's not money for status and symbols sake yeah, it's money for purpose sake, yeah, it's money going wow, I can create this financial resource.
Speaker 3:What do I? What am I going to create with this? What am I going to? Because it's that creation energy that is within us that's going. I want to have impact, I want to contribute. I want to do this for a reason that's bigger than me. And all of this because it's that eternal thing which is legacy. Yeah, and it's not just financial legacy, it's impact legacy where people's lives are different because you showed up as the fullness of who you are.
Speaker 1:Oh, so good. I want to touch on because I think as parents we can kind of well I'm not going to speak for everyone Sometimes, as a parent, I feel like I'm not really being my best self and how is this going to harm them in the future? Like I'm like not really being my best self and how is this going to harm them in the future? Like I'm like I'm going to fuck them up, like probably.
Speaker 2:Do you know what I mean? We all are In some way, shape or form.
Speaker 1:I've just been okay with that and I'm like, okay, I'm doing the best I can in the moments or the time, or whatever. But let me know if this is true, because this is what I've been working on mostly, like that's like if and that's not to say that if I do flip my lid or do my like, flip my shit or whatever, that that's okay. I look at that too and go okay, like you know, how can I be better? And I I said I say that to them too. I'm like you know, that wasn't the best version of me and I apologize and and it's more about the repair of that for me, because I'm like I can't.
Speaker 1:There's going to be stresses in life, there's going to be things that happen, there's going to be xyz and there's going to be times where I'm, like you said, regressing back to the person and the trigger and there's things that I still need to work on right. So, like if we were to focus on the repair as well as focusing on what we need to work on, is that a good enough? Protection, yeah, like, is that good enough? Yeah?
Speaker 3:it's literally in all childhood trauma, literature and research. Repair is the thing right that processes, the stress response, emotions, out of the body. That's the thing, that's the co-regulation, and so I want to have a caveat to this, because some people will take my words and run with it thinking that it's okay for them to fly off the handle a hundred times a day, as long as they come and say sorry, I wasn't my best self.
Speaker 3:That's bullshit, yeah, and that's gaslighting and that's abusive, yeah. So being able to recognize you weren't your best self and apologize for it is only of value and is only a repair if you then take responsibility for the healing and the learning you need to do to not do yes, it's, that's that next step, it's the next step, it's the response yeah, it's repair and response to the dysfunction.
Speaker 3:So it's not just, it's, it's the repair and you've got to see the change because otherwise, like what would happen if I flew off my handle at you and I repaired that and then tomorrow I flew off my handle at you and I repaired that.
Speaker 3:Would you trust the repair? No, no. And so what it does is it breaches trust long term. And so the repair is really helpful. Because what it does is it, it re reestablishes relational safety. But if the relational unsafety is so chronic that your only safety comes through repairing dysfunction without healing the source of the dysfunction in the first place, the child's actually not safe. And so this is where I say to people repair, I'm a huge fan. I call it the do-over. Where, where?
Speaker 1:because the do-over is a response right, okay, tell us more about so the do-over is recognizing the way I handled.
Speaker 3:That was not healthy. You didn't deserve that and I'm really sorry. The do-over is can I please try that again and respond in a healthier way? So then you're actually reflecting, going okay, what about that wasn't okay and what can I do differently. Like, let's say, instead of saying, stop leaving your crap everywhere and you go oh, that's that didn't feel good for me, that's not who I want to be. I'm going to own it and I'm going to apologize, but I'm going to ask can I please try that again in a way that better reflects the person I want to be? And then I'll go okay, sweetheart, when you leave things laying around, it's really dangerous because our dog with a broken leg could fall on it. Would you please pop that away so that we can keep our dog with a broken leg safe? Like that is a much healthier approach.
Speaker 3:But then also recognising, like you were saying, there's certain stresses, our losing, our crap comes from lack of capacity in any given moment. So even that in my group program, this is the basis of everything that we do. It's trying to understand what are your early warning signs. If you can recognize your early warning signs, that are two, three or four out of ten, you still have access to your prefrontal cortex and if you have access to your prefrontal cortex, you can actually use tools and resources. You can still communicate using comprehensible language, yeah, but if you don't, if you're so out of your body all the time that you don't attend all the time, yeah, and you don't have awareness of any warning signs because you're just constantly in flight.
Speaker 3:Most people today are in flight mode all the time. Flight is like you're hyper busy, always overthinking rush, rush, rush. You're not in your body to even recognize that there's early warnings, so you can't communicate it because you don't even know it's there until all of a sudden you're flying off the handle and then you're like, oh wait, it's there exactly.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it's working on processing the emotion that your soul is trying to not experience in the first place, so that it can come and be present in your body. Yeah, it's then being able to recognize. What does it actually feel like in my body when I'm at a like two, three or four? Then it's having some scripts and being able to go okay. So once I recognize it, then what am I going to say? Yeah, and it might sound like for me. I feel and I need so.
Speaker 3:I feel really overwhelmed right now and I need you to turn the volume down on the TV, right. Or I feel really stressed because I've got to leave earlier this morning, so I need you to please make your breakfast, right. So when I'm feeling those warning signs because I'm looking at the clock and I'm seeing kids with no school uniform on and all this sort of stuff, it's on me to be able to recognize. Okay, I'm starting to feel a bit of overwhelm, but they're not in on the clock and the me and the I know, all they see in their world is like you're just losing it.
Speaker 1:They're like whoa, what just happened?
Speaker 3:exactly yeah yeah, and so the thing is, most people, when you can communicate that in a way that is emotionally and psychologically safe, will work with you too, they'll go. Yeah, of course, yeah, totally. Yeah, I can turn the tv volume down, yeah and it's so crazy.
Speaker 1:What about if there are people out there or people listening where they go?
Speaker 3:I'm not good at asking for help that's why we teach you the language right because there's a few things around that one is like I'll use boundaries as an example because it's just. I feel like it's the hot word of 2024, so is everyone's like you just gotta set boundaries, fucking instagram? It's so annoying and I'm like do you know what that?
Speaker 1:means like. That's why I think like these words, trauma like, because this is what I see all over Instagram trauma, anxiety, um boundaries. It's like you can take that and that word can mean, yeah, something completely different. It's gaslighting.
Speaker 3:Unless you say this is what boundaries looks like. This is what it sounds like. This is when you use them. This is how you use them. This is how you feel when they don't like you using them like none of that, without the context, it's like it's so easy for me to sit here and say you've got to set better boundaries, but then you're sitting there going, yeah, but I carry trauma of rejection. And what if I set that boundary and they leave me? What if I set that?
Speaker 2:boundary, and they become aggressive.
Speaker 3:It doesn't feel safe for me to set a boundary, and so part of this is we have to be able to have awareness of what's coming up in our body and our triggers. And if we know that a barrier to us setting a boundary or a barrier to us asking for help is that we fear being rejected, we fear what are they going to think of us, we fear, then we've got to process that that's from the past, and so we process that out of the body so that we then go okay. So now, how does it feel about you asking for help? And I'll go. It feels okay and I'll say, okay, so, but how would you ask for help? I don't really know.
Speaker 3:So, okay, cool, so let's do some scripting around it. So then we'll sit down and we'll go. I'll like literally show them how to use chat, gbt and say give me 10 different scripts for how to ask for help with this thing, and then we'll sit there and we'll workshop it and go. So this is some frameworks of how this could be worded. Now let's put it in your words that feel good in your body that are words you would use and that are your words, and so then we give them some actual scripts of going.
Speaker 3:This is how I could ask this, because so many people will say, oh, I did ask for help, but it'll sound like do the dishes, but it will be a very dysfunctional way of asking for help.
Speaker 1:Yes, exactly, and so it's setting them up for failure. Yeah.
Speaker 3:But it's like the self-fulfilling prophecy of it reinforces the thing, like see told you I should never have asked for help.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's like I'm just reaffirming to myself that this is how it goes. It's like a little circle that continues without it being broken.
Speaker 3:Exactly, and so I see this in relationships all the time, and even in my own relationship. It's something my husband and I consistently work on is how do we set each other up for success? Yeah, you know, a big one for me sounds so stupid, but I used to get really triggered if he made himself a tea or coffee and didn't offer me one. Oh my God, I get triggered Really.
Speaker 1:I don't know. Oh yeah, no worries.
Speaker 3:I didn't want one. It's so bizarre. But equally, if someone offers me a tea or coffee, I feel really loved. And sometimes I'll sit there and I'll be like, oh gee, I'd really love a coffee. And I'll just say to my husband hey, I would feel so loved if you would make me a coffee. And he's like, okay, and he'll make me a coffee, and then he'll give me the very thing that I asked for and. I'll be like, oh my gosh, I feel like you love me so much, I feel so loved.
Speaker 3:Whereas the previous version of me would have sat there and gone. If Sat there and gone, if he loved me, he would have made me a coffee. What an asshole.
Speaker 1:Yes, how come? It's just the assumptions, isn't it? Yes?
Speaker 3:And it's literally. That is a dynamic thing, that's the drama triangle playing out, and so it's literally crazy when we actually start to learn what role we're playing and communicate for things, whether it's setting a boundary, asking for help, asking for something, communicating what we're feeling in our body even, and it's so wild, like my son, is 11.
Speaker 3:He's I call it the D soup. He's diagnosed with all the D's and in prep, the D soup, the D soup, yeah, he's like ASD, adhd, odd, all the D's. Anyway, in prep he was the kid who was so dysregulated, he was flipping tables and like the class was being evacuated because he would just be triggered and then explode, and then he would feel really remorseful and regret everything and feel really sad and he would say, mommy, I can't control my anger, I feel it but I don't know what to do with it.
Speaker 1:Anyway, Was this before you doing the work that you're doing?
Speaker 3:Yeah, this was like way before then, but also I didn't know what to do with it and I was still reactive at that time. And so the language around, I feel and I need, was an absolute game changer, cause you know when, the first time I ever used that, the first time those words ever came out of my mouth, you'll piss yourself laughing at this Aldi checkouts, fling, fling fling, fling, fling, fling, fling.
Speaker 2:I don't go to Aldi for that reason.
Speaker 1:I'm like fuck, what's going on here. I've got one kid climbing on the bloody bag packing area another kid licking the trolley handle and I'm like and you've got no bags and you have to pack your own shit. It's like what?
Speaker 3:this is so inconvenient and so I'm looking around, I'm seeing a kid climbing over there, a kid literally licking the trolley and all these things flying at me, and I'm like super, you know, like those tunnel vision moments where you're like the world just disappears and you're only in your own overwhelm. And I was like right, I feel overwhelmed and I need you both to hold the trolley right now.
Speaker 3:And I said it like not in an angry voice but like an authoritarian authority voice and they were like, okay, and they both came and just stood and held the trolley and I came back into the moment and I just packed my groceries and it was done. And then I was like, oh my gosh, that was like magic. And then we walked into a chemist and we had I don't know, we had to get something. And my son was walking around looking at all the things and my daughter was looking at the makeup and stuff and, like, my son's spatial awareness is not great, right, much like me and he just like his limbs go everywhere and he always knocks things off shelves and runs into strangers.
Speaker 1:That's my daughter. I'm like, oh, you're all over the place. I'm like reflection yeah yeah.
Speaker 3:And so we walk into this pharmacy and I said, guys, I'm feeling overwhelmed, I need you both to just sit on these seats. And they were like, okay, and they sat on the seats, and it must have been a husband and wife, I didn't realize at the time, but they were like how did you just do that?
Speaker 1:I was like honestly, I don't know, it's this new thing. You're like, go to Audi, it's this new thing.
Speaker 3:I've been like playing with. Anyway. So I started just modelling this, and it's not to say that it's the card that I always use. I communicate with them how I'm feeling.
Speaker 1:That's the premise of what you're saying. That's the premise.
Speaker 3:And it also helps them to be able to interpret why I'm behaving differently. So I've got an injured back at the moment and normally my kids will have snuggles on the couch every morning and they'll be all over me and I'll play with them and pick them up. And because I've had such a painful back for the last few days, I haven't been able to pick them up, I haven't been able to cuddle them and I've just wanted space, because if they touch me wrong, I'm in agony and so it's on me to communicate. Oh, I really want to cuddle you. Mummy's back is really hurting right now. I can't wait until it feels better so I can cuddle you, whereas there's a previous version of me that would have just said no, don't touch me.
Speaker 1:I told you not to.
Speaker 3:Yes, and so then they don't have the insight or the context to help them interpret what's actually going on. They just feel like they're being rejected. So that's been an absolute game changer. Now my son started at a new primary school last year in grade four, and they have all his records from previous schools, which has all the stuff from when he was in prep on like flipping tables and all this stuff. He is an insanely different kid, he's so emotionally intelligent, he will sit there.
Speaker 3:There's some classrooms at his new school that have really high ceilings, hard surfaces and auditory stimuli is really, really taxing on his nervous system. So when there's a lot of auditory stimuli he's more likely to get to a point of overwhelm much sooner than in an environment where there's lots, you know, soft furnishings and, yeah, whatever. So there's one classroom in particular that he can find himself pretty overwhelmed and he will use this language. I'm feeling overwhelmed and I need to step outside for two minutes.
Speaker 2:And the teacher's like wow.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he never, ever disrupts the class, he never has social issues, he never has drama because he recognises what he's feeling in his body and he asks for it. And the teachers know, like if Elijah's expressing this and then he goes outside, he will do what he needs to do, which might be like flap his arms or like something like some energy thing yeah.
Speaker 3:And he will process the charge of whatever he's feeling out of his body and then, once he's feeling better, his body, and then, once he's feeling better, he comes back inside and he's able to actually be present again. That's. And another thing is like and this happens to me really bad as well like sometimes, if I'm overwhelmed, I will I don't want to say leave my body. That sounds really weird, but it's almost like I zone out and physically, lights are on, but no one's home. Yeah, right, yeah, and I do it at cafes and restaurants. If I go up to order and I'm looking at a menu, it's like the whole world disappears around me and I'm immersed in the menu, but it means that I'm not aware. Yeah, I have no social or spatial awareness, so someone could be talking to me and I'll completely ignore them.
Speaker 3:Not because I'm being rude I literally just, I'm immersed in this thing and that used to be really triggering to my husband. And then when he actually understood, wow, you are actually like lights are on but no one's home. Yeah, and you're not being malicious. Yeah, and I said to him when you observe that behavior from me, what I need is for you to just touch my arm, because that when you touch, my tells me this all the time when you touch my arm, it brings me back into my body and then I can hear and see again.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and all of a sudden I can respond and I'll be a functioning human. Yeah, but when I'm not in my body, I might as well just be an empty vessel.
Speaker 1:Yeah there's nothing gonna happen. So crazy. You say that because, daniel, um, sometimes I'm like I literally told you that like three times, and he's like oh sorry, I wasn't, like I didn't hear or I didn't, whatever, yeah, and I was like okay, this is getting really frustrating. I'm like what do you need? And he's like I need you to come up to me and touch me on the arm and go hey, whatever, whatever yeah, so and I'm like I asked my husband I need you to actually confirm that I'm back.
Speaker 3:Okay, like, touch me on the arm and go, have I got you? Yeah, right and then when you can actually see like hello, okay, lights are on again.
Speaker 3:She's home, she just clicked the switch and that's what I use, that with my kids all the time as well, because I can physically see their bodies sitting there. But if they're so deeply engrossed in a book or in a you know their iPad, or just deep in their own thoughts off, you know, with the pixies I don't get to say I told you yeah, because they're not in their body to actually hear and process the stimuli. So a big thing. I even taught my son's teacher this is going just let him know that you're going to touch his hand or touch him somewhere on his arm or you know somewhere safe and go. Elijah, have I got you back?
Speaker 1:yeah, are you?
Speaker 3:here, and when he responds.
Speaker 2:You can give him an instruction and it'll be done that's amazing.
Speaker 1:That's a really good little piece of advice. I want to circle back to something that we spoke about just before around siblings being born, because I feel like, as a parent, sometimes you're like, oh, that is your fear. Well, that's one of my fears. When my second daughter was born, I'm like, oh, how do I do two kids and make them both feel loved, make sure that they're both feeling loved? And then, if you add a third into the mix or a fourth, it's like, how do we as parents yeah, are there some tools or some techniques that we can use so that, when we do have a newborn, come along? That it's. You know.
Speaker 1:We're including the whole family and everyone's feeling loved as opposed and it's same with the husband, because daniel's told me that many times when we first had Nikita. He's like. It's like I don't fucking exist anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I'm like, oh, I'm so sorry, but you don't, I don't know. You're just going through so much as a first, especially a first-time mum, where I was like, oh, I just don't have capacity for this.
Speaker 3:I'm like A hundred percent yeah. And because your attention. Attention is demanded in every direction and I think for me, when I talk about mental load, it's all the things that are demanding my attention and it's like my brain just goes.
Speaker 1:I can't do all this splitting of my attention constantly.
Speaker 3:And so when you understand that the way that we are created is that we want to feel seen, we want to feel heard, we want to feel understood, we want to be important to, is that we want to feel seen, we want to feel heard, we want to feel understood, we want to be important to someone, right? We want to matter. Yeah, and so something that I did when my daughter was born there's three years difference between my kids I would turn to my sleeping baby, like she. I was was not saying it for her, I was saying it because, indirectly, it was helping my son feel important, right and seen and heard. Yeah, I would turn to my sleeping baby and I would go. Elodie, there's one mummy and two children. Elijah needs mummy's attention now, so I'm gonna go and play with him, right?
Speaker 2:now.
Speaker 3:I wasn't, I didn't have to say that. I could have just gone and played with him.
Speaker 3:But if I didn't fill in those gaps, his very undeveloped brain is going to do his best to try and fill in the gaps and do it very poorly so he would fill that in, because then what that gave me the capacity to do is turn to him when my baby's crying and saying, elijah, there's two children and only one mummy. Elodie needs me right now, so I'm to go and help her and then I'll come back and play with you. Right, but he needed to hear that I was choosing him sometimes too, yep, and not just the baby. I might as well be saying it to a brick, right? Another thing that happens that's very, very powerful is speaking about people in front of them, right.
Speaker 3:So, I would speak like I would pretend to ring their dad and go oh my gosh, elijah's amazing. Guess what he did today. He sat in his chair at the dinner table. I didn't even have to ask him, and so I'd put a lot, because then what's he getting? He's getting a massive influx of positive emotions. So, just like we get negative emotions, that regress us back to periods of time when we were that age. Yeah, we encode positive emotions too, and so my thing is it's going okay. Well, if we can encode negative emotions and this thing called post-traumatic stress disorder and vicarious trauma, well let's do positive emotions and vicarious healing. Why can't we do that?
Speaker 3:well, we can yeah and so we have this thing where we will regularly talk about the person in front of them in a really encouraging and uplifting way. Yeah, and also, it is a non-negotiable for me never, ever. I don't care who it is, I don't care if it's a teacher, I don't care if it's the other parent, I will never allow a negative conversation about my children in front of my children. So if I pick up my kids from school and there's been an incident, if they try and tell me about the incident in front of my child, I will say I really care about what you have to say. Please give me a call so that we can discuss this in a more appropriate time.
Speaker 3:Yeah right, because what it does? It actually fractures their sense of self. If you're on the phone expressing, like verbally diarrhea-ing, your shitty day to your husband or partner and your kids are the ones who caused the shitty day they embody that as their identity that I'm shit, right, I ruined mum's day, it's all my fault, and so it's important to rant and vent so important but it can't happen in front of them. It's important to get the emotional support that you need, but it can't happen in front of them, because what you're doing is you're projecting, and they take ownership of it. They go okay, mummy, I'll carry that for you, and so then they will start to abandon their sense of self just to make you happy, because their survival depends on it.
Speaker 3:So, when it comes to developing and establishing a really firm sense of self, those are things that can be really valuable is, what are we doing to uplift, what are we doing to encourage and really anchoring in those positive emotions because they will want? We talked about the self-fulfilling prophecy before. It's like if my husband makes me a tea and I go oh, my gosh, babe, I feel so loved when you make me a tea. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3:He's like oh that felt really good, I felt really seen, heard and important, but just because I made her a tea, I think I'll do that again. And then he starts making me a tea more often. Yeah, but I use the example of, like you know, if I got really dressed up and put in a lot of effort to do my hair and my makeup and got really dressed up, and my husband was just like, all right, let's go, and then I got really dressed up again and my husband just didn't even care, didn't even notice. Eventually I'm gonna go now, stuff it, I'm not gonna bother getting dressed up, and then I won't get dressed up and he'll be like I just feel like you don't make any effort anymore and it's like well, you didn't see it, you know, yes, and so it's not that he didn't notice it, but his lack. You know how, I said, trauma can be what you don't get. Yeah, the lack of acknowledgement of being seen, heard and important and that your effort is noticed makes you revoke the effort and go. What's the point?
Speaker 1:it didn't get me seen, heard or this reminds me of, even as a leader. Right, because something that I had to work on a lot was like I would think it, like if they did something good, I'd think about it and I'd be like, oh, that's really good, like, oh, I love that she did that, or whatever, whatever. And then I'm like oh, why didn't I tell her that, though? Or like, why didn't I express that yeah. So, as time went on, I was like no, if I'm, because the only time I would express it was when I had a problem with something, or I had a challenge, or I they didn't do something that was, you know, we needed to fix something.
Speaker 1:So I was like, well, why am I just doing it then? Yeah, why aren't I saying the good things too? And then, when I started expressing the good things this was prior to being in a relationship with Daniel expressing the good things it was like, wow, this is, this is amazing, like they really feel, seen, heard and yep, you know, that's the magic in it, yeah and I, because I was an academic for 12 years, I was a uni lecturer for 12 years and so I've marked a shit ton.
Speaker 3:Yeah, one of the things even when I was doing my PhD, I observed this real wounding around rejection and criticism, because all the feedback I got was negative, right, but then my supervisor one day was like, yeah, but mate, there were like seven comments on a 150 page document. If I didn't comment on it means it's awesome. And I was like, ah, yeah, but see, it's the absence of the feedback that it's awesome. That makes me only hyper fixate on the things that you've picked apart, and so that I was really conscious of that when I was marking, because I know that people need to know that they've done something well, not just that they haven't. And so it's the absence of the healthy encouragement that then makes us fixate on the discouragement.
Speaker 2:And so.
Speaker 3:I always say to people. This is true in every aspect of life. When you start to focus on the function, the dysfunction falls apart, it falls away. So focus on what you do want to see. Focus on that, really breathe life into it, stoke that fire, because when you stoke that fire it becomes a flame and this shitty little thing over here doesn't need to be there anymore. Yeah, so I call it. I call it love, not love bombing like the narcissistic version of love love bombing, but I call it just dropping little love bombs like a little bath bomb, you know just fizzle here and a fizzle there and it's things like oh my gosh, guess what.
Speaker 3:I say this to my kids quite often I'll go, guess what? And I'll go what. I'll go. Oh my gosh, you guys are amazing. And yesterday morning my son came in. Sorry, it was yesterday afternoon. My son came in after school and it was just he and I in the house and I said, lodge, you are so special to me, and he goes really. I said, yeah, and he goes why? And I said because you made me a mum. I said, don't get me wrong, I love your sister, but she didn't make me a mum, you made me a mom and then I was blessed to also be her mom.
Speaker 3:But and he just looked at me and he was like, wow, mom, thank you so much, and he felt so connected and so close to me and so significant to me, and I make a lot of effort to do that with him because, well, lots of reasons. One is he experienced a lot more of the wounded me than what my daughter ever did, because he was one of the catalysts for me to go on my healing journey so she's definitely got the better end of the stick in that regard, like she's never, ever copped any kind of like really dysfunctional discipline or anything like that.
Speaker 3:Some of the stories I could tell you about me as an early mum would make your skin crawl, but that's so good to know that, like like who you are now as a mum like there's, so like you don't have to live there. No yeah, and also recognizing there was a massive journey of self-forgiveness in that in in going, I was not the mum my kid needed me to be and I realised really quickly that I had to grow and I had to grow fast.
Speaker 3:Yeah, when I was like he was smacking his head against concrete and giving himself a concussion because, and like I was trying to restrain him, I remember crying on the floor with him, trying to restrain him as a three-year-old from harming me or himself, and sitting there bawling my eyes out going he's three and I'm already not strong enough. Yeah, I don't know how I'm gonna do this. Yeah, and so really learning super quickly, I'm not the mum he needs me to be and also I mean that took me on a whole journey of understanding what was happening in his body and how to help him. But yeah, it's so big, so 100% drop those little words of encouragement.
Speaker 1:Speak out the things that they're doing well and right, and often Not only to your kids, but to your partner too, and to your team and your team and yourself.
Speaker 3:Strangers in the street Do you know I go to my local 7-Eleven to get a coffee. They will walk out from behind the counter. Come and shake my hand or give me a hug or like just acknowledge me so much because I will spend time and I'm not talking time. I mean like I will take five extra seconds to look up, make eye contact with them and smile and go. How are you? You?
Speaker 2:today.
Speaker 3:And so they feel seen, they feel valued and like. Imagine the difference you can make in the world Crazy. You know, everyone's fighting for customers Totally and thinking this whole like financial situation and cost of living crisis and stuff is such a big issue that's going to ruin businesses and I look at it and go, yeah, but if you love people, well, there's a lot of people who still have money to spend. 100%, that is exactly what I.
Speaker 1:That's the that, yes, I believe in that too. I'm just like, yeah, because I think what happens as well just touch on that and then we'll wrap it up is like when you're, you know, taking on those stories and making that a part of your world. Naturally. What happens is like the byproduct of that is your negative emotions and feelings are coming out onto other people, projections, which is also and you know basically like a repellent for people to go. Well, I don't want to be around those people because they're not making me feel safe or they're not making me feel.
Speaker 3:I always say like you just have to be a bit better than shit these days for customer service Honestly, you do I was having a conversation, literally driving here, about real estate agents, because one of my friends said oh my gosh, I was talking to a real estate agent the other day, like a guy who owns a agency, and she's like I think I'm going to refer you to them because, obviously, when the property market's super hot, mate, you just got to have a real estate agency and you're going to get business because people got to sell their properties. But when the market's not hot and you got to hustle to get clients, you got to know how to actually relate to people and that is, above and beyond just selling them a product that they need. It's about relationship need. It's about relationship and it's about solving problems. It's about helping them feel seen, heard and value.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and this was something in my business that I got a massive kick up the ass with, because, in my own self-reflection, I went overseas for five weeks earlier this year and integrity is really important to me and integrity was the word that was coming up and I was like our number one value is that love is at the center of everything we do and when I have a client sitting in front of me, they get all of me and I love them so well and they get these amazing results. But then I get the next client sitting in front of me and I love them and they get all my attention and they get amazing results. But remember we're talking about the kids before.
Speaker 1:Yeah that's like the new baby.
Speaker 3:Yeah, what's just happened to the sibling? Yeah?
Speaker 2:feeling they've been rejected.
Speaker 3:Yeah am I loving them well while I'm giving all of my love and attention to my new client? No, and so now I have no evidence whatsoever that a previous client of mine has felt rejected. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I have nothing to go by. No one's ever complained. Yeah, but when I had the revelation, when you see it, you have the responsibility to fix it. And so I actually turned off all lead gen for my whole entire business and said I don't want to bring in another single lead into my business, I mean, unless it was a direct referral that came in. But I don't want to bring in another lead into my business when I know that I am not in integrity with my highest value of being able to love them well, even when we're finished working together. Yeah, so then I hired team whose sole job is to love people well they love our clients at every stage of the client journey.
Speaker 3:Every single person who follows us, they'll get an inbox message. Everyone who comments will get a response. Every single person like now us, they'll get an inbox message. Everyone who comments will get a response. Every single person like now. That has probably gone to the extreme, but it is honestly the best money resource that I've put into the business because it's brought us back into integrity yeah we actually.
Speaker 3:I know that anyone who enters our sphere is so well loved now, and it's not about making money, it's about actually making sure that they're seen, heard and valued. And that's what I said to my friend today. I said, gosh, you know, my husband's auntie just sold her house because the agent actually said to her no obligation, but what can we actually do to help you? And she goes oh, I'm looking. I got a quote to stage my home and it was more than I wanted to spend. And they said well, how about we put you in touch with the people we use to stage and just see what they say?
Speaker 3:and she's like, yeah, okay, she got the quote back and it was um, I think she said it was quite a lot cheaper and they went with them. Yeah, but because they said they cared, what can we do to help you? Like, what can what? Are you overwhelmed with? That we might be able to help you to overcome.
Speaker 3:And yeah, you know what, they got a client and they got a sale and they got the commission. But it started with caring and they would have still cared even if they didn't get the sale and even if they didn't get the commission. It started with caring.
Speaker 1:Yep. Not to mention the overflow of having a client for life, and you know what?
Speaker 3:Now, she's already told me about it.
Speaker 1:And then you're telling me about it. Yeah, exactly, yeah exactly.
Speaker 3:But it spreads also the other way. If she has a really shit experience, guess who she's telling.
Speaker 1:Everyone, everyone, ten more people, and you know who?
Speaker 3:she's not telling you should definitely sell your house with these people Also, everyone, yeah exactly, exactly so.
Speaker 3:I think that is such an undervalued resource and, for me, I want our home to be a place where, when someone walks into our front door and enters our home, they feel something different. There there's an atmosphere of love and safety. Yeah, and it's the same with my business. I want people to feel when they enter even though our business is online, it's not a physical space, but when they enter even though our business is online, it's not a physical space, but when they enter our environment there's an atmosphere where you are seen and you are heard and you're important.
Speaker 3:Love that not for any agenda, but just because that is my value. That's what's important to us.
Speaker 1:Love that so we should probably wrap this up. What do?
Speaker 2:you yeah, it's been a while that's right.
Speaker 1:I just could talk all day with you. Thank you so much. There's been so many cool in some tools that, um, the listeners could definitely take away. That I'm gonna take away as well. So thank you so much. We're just at daniel's work at the moment. You can probably hear that round the bloody, all the sound. I don't know if you heard the. Did you hear all the thudding?
Speaker 2:of the music I'm not gonna go through.
Speaker 1:Anyway, you've got a little bit of music in the background, if that's okay, we're okay with imperfect here, all right well, thank you so much for joining us and we'll definitely have you on again talking about some other subjects.
Speaker 3:Well, if anyone has suggestions or questions that come off the back of it, I'm so happy to answer them I was about to say where could people find you? Best place is to go to any of our remind institute channels. Um, I do, I'm very active on socials on my own account, but don't contact me there because it is a sea of things that get lost you don't have a team on that one for my team to love you.
Speaker 3:Well, you have to go to where my team is, because I only have so much capacity in these two hands, but yeah, so any of the Remind Institute channels and, yeah, follow us there. And we have a podcast as well, which is just the. Remind podcast.
Speaker 1:We'll pop everything in the show notes Amazing, and you can go check them out there. Yeah, awesome. Thank you so much. It's a pleasure. Thanks for having me. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Synergy. We encourage you to hit the subscribe button, rate and comment.
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