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Merry Christmas, everyone. Welcome back to Healthy, Happy, Wise,

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Wealthy. I have with me today Charlie McCready from in

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England. You're in England, right? Absolutely. Yeah. So

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we're a distance away, but

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I just want to say I hope everyone is having a beautiful day.

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And today we're going to talk about and

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try to dive into some things for some people who probably aren't having a good

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day at all. And so this is, in a way, it's kind of a

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911 or SOS episode

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for those who Christmas is super, super hard. So

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we're going to talk about parental alienation. So this is a

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topic that, unfortunately, I'm part of this club and

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don't want to be. Charlie's been part of this club. He doesn't want to be.

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But Charlie has had some really helpful things

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that I've watched, been following his socials for. For

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years now. And he has programs to help people who are

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dealing with this. And we're going to talk about what it is because it's not

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widely known, but it is for

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anyone who's going through it. It is too often,

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sometimes even life ending. It is probably one of the. I think it's one

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of the most undiscovered massive traumas that we are

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experiencing globally. So,

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Charlie, can you just introduce yourself and tell us a little

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bit about what led you into doing the coaching and everything

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for people experiencing parental alienation? Absolutely.

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First of all, thank. Thank you very much for having me on this podcast,

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Mary, and thank you for the amazing work that you're doing,

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trying to help kind of raise awareness and educate people and give them

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help and support and hope. Yeah. So I'm

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Charlie McCready. I'm a parental alienation coach.

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The reason I'm doing this is because I went through this

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firsthand. There is something I call

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pre alienation. This is.

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I think I've coined the phrase because I've never seen it

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previously kind of used. And this describes the period

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leading up to the point that you become more aware that alienation is actually

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happening through a decade of what I

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call pre alienation. So that's all the foundations being laid down. Then

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I went through five years of full alienation. So that was a

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combination of very limited contact and

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no contact at all with. With one of my kids for

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two years. But we got through that

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and for the last. So I started being able to rebuild the

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relationships with. With my children at the end of that five year period.

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So we did a lot of work very quickly. We made a lot of progress.

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Very quickly. I'm 11 years on from

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that. And we're still, you know,

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enhancing those relationships. We're still growing, we're still

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healing within ourselves. I'm very fortunate. I've done a lot of

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that healing work very early on, but my children,

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that. It's a bit slower for them, but they're generally in

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a good space. And so my mission in life

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is, is basically to help as many parents as possible

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to understand what alienation is

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from the perspective of the child, because you have to see it from.

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From their eyes and also understand as a

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parent what you're going through, why you're going through it,

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how to heal you. And this is the thing that most parents find

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really difficult. They're so focused on the kid, they forget

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how important their own healing is in, in being able to

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help the child. And then I also help them to understand

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that the, the alienators themselves and the

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limited things that you can do to help kind of mitigate some of the things

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that the alienators do. Yeah. And also to bring

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back hope, because for most people,

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they will end up reuniting with their kid. And I know it seems like this

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will never happen, and it seems so far away, but most of us,

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we end up with a good outcome. It's just a rough. It's a rough ride

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to get there. Yeah. Yeah. Well,

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hope is always helpful, you know, I

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am. I don't always know that I feel hope, for sure.

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Well, one of the biggest things that really

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helps parents is acceptance.

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And for me, acceptance. And I should caveat this by

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saying the people around us, nobody understands

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alienation. And so when they tell you, oh, just get on of it, you know,

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accept it, move on, they can take a running

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hike, running journey. They don't know what they're talking about. But

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for, for you and me, the people who have been through this,

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acceptance is all about healing within yourself.

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But when you attach hope, all you're doing is you're treating

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the, the alienation as a transitory phase in your life.

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So it's not a forever thing, which for most people it isn't.

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It's. I'm. I'm only accepting that this is my reality

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right now. But I'm hoping and I'm even better. I

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know within my heart that this is going to be better in the future

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and that I'm going to get through this. And that makes acceptance and

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healing so much easier to deal with. Yeah.

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So let's, let's talk a little bit about, like, how

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some of the signs to look for And I think, you know, I know for

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me and what I hear from. Just hearing the community from a lot

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of people, it happens during a divorce or a separation is when,

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like, things are kind of, like, going along, but then the divorce, the kids become

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a bargaining chip, a way to hurt somebody.

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Absolutely. Well, I think maybe if I just preface

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that with. With parental alienation

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as a term, many people will have come across

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a reluctance for. For, you know, this term to be used.

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There's a lot of groups who are saying that it's a pseudoscience, it doesn't exist.

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It absolutely does exist. It doesn't matter what you call

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it. I mean, parental alienation is just a name

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that. A label that people put on it. But actually,

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it's a range of very distinct behaviors

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that are very recognizable, they're very measurable, and

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collectively, they create the experience

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of parental alienation for the kid and experience of parental alienation for

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us. But in a nutshell, it's where one parent

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is very intense, intentionally seeking to damage the

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relationship between you and your children, which

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is different from estrangement. And people often use the word

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estrangement. Very different. Estrangement is where you've

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done something that has damaged the relationship with a child.

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And in ideation, quite often we

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end up doing things that actually estranges our kids from us

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because we don't understand what's going on and how to deal with it.

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But. But for alienation itself, that's very much

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the other parent doing this to us.

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So maybe if I go back to that. Pre alienation. So,

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yeah, pre alienation. This is a new, new idea for me, what to look

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for. Yeah, so. So pre alienation

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sometimes begins at, like, birth. So it can

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be really, really early on. So some of the. The

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alienating parents, actually, if I just take

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a backward step, the. The people who have a

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propensity to alienate, typically

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they have some sort of mental health disorder, so

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cluster B, narcissism,

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bipolar. These are actually

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traumatized individuals who

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are in their adult life. They're using coping mechanisms

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to protect themselves. And those coping mechanisms are

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coercion, lying, manipulation,

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deceit, delusion. They're all just ways

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of protecting themselves. So this kind

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of fits in with why they do what they do.

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So somebody who this. The pre alienation. So

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somebody who, for instance, is stopping the other parent from having a relationship

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with the baby, the child, the teen. Quite often

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they're doing it because of their own insecurities and their own

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need for the relationship with a child, because it's something they didn't have

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themselves when they were growing up. Yeah, but

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we'll talk about safety as a concept as well because I

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think that'd be really helpful to frame alienation.

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But pre alienation, you'll begin to see signs where

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often the parents, the alienating parent is being derogatory

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about us. They'll be presenting us as an inferior

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parent, a bad parent, a mean parent, an

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uncaring parent, an absent parent.

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They'll be stopping us from having an incompetent

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parent. An incompetent parent. Yeah, so. But this stuff

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is really, really subtle and most people confuse

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this with kind of a typical sort of thing in a

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relationship that you might expect where one person is being a bit bullying and

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a bit derogatory of the other. What's really

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going on is more subtle. It is this

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creation of the foundations that

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one parent is superior, one parent is to be trusted, one

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parent is going to be protecting that parent, that child. But often the

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alienator is also doing this from a place of fear. Because

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the children know if I don't go along with what that bullying

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parent is saying or doing, if I don't appease them,

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there are going to be consequences. Often I can see some of

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those consequences as a child. I can see it in my, my

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parent who's been targeted. So the alienated parent.

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I can see how they're being, you know, ridiculed and derided

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and I don't want to be experiencing that.

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It basically sets a foundation for

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the full on alienation. And as you say very often,

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and these things always come about as catalysts. There's

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always something that triggers that shift from kind of

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pre alienation into alienation. Sometimes it's the

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alienator is getting bored with us. But they, they

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don't necessarily want to come out of the relationship so they start having affairs.

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But they're also trying to build loyalty with the children thinking,

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well, my marriage is coming to an end, so I'm going to make sure that

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everybody's aligned with me in advance of that event.

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So very often they're planning to exit the relationship with

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us. You know, they might say they might be having relationships, other relationships, already

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this in advance. And I use the

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kind of the analogy of a volcano. So what we

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see often when we experience full alienation or

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a more prominent alienation is we see this sudden shift in the

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kids, but it's not sudden at all. It's been going

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on for a very long time. In my case it was a

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decade. And that's why I use the volcano Analogy. Because

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when you live in the volcano, on the shadow of the volcano, you don't notice

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anything until suddenly smoke appears or, you know,

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it erupts. But it's been, it's been. That

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eruption is as a result of a very long period of pressure

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building up. And so. So

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suddenly you'll see your kids beginning to turn against you more

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overtly. So, like, they'll stop

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telling you about their life. They might stop speaking

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to you. They might just hide in their rooms. They might not want to go

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places with you, especially when you come to that separation and divorce.

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Just spending time with you is something that they're

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reluctant to do because the alienator is putting so much

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pressure on them to not spend that time with you.

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Yeah. Yeah. I feel like I,

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you know, I. People have asked me over the years, like, what happened? And it's

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really hard to go. I don't know, because the chaos didn't

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happen in front of me. You know, the storylines

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were not told. They were told outside of my presence

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behind your back, you know, so you don't even know,

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like, well, what did he say? I don't know what he said. Like, it wasn't

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in front of me necessarily. You know, nobody will tell you.

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Nobody will tell you. And what, what happens as well is that

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the. At the point in time that they're preparing for

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separation and then going into divorce, they also

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start going out to all of our friends and sometimes our family

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to the schools. And this is, this is stuff

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that we just don't even think of. We're

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not that minded in that way. We don't have that sort of approach.

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And so they're beginning. They're kind of pre. Alienating the community

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around us as well. And family. Community and family. And

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they're, they're ruthless. And. And by the time

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we become aware of it, it's too late.

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And unfortunately, people believe the first story they're told,

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not the second story. And it. And when we come along and say that none

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of this stuff is true, people don't believe it. It's like, we sound

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very defensive. It's. It's like, oh, we've obviously done it.

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They've already believed it. And it's very difficult to turn

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those opinions around again. Yeah. And we. Look,

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I know for me, probably, you know, not stable.

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Super. You get super. You're reactive. Like you're.

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You just got hit by a bus and you're reacting like that like you've been

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in a traffic accident, which, you know, everyone would expect you to act crazy

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if they saw what was going on, but this is invisible, so

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they don't see it. So you only look crazy. Yeah. Or

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unstable, but you're reacting to a real thing. They just

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can't see it. And, and also because nobody understands

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parental alienation or very few people understand it, for most of us,

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we will experience the, you know, the community and the friends and

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our family haven't got a clue. And so we

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look, we look as if we, we're at fault. And

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this is one of the areas I think is particularly hard for women because

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the other women around you are very critical and

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judgmental about, well, why aren't your kids with you? You must have

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done something really bad that they're with the dad rather than with

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you. I think women get a much harder time than men do in that respect.

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You know, and luckily I didn't have that with women, thankfully.

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I mean, that was. So that's. I did have. I did have

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some. There's a reason I'm still alive and not, you know, honestly, not

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everyone survives this. And that's part of the reason

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I, I'm like, man, I. I need to get. Ask Charlie if he will come

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on and do this for Christmas. Because if there's

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something I can do to reach out, you know, my little part in it,

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you know, to reach out to other people, I got to do it.

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Absolutely. The. So that the, the

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suicide rates is much higher

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in, in people who are going through parental alienation. It is

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in kind of other parts of the general population, and it's

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something like 23 or 25% of people who

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go through alienation have suicide ideation. So they consider

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suicide as an option. And I would say to everybody in that

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position, please don't. Please, please, please

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don't. What? Whatever. However hard it seems right

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now, you are going to get through it. And anything that

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00:16:23,280 --> 00:16:26,840
you do to. To yourself, think, think about your

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00:16:26,840 --> 00:16:30,280
kids. Don't just think about. You think about what, what

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00:16:30,280 --> 00:16:34,000
you're taking away from your children. And also you're

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doing the alienator's job for them if you

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do anything like that. Can I just expand

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on that as well? Because for parents who are going

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through alienation, we tend to go through nine big

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emotions. So the first one is grief.

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So we're missing the children in our life, and it's a grief which is.

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It's a grief of the things we've already lost, the time we've already lost. It's

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the time we're currently missing, but

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future grief, because we're also grieving for the time that we think we might

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lose in the future and it's like a living bereavement for

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us. Yes. So we have this great sense of grief

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then. Most of the people who go through alienation tend to be quite

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empathetic by nature. So with the kind of we

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think in completely different ways to the alienator

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that that makes us very guilty. And

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because we're empathetic by nature, we're very self critical. So we beat ourselves

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up about, you know, did I do enough, should I be doing more?

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What else can I do in the future? But we're giving ourselves a really hard

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time. Then the next one is that we feel

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very isolated because the people

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around us just don't understand any of this. As we were saying before particular

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and we get without criticism from

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the people around us as well, which is where the shame comes from, which is

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the fourth thing. Then there's powerlessness because anybody

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00:18:07,740 --> 00:18:11,540
who's dealt with a narcissist, they're very uncompromising people, they're adamant to

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00:18:11,540 --> 00:18:15,300
hurt us. Anything that we do to try and rebuild the relationship with

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00:18:15,300 --> 00:18:18,380
the kids or help the kids will be used against us.

289
00:18:19,340 --> 00:18:22,450
So it's like if you give the kid a present, you're bribing them. If you

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00:18:22,450 --> 00:18:24,450
don't give the kid a present, you're abandoning them.

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Then the next one is injustice. So injustice is

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00:18:30,610 --> 00:18:34,010
at a couple of different levels. There's the injustice, the

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00:18:34,010 --> 00:18:37,170
legal system, CPS, DCF

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all these mechanisms that are there to protect the children don't work

295
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because they don't understand alienation. So we feel a strong sense of

296
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nobody is able to help me and the kids. But it's also

297
00:18:49,370 --> 00:18:53,130
injustice within ourselves because we feel

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the kids don't know me as a mum or they don't know me as a

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dad. I'm not being given the opportunity

300
00:19:00,610 --> 00:19:03,930
to share my experience, my values, my

301
00:19:03,930 --> 00:19:07,250
worldliness, all the things I thought I was going to be able to

302
00:19:07,570 --> 00:19:11,290
help them with and guide them within their lives. I'm

303
00:19:11,290 --> 00:19:13,970
not being able to do that. So there's a great sense of injustice there.

304
00:19:15,420 --> 00:19:18,980
Then there's anger, which is self explanatory. Then

305
00:19:18,980 --> 00:19:22,500
there's anxiety and fear. I'm going to come back to anxiety in a second. But

306
00:19:22,500 --> 00:19:26,220
fear drives most of these other emotions

307
00:19:26,300 --> 00:19:30,139
because we're in a state of perpetual fear. We're really worried and

308
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this is where the anxiety comes in. It is quite

309
00:19:33,940 --> 00:19:37,180
normal for any parent going through this to

310
00:19:37,580 --> 00:19:41,370
be thinking lots of anxious thoughts about the kid. You know, is the

311
00:19:41,370 --> 00:19:45,210
kid safe? Are they being Fed. Are they in any physical danger? Are

312
00:19:45,210 --> 00:19:48,730
they being, you know, psychologically abused? Are they doing

313
00:19:48,730 --> 00:19:52,570
okay at school? You know, we will have so many different things that

314
00:19:52,570 --> 00:19:55,890
we're anxious about. This is

315
00:19:56,210 --> 00:19:59,290
the, one of the biggest, one of the worst things that you can do as

316
00:19:59,290 --> 00:20:01,970
a parent is spend your time in a state of anxiety

317
00:20:03,010 --> 00:20:06,760
because your, your conscious mind, which is the bit that's, that's

318
00:20:06,760 --> 00:20:10,560
worrying, whatever is going on in your conscious

319
00:20:10,560 --> 00:20:14,320
mind, you give it to your subconscious mind that has got no

320
00:20:14,400 --> 00:20:18,160
filter. And what's also happening, I'll come back to that in a second. What's also

321
00:20:18,160 --> 00:20:21,960
happening is that anything you are thinking, your,

322
00:20:21,960 --> 00:20:24,880
your subconscious mind does not differentiate between

323
00:20:26,000 --> 00:20:29,440
your imagination and real life. So

324
00:20:29,680 --> 00:20:33,400
it experiences, and you experience the

325
00:20:33,400 --> 00:20:36,120
worry about your kid as if it's real.

326
00:20:37,320 --> 00:20:41,080
So you, so if you're basically caught in this, this anxiety loop,

327
00:20:41,800 --> 00:20:45,160
you're, you're going to be emotionally fatigued and drained

328
00:20:45,720 --> 00:20:49,240
as, as a result of you having these constant thoughts. So,

329
00:20:49,800 --> 00:20:53,560
so your conscious mind has a thought of grief or

330
00:20:53,800 --> 00:20:57,640
guilt or shame or isolation that goes down

331
00:20:57,640 --> 00:21:01,360
into your subconscious. Because whatever, whatever you give your subconscious, it's just like

332
00:21:01,360 --> 00:21:05,200
a little computer, it'll work on it for you. And it's got a filter and

333
00:21:05,200 --> 00:21:08,640
it goes. Okay, so Mary, you want me to think about grief, guilt,

334
00:21:08,880 --> 00:21:11,920
fear? Give us a couple of hours, I'll get back to you.

335
00:21:12,480 --> 00:21:16,240
So now it's permeating your dreams. It will wake you up in

336
00:21:16,240 --> 00:21:20,040
your sleep, it'll disturb you while you're at work, or if

337
00:21:20,040 --> 00:21:23,720
you're with friends or you're watching tv, suddenly you're thinking about

338
00:21:23,720 --> 00:21:27,350
grief, guilt, fear again. And because you're thinking about

339
00:21:27,350 --> 00:21:31,070
grief, guilt, fear in your conscious mind, everything in your conscious mind goes into your

340
00:21:31,070 --> 00:21:33,910
subconscious for a second. Go.

341
00:21:36,390 --> 00:21:40,150
And we end up looping all the time. So if, if

342
00:21:40,150 --> 00:21:43,590
you can imagine a marathon race, the,

343
00:21:43,750 --> 00:21:47,590
the alienating parent runs the first hundred yards and they pass you this

344
00:21:47,590 --> 00:21:51,390
baton. And this baton is the grief, the guilt, the fear, the

345
00:21:51,390 --> 00:21:54,710
injustice. And we take that and we start

346
00:21:54,710 --> 00:21:58,550
focusing on that. And then we get into this looping conversation.

347
00:21:59,270 --> 00:22:02,510
And now what's absolutely crazy is we're self

348
00:22:02,510 --> 00:22:06,310
perpetuating. Exactly all the self

349
00:22:06,390 --> 00:22:10,190
harming thoughts that the alienator wants us to

350
00:22:10,190 --> 00:22:13,510
have. Yes, true, which is

351
00:22:13,910 --> 00:22:17,750
bonkers. But there's more. Sorry.

352
00:22:19,210 --> 00:22:22,890
So. So yeah, each of those things that we're

353
00:22:22,890 --> 00:22:26,410
feeling are generally related

354
00:22:26,650 --> 00:22:30,290
to. So it's, it's our experience of grief, it's our unique

355
00:22:30,290 --> 00:22:34,050
version of grief, it's our unique version of guilt, it's our unique version

356
00:22:34,050 --> 00:22:37,530
Of. Of anxiety, whatever those things are. And

357
00:22:37,610 --> 00:22:41,370
most of those actually revert back to old

358
00:22:41,450 --> 00:22:45,170
past memories of. Of us or things that have happened to

359
00:22:45,170 --> 00:22:48,470
us in our past that we're basically

360
00:22:48,630 --> 00:22:51,990
reliving through the experience of alienation.

361
00:22:53,190 --> 00:22:56,390
And this all links to healing. Yeah.

362
00:22:57,510 --> 00:23:01,310
If you were to take an example of. I talk

363
00:23:01,310 --> 00:23:05,110
about triggers a lot. Triggers. Parents will typically

364
00:23:05,110 --> 00:23:08,390
have 50 to 100 different things that trigger them.

365
00:23:08,950 --> 00:23:12,710
And all the trigger is, it's something that's making you feel unsafe.

366
00:23:13,810 --> 00:23:17,490
So it might be seeing another mum with a child the same

367
00:23:17,490 --> 00:23:21,330
age as yours, or it might be watching TV and people playing happy families

368
00:23:21,890 --> 00:23:25,690
where it might be hearing something that reminds you of your ex. But. But

369
00:23:25,690 --> 00:23:29,009
they're all just symptoms of something much, much

370
00:23:29,009 --> 00:23:32,690
deeper. But we also have expectation.

371
00:23:32,930 --> 00:23:36,210
Sorry, take a backwards step. We're empaths for a reason.

372
00:23:36,450 --> 00:23:40,060
We're empaths because most of us didn't receive

373
00:23:40,060 --> 00:23:43,420
enough love, care and support when we were growing up.

374
00:23:44,300 --> 00:23:47,740
And we learned to appease the people around us

375
00:23:48,460 --> 00:23:52,100
so that we would keep safe. That

376
00:23:52,100 --> 00:23:55,660
made us people pleasers. And so we don't like

377
00:23:55,660 --> 00:23:59,420
conflict generally. And we're always trying to fix

378
00:23:59,580 --> 00:24:02,300
the people around us and the situations around us.

379
00:24:03,180 --> 00:24:06,900
This is why when there's excess work and excess stuff to do at work,

380
00:24:06,900 --> 00:24:09,900
we're always the people who stick our hand up, say, I'll fix it. Or you

381
00:24:09,900 --> 00:24:13,420
see a friend who's going through a hard time, I'll fix it. We meet

382
00:24:13,420 --> 00:24:16,020
narcissists, we get married to them, I'll fix it.

383
00:24:17,060 --> 00:24:20,580
We're fixing stuff because that's our defense mechanism.

384
00:24:21,700 --> 00:24:24,820
And then if we think about us as a parent,

385
00:24:25,300 --> 00:24:28,380
we look back to our childhood again and we say, what was the stuff that

386
00:24:28,380 --> 00:24:32,190
was good? What was the stuff that wasn't good? The stuff that wasn't

387
00:24:32,190 --> 00:24:35,990
good. I'm going to make sure that my own kid doesn't go

388
00:24:35,990 --> 00:24:39,470
through this when they're growing up, because it's

389
00:24:39,470 --> 00:24:43,270
normally something that is related to our empathy. So we rejected.

390
00:24:43,270 --> 00:24:46,950
We didn't get enough love, care and attention. So now

391
00:24:46,950 --> 00:24:50,190
we're going through alienation with our kids. So first of all,

392
00:24:50,510 --> 00:24:54,350
we feel really bad for our kid because we're looking at them saying, this

393
00:24:54,350 --> 00:24:57,900
was the last thing that I wanted to have actually happened to you.

394
00:24:58,460 --> 00:25:01,820
So I feel really guilty about that and I might feel a bit grievous about

395
00:25:01,820 --> 00:25:05,460
that as well. But then also, that child, in their

396
00:25:05,460 --> 00:25:09,260
alienating behaviors, is rejecting us. And

397
00:25:09,260 --> 00:25:12,860
now we're feeling rejected, which takes us back to our old

398
00:25:12,940 --> 00:25:16,660
childhood memories, ourselves, of the parents who were Rejecting

399
00:25:16,660 --> 00:25:19,820
us. But we're not aware of that because it's all at a very subconscious level.

400
00:25:20,620 --> 00:25:23,580
But we feel massively threatened.

401
00:25:25,110 --> 00:25:28,870
And in those situations where a child is rejecting us, they need

402
00:25:28,870 --> 00:25:32,630
us to be the strong, resilient, loving parent,

403
00:25:33,990 --> 00:25:37,750
not the parent who's focused on their own issues of rejection

404
00:25:38,230 --> 00:25:41,630
and are caught up in the things that trigger us and make us feel

405
00:25:41,630 --> 00:25:45,470
unsafe. This is why I was saying at the very beginning, parents

406
00:25:45,470 --> 00:25:48,550
don't recognize the importance of their own healing

407
00:25:49,280 --> 00:25:50,960
when it comes to supporting their children.

408
00:25:52,880 --> 00:25:56,680
Yeah, that's all really good. And this was part of,

409
00:25:56,680 --> 00:26:00,320
like, you have a nine step program, right? Did you get to the last one

410
00:26:00,320 --> 00:26:03,960
or did I cut you off? No, no, no. Those were the nine

411
00:26:03,960 --> 00:26:07,480
things. Yes. So the nine step

412
00:26:07,480 --> 00:26:11,040
program is designed to take parents

413
00:26:11,440 --> 00:26:14,810
through what is actually quite a simple

414
00:26:15,200 --> 00:26:18,960
process to help them to reconnect with their kids.

415
00:26:18,960 --> 00:26:22,400
So I start by saying, well,

416
00:26:23,040 --> 00:26:26,640
there is an emotional journey that is parental alienation, looks a lot like

417
00:26:26,640 --> 00:26:30,440
bereavement because it has the same sorts of phases.

418
00:26:30,440 --> 00:26:33,440
So I start by asking parents, where are you at the moment?

419
00:26:34,320 --> 00:26:37,760
And then we begin looking at what are all the things

420
00:26:37,840 --> 00:26:41,360
that are blocking you from moving forwards on that emotional journey.

421
00:26:42,380 --> 00:26:46,220
So it might be you don't want to accept what's happening to your kids right

422
00:26:46,220 --> 00:26:49,700
now because that's just too painful for you. What are the

423
00:26:49,700 --> 00:26:53,340
triggers? So what are the things that upset you? Because that moves you

424
00:26:53,340 --> 00:26:57,180
backwards on that emotional journey. And then what are

425
00:26:57,180 --> 00:27:00,820
your expectation gaps? And basically the

426
00:27:00,820 --> 00:27:04,140
expectation gaps, when our kids are born, we create

427
00:27:04,620 --> 00:27:08,300
all these ideas about what their life is going to be like through to

428
00:27:08,300 --> 00:27:11,980
their mid-20s, mid-30s. A lot of the time, you know, we've mapped

429
00:27:11,980 --> 00:27:15,380
out, you know, their first time they're going to be walking first

430
00:27:15,460 --> 00:27:19,100
schools, proms, college, you know, graduation, all that

431
00:27:19,100 --> 00:27:22,580
stuff. And, and it's. But in our subconscious,

432
00:27:23,379 --> 00:27:26,740
we often don't move on in terms of

433
00:27:26,820 --> 00:27:30,020
aligning the reality of what's really going on with those expectations.

434
00:27:31,300 --> 00:27:34,670
So if we'd expected that we were going to be at, you know, helping our

435
00:27:34,670 --> 00:27:38,350
kids with their prom and we're not involved, that's going to give

436
00:27:38,350 --> 00:27:41,870
us pain. Our expectations and

437
00:27:41,870 --> 00:27:45,350
reality are now out of sync. So it's just

438
00:27:45,350 --> 00:27:49,150
mechanisms that they're mind tricks basically to start understanding

439
00:27:49,150 --> 00:27:52,630
what, what are your pain points as a parent. And

440
00:27:53,030 --> 00:27:56,750
I focus a lot of, a lot of those nine steps is

441
00:27:56,750 --> 00:28:00,590
actually on understanding what are your pain points and

442
00:28:00,590 --> 00:28:03,580
how do we help you to move past them and heal them.

443
00:28:04,620 --> 00:28:08,460
And then the rest of the focus is on what is your child going

444
00:28:08,460 --> 00:28:12,140
through because most children tend to go

445
00:28:12,140 --> 00:28:14,540
through very similar sorts of experiences.

446
00:28:15,980 --> 00:28:19,700
But there's also that everybody's situation is unique. So we

447
00:28:19,700 --> 00:28:23,540
need to look at the dynamic nature of who

448
00:28:23,540 --> 00:28:26,780
you as a parent, who's the alienator? Like as a parent

449
00:28:27,590 --> 00:28:31,310
alienator might have a new partner. They could also be alienating the kid. Their

450
00:28:31,310 --> 00:28:34,870
family might be alienating the kids. Kids might be

451
00:28:34,870 --> 00:28:38,630
alienating the kids. What is the experience that each of

452
00:28:38,630 --> 00:28:41,990
the children is having? Because they have very different experiences.

453
00:28:43,670 --> 00:28:47,430
What is the nature of the child? Some children are more resilient, some children

454
00:28:47,430 --> 00:28:51,030
are less resilient. So you really, you really have to start looking

455
00:28:51,590 --> 00:28:54,560
at the experience the child, child is going through

456
00:28:55,440 --> 00:28:58,760
and, and be able to almost like map it out over a period of time.

457
00:28:58,760 --> 00:29:02,160
We'll say this is what they're going through now. So some people, it'll be

458
00:29:02,480 --> 00:29:06,320
that they're, they're maybe at an early stage of parental alienation,

459
00:29:06,640 --> 00:29:10,360
so they're preparing for what else, you know, how might it get worse? What

460
00:29:10,360 --> 00:29:13,520
can I do that's going to help stop that getting worse?

461
00:29:14,080 --> 00:29:17,680
Other people might be in the thick of it where it's like, okay, well, I'm

462
00:29:17,680 --> 00:29:21,390
more about the healing stage, which my kid. But

463
00:29:21,390 --> 00:29:25,070
in all instances, it's constantly evolving, it's constantly

464
00:29:25,070 --> 00:29:28,790
changing. So we, we have to look

465
00:29:28,790 --> 00:29:32,390
at ourselves as a parent and as a

466
00:29:32,390 --> 00:29:36,110
person and say, my personal healing,

467
00:29:36,670 --> 00:29:39,750
there are things that I need to address so I can go off and do

468
00:29:39,750 --> 00:29:43,470
that. And then there's my, my parenting,

469
00:29:43,950 --> 00:29:47,710
which is where I'm going to have to call constantly, like

470
00:29:47,710 --> 00:29:50,710
evolve and change according to where my kid is at.

471
00:29:51,750 --> 00:29:55,270
So you're almost like a split identity of your parent and,

472
00:29:55,350 --> 00:29:59,030
and person at the same time.

473
00:29:59,910 --> 00:30:03,430
Yeah, well, I think it is very helpful,

474
00:30:04,150 --> 00:30:07,910
you know, to have someone if, because, you know, usually you do

475
00:30:07,910 --> 00:30:11,510
seek out some kind of help. Well, you know,

476
00:30:11,850 --> 00:30:15,610
hopefully, hopefully people do. Yeah. I think, I think the biggest

477
00:30:15,610 --> 00:30:18,650
problem is not enough parents actually do they, they try to

478
00:30:19,210 --> 00:30:22,930
self help, they buy books, there's great books out there. But,

479
00:30:22,930 --> 00:30:25,050
but the books tend to focus on,

480
00:30:26,570 --> 00:30:30,210
they'll, they'll look at narcissism, tons of stuff in narcissism. And

481
00:30:30,210 --> 00:30:33,050
if, and anybody listening to us who doesn't understand narcissism,

482
00:30:33,850 --> 00:30:36,970
go check that out straight away, learn about it.

483
00:30:37,370 --> 00:30:41,220
Right. It's like the rule book of how a narcissist

484
00:30:41,220 --> 00:30:44,900
is going to operate. And yeah, invaluable to you,

485
00:30:45,380 --> 00:30:49,140
but also layering on top of that the dynamics

486
00:30:49,140 --> 00:30:51,620
of the person who is the narcissist.

487
00:30:52,740 --> 00:30:56,500
So you know, with all of our exes, they, they've got their old histories,

488
00:30:57,220 --> 00:31:00,940
they've had trauma in their life. So, so which is the thing

489
00:31:00,940 --> 00:31:04,770
that caused the narcissism. So understand what their particular

490
00:31:05,010 --> 00:31:08,570
pain points and sensitivities so that you can

491
00:31:08,570 --> 00:31:11,490
avoid angering that individual

492
00:31:12,210 --> 00:31:15,970
because if they get angry, they're going to hurt you. And

493
00:31:16,050 --> 00:31:19,890
they've got five key triggers, by the way. They all have

494
00:31:19,890 --> 00:31:23,210
the same five key triggers. The first one is when you

495
00:31:23,210 --> 00:31:27,010
separate, they, they feel that, you know, up until

496
00:31:27,010 --> 00:31:30,790
that point in time there's been a degree of loyalty towards you because their

497
00:31:30,790 --> 00:31:34,590
interests have an element of alignment. But when you do separate, and also

498
00:31:34,590 --> 00:31:37,230
they've seen you as an emotional crutch,

499
00:31:38,510 --> 00:31:42,350
they no longer have any loyalty to you. So

500
00:31:42,350 --> 00:31:46,110
this is why you see a huge shift in the way that

501
00:31:46,110 --> 00:31:49,910
they start alienating the kids when you separate. And also the

502
00:31:49,910 --> 00:31:52,750
thing that alienators like the least is where they don't have control.

503
00:31:53,870 --> 00:31:57,290
So when they separate from you, they don't have control of you anymore. So, so

504
00:31:57,290 --> 00:31:59,290
they try to control you through the alienation.

505
00:32:01,050 --> 00:32:04,850
The second one, anything to do with court, this is a control thing

506
00:32:04,850 --> 00:32:08,530
again, because they find it very difficult to influence

507
00:32:08,530 --> 00:32:12,290
judges. I mean, they'll do everything they can and we've seen them in

508
00:32:12,290 --> 00:32:15,770
action, but what they can't control,

509
00:32:16,330 --> 00:32:19,530
their go to response is, well, if I'm in pain, I'm going to make you

510
00:32:19,530 --> 00:32:22,330
hurt. So they ramp up the alienation.

511
00:32:23,060 --> 00:32:25,700
Yeah. Third one, money.

512
00:32:26,820 --> 00:32:30,100
Anything to do with money. So as empaths, we're all about

513
00:32:30,180 --> 00:32:33,940
relationships with our kids. That's the most important thing in the world for us. Money,

514
00:32:33,940 --> 00:32:34,660
secondary

515
00:32:37,540 --> 00:32:40,740
physical stuff, houses, you know, property,

516
00:32:41,060 --> 00:32:44,860
clothes, cars, furniture. They always want the house, they, they always

517
00:32:44,860 --> 00:32:48,460
want to keep everything. And basically cut out a little

518
00:32:48,460 --> 00:32:52,240
thing that's called us and put that to one side and say, I

519
00:32:52,240 --> 00:32:54,240
want to keep the kids, I want to keep the house, I want to keep

520
00:32:54,240 --> 00:32:58,040
the money, I want to keep everything. But you, you, you, you can go

521
00:32:58,040 --> 00:33:01,840
somewhere else, you know. And

522
00:33:01,840 --> 00:33:05,640
again, if anything that threatens their money, they'll ramp up the alienation.

523
00:33:06,760 --> 00:33:10,280
Fourth one is when you start having a good relationship with your

524
00:33:10,280 --> 00:33:13,920
kids, this is going against what they want. So

525
00:33:13,920 --> 00:33:17,340
they'll ramp up the alienation to try and undermine that,

526
00:33:17,580 --> 00:33:21,380
the progress that you're making. So it'll be one step forward, one step back, one

527
00:33:21,380 --> 00:33:25,140
step forward, one step back. And for a lot of parents, you get

528
00:33:25,140 --> 00:33:28,940
stuck in that routine for years, but hopefully

529
00:33:28,940 --> 00:33:32,540
at some point, and most of us do have this experience, you start making progress

530
00:33:32,540 --> 00:33:36,180
when the kids become more independent. And then the last

531
00:33:36,180 --> 00:33:39,420
one, which many people depending on where they are in the process,

532
00:33:39,900 --> 00:33:43,300
when we go off and we enter into a new relationship ourselves,

533
00:33:44,820 --> 00:33:48,420
that, that can be very threatening to the alienator.

534
00:33:49,700 --> 00:33:53,220
Therefore women alienators. This is

535
00:33:53,300 --> 00:33:56,660
even more threatening than for male alienators. Women

536
00:33:56,660 --> 00:34:00,380
alienators tend to see another mother coming into the lives of their

537
00:34:00,380 --> 00:34:04,220
children as being something that's deeply concerning for them because, you

538
00:34:04,220 --> 00:34:07,820
know, that other woman might develop a good relationship with the children. Child,

539
00:34:08,140 --> 00:34:11,980
you know, and it's not their biological child, but equally

540
00:34:11,980 --> 00:34:14,780
for, for, for many of us, you know, male

541
00:34:15,820 --> 00:34:19,460
partners that, that, that come into the scene or

542
00:34:19,460 --> 00:34:23,100
so where there are male alienators and the, the, the woman

543
00:34:23,420 --> 00:34:27,060
has a new male husband. The

544
00:34:27,060 --> 00:34:30,460
males are very concerned that, you know, this might be a new father figure.

545
00:34:31,820 --> 00:34:34,820
So what they tend to do is they try to destabilize our

546
00:34:34,820 --> 00:34:38,340
relationships. So they'll often create friction by

547
00:34:38,340 --> 00:34:42,060
villainizing the person that we're seeing to make them out to be a bad person.

548
00:34:42,860 --> 00:34:46,620
Anything associated with us is always bad, but they'll villainize that person

549
00:34:46,620 --> 00:34:49,340
or they'll try and do things like create a,

550
00:34:50,300 --> 00:34:53,860
like blackmail. You have to pick or they'll get us as the

551
00:34:53,860 --> 00:34:57,340
aliens parent. We have to pick our child or our partner.

552
00:34:57,980 --> 00:34:59,340
We're not allowed to have both.

553
00:35:01,990 --> 00:35:05,510
Really nasty. What this, the stuff that they do. Oh, it's.

554
00:35:05,590 --> 00:35:09,190
Yeah. And it's, it's, it just can

555
00:35:09,350 --> 00:35:13,150
rain nothing but hell all over your life everywhere

556
00:35:13,150 --> 00:35:16,990
you turn. Yeah. Yeah. And this back

557
00:35:16,990 --> 00:35:19,910
to that point of why it's really important people go and get help. So

558
00:35:20,790 --> 00:35:24,510
you can get books on narcissism, you can get books on alienation.

559
00:35:24,510 --> 00:35:28,310
I would read all these things as well. You can also get some

560
00:35:28,310 --> 00:35:32,070
really helpful materials and support for your, your own healing.

561
00:35:32,710 --> 00:35:36,390
But, but what most people are not so good at is, is

562
00:35:36,390 --> 00:35:40,230
weaving it all together and understanding the dynamics

563
00:35:40,230 --> 00:35:43,750
of how the narcissists are interplaying with your kids

564
00:35:43,910 --> 00:35:47,110
and how that interact is interaction is affecting

565
00:35:47,430 --> 00:35:51,110
your relationship with the kids and how you feel and how you

566
00:35:51,110 --> 00:35:54,860
experience that relationship with the kids. And so that's really

567
00:35:54,860 --> 00:35:58,500
where people like myself step in because we, we

568
00:35:58,500 --> 00:36:02,180
understand dynamics and, and

569
00:36:02,180 --> 00:36:05,300
we can help you to, to understand

570
00:36:06,100 --> 00:36:09,220
why am I going through what I'm going through and how can I experience that

571
00:36:09,220 --> 00:36:12,980
very differently. It's very to large. It's a very mindset

572
00:36:12,980 --> 00:36:16,700
thing. I really help my kids and how

573
00:36:16,700 --> 00:36:20,430
can I help mitigate damage that is being done by the alienator?

574
00:36:21,310 --> 00:36:24,950
Yeah. And then the, you know, there's so many things that can come

575
00:36:24,950 --> 00:36:28,350
into play with society really can

576
00:36:29,150 --> 00:36:32,750
side with the alienator. And they seem to. This is

577
00:36:32,750 --> 00:36:36,350
just society. It seems like whoever has the

578
00:36:36,350 --> 00:36:40,070
power hold, which likely can

579
00:36:40,070 --> 00:36:43,710
be. It can be money or it can be. They're a good storyteller,

580
00:36:44,320 --> 00:36:48,120
can be either one. But they tend to be the one to

581
00:36:48,120 --> 00:36:51,680
win in the social circle, in the,

582
00:36:52,320 --> 00:36:55,200
you know, in the court system. There's too much of that

583
00:36:56,080 --> 00:36:58,640
also, and some of that can get really

584
00:37:00,000 --> 00:37:03,760
dangerous. And I, I do think of like, you know, and

585
00:37:03,760 --> 00:37:07,360
I'm not speaking my own experience in this because it's. First of all, it would

586
00:37:07,360 --> 00:37:10,600
be hard to really speak of your own experience specifically with this kind of situation.

587
00:37:10,600 --> 00:37:14,450
But you hear stories and they, they are, they're

588
00:37:14,450 --> 00:37:18,290
very, they, you know, they, they're

589
00:37:18,290 --> 00:37:21,770
horrifying to me. But of a woman who is, you know, being

590
00:37:22,090 --> 00:37:25,690
maybe being physically abused, financially abused, she can't work.

591
00:37:26,890 --> 00:37:29,450
And maybe there's even like the kids are being

592
00:37:30,330 --> 00:37:33,930
physically or sexually harmed by the, by the

593
00:37:33,930 --> 00:37:37,220
partner, and then the

594
00:37:37,220 --> 00:37:41,020
alienation starts. So it is so critical, I think,

595
00:37:41,020 --> 00:37:44,740
for society and for court systems to go. This can be a life

596
00:37:44,740 --> 00:37:48,020
or death situation easily for both the parent and the child

597
00:37:48,580 --> 00:37:52,340
if you don't get it right. And we have

598
00:37:52,340 --> 00:37:55,380
to get it right. And we have to make sure as a society

599
00:37:55,940 --> 00:37:59,780
we are looking at the, the things we have to look at to go.

600
00:38:01,060 --> 00:38:04,850
This has to be done right for the safety of children and parents.

601
00:38:04,850 --> 00:38:08,650
Like, it has to be done right. It's also, it's also intergenerational.

602
00:38:08,810 --> 00:38:12,650
So, so the societal impact is. Is enormous

603
00:38:13,050 --> 00:38:16,890
because all of the children who are going through this. This

604
00:38:16,890 --> 00:38:20,450
trauma right now, as they grow

605
00:38:20,450 --> 00:38:24,010
up, they can bring a lot of that trauma with them into their own

606
00:38:24,010 --> 00:38:27,170
relationships, their own parental

607
00:38:27,170 --> 00:38:30,830
relationships and their relationships with, you know, their own

608
00:38:30,830 --> 00:38:34,630
children. And, you know, a lot of the

609
00:38:34,630 --> 00:38:37,750
time what, what we see with trauma is, is that people kind of

610
00:38:37,750 --> 00:38:41,550
polarize in terms of the way they respond to trauma. So

611
00:38:41,550 --> 00:38:45,350
a lot of people, so, so people will become narcissistic. So

612
00:38:45,350 --> 00:38:48,510
I become very controlling as a mechanism to keep myself safe,

613
00:38:49,070 --> 00:38:52,870
or I become empathetic, which is I fix everything to

614
00:38:52,870 --> 00:38:56,230
keep safe. And I did talk about

615
00:38:56,230 --> 00:38:59,260
safety. Yeah, yeah. If you want to understand

616
00:38:59,340 --> 00:39:03,180
alienation, one of the best ways is just to look at the lens

617
00:39:03,180 --> 00:39:06,860
of safety. So why people are doing the stuff

618
00:39:06,860 --> 00:39:10,180
they're doing, because either they feel safe or they feel

619
00:39:10,180 --> 00:39:13,580
unsafe. So for somebody who's narcissistic,

620
00:39:14,300 --> 00:39:18,020
that their control mechanisms or their coping

621
00:39:18,020 --> 00:39:21,300
mechanisms, you know, like the controlling, the

622
00:39:21,300 --> 00:39:24,460
manipulation, the lying, the deceit, the coercion all those things,

623
00:39:25,310 --> 00:39:27,470
that's their coping mechanisms to keep

624
00:39:28,990 --> 00:39:32,750
themselves safe. At a deep level. We also find these people

625
00:39:32,830 --> 00:39:36,630
are very immature, so they're emotionally immature. And

626
00:39:36,630 --> 00:39:40,390
they also act like children to infantile because

627
00:39:40,390 --> 00:39:44,190
they're basically little kids in adult bodies

628
00:39:44,910 --> 00:39:47,790
who are finding it very difficult to cope in the world around them.

629
00:39:48,750 --> 00:39:52,590
And what we see often is they. They just takers. They're always take, take, take,

630
00:39:52,590 --> 00:39:56,430
take. They need more, more, more in order to. To kind of fill

631
00:39:56,430 --> 00:39:59,750
up a bottomless pit, a void inside of them,

632
00:39:59,990 --> 00:40:03,590
because these people are never actually happy. They always,

633
00:40:03,750 --> 00:40:07,470
they always have to have more to kind of try and make up for

634
00:40:07,470 --> 00:40:11,270
basically what is an emotional deficiency because they didn't get support

635
00:40:11,270 --> 00:40:14,950
when they were young. Then you get the empaths, or in fact,

636
00:40:14,950 --> 00:40:18,570
let's just start with the kids. Then you get the kids who are being put

637
00:40:18,570 --> 00:40:22,290
under all this pressure by the narcissist

638
00:40:22,290 --> 00:40:26,130
to align with the narcissist, to appease the narcissist, to

639
00:40:26,130 --> 00:40:29,930
kind of keep that narcissist feeling secure. And then

640
00:40:29,930 --> 00:40:33,730
the kids have to put up coping mechanisms themselves. And so the

641
00:40:33,730 --> 00:40:37,170
coping mechanisms will be things like not speaking to us as a

642
00:40:37,170 --> 00:40:40,850
parent, not telling us about our lives, rejecting us,

643
00:40:40,930 --> 00:40:43,870
you know, hiding in their rooms, being rude,

644
00:40:44,670 --> 00:40:47,310
not wanting to observe our boundaries,

645
00:40:48,270 --> 00:40:52,070
a sense of being unsafe with us because we've been told we're a

646
00:40:52,070 --> 00:40:55,550
bad parent. So all the things they're doing are

647
00:40:55,550 --> 00:40:59,350
coping mechanisms to keep themselves safe. And so

648
00:40:59,350 --> 00:41:02,910
we have to learn to look beyond the coping mechanisms and saying,

649
00:41:03,070 --> 00:41:06,750
okay, you're not actually rejecting me. You actually

650
00:41:06,830 --> 00:41:09,950
love me. You do want to have a relationship with me. And I know

651
00:41:10,540 --> 00:41:14,020
it's very hard to hear some of these things when we haven't seen our kids

652
00:41:14,020 --> 00:41:17,820
for a long time, but that's what's really going on within. Within the child.

653
00:41:17,980 --> 00:41:21,780
But they're, they're quoting this loyalty conflict where the pressure of

654
00:41:21,780 --> 00:41:25,460
the loyalty conflict is greater than their. Than their

655
00:41:25,460 --> 00:41:29,020
desire to have a relationship with us. So they protect our. Protect

656
00:41:29,020 --> 00:41:32,740
themselves, not in a relationship with us. Yeah, we

657
00:41:32,740 --> 00:41:36,530
have to know that they do want to do that. And then there's, then there's

658
00:41:36,530 --> 00:41:40,250
the empaths. And as I was saying, our

659
00:41:40,250 --> 00:41:43,570
coping mechanism is give, give, give,

660
00:41:44,370 --> 00:41:48,170
keep everybody around us happy. And most of us in

661
00:41:48,170 --> 00:41:51,730
a family situation with a narcissist, we're like regulators

662
00:41:52,049 --> 00:41:55,730
in that household. We're always trying to keep them on an even keel. We

663
00:41:55,730 --> 00:41:59,010
try to provide a buffer between them and the kids. You know, we're just trying

664
00:41:59,010 --> 00:42:02,580
to keep everything smooth, but from our

665
00:42:02,580 --> 00:42:05,900
perspective, we become quite defenseless. Because

666
00:42:06,700 --> 00:42:10,380
when, when your coping mechanism is. Coping mechanism is give, give,

667
00:42:10,380 --> 00:42:14,100
give, and the other person's coping mechanism is take, take,

668
00:42:14,100 --> 00:42:17,900
take. But they're a bottomless pit. Whatever you

669
00:42:17,900 --> 00:42:21,660
try to do in terms of giving or fixing is never enough.

670
00:42:23,420 --> 00:42:26,940
Most of us get to a point which is a lot of time, we are

671
00:42:26,940 --> 00:42:30,660
the people who eventually seek divorce because

672
00:42:30,740 --> 00:42:33,860
we can't, we can't take it anymore,

673
00:42:34,340 --> 00:42:36,900
where we're perpetually compromising ourselves

674
00:42:37,940 --> 00:42:41,180
in order to satisfy the, these, these

675
00:42:41,180 --> 00:42:44,420
narcissistic needs. Yeah,

676
00:42:45,140 --> 00:42:48,860
I always, I, I use the terminology

677
00:42:48,860 --> 00:42:52,340
of true north. Like, you know, you think,

678
00:42:53,060 --> 00:42:56,340
you know, they're obviously, you know, you fall in love and marry them and start

679
00:42:56,340 --> 00:43:00,060
having kids, so they present as pretty great.

680
00:43:01,820 --> 00:43:05,660
And then over time you're like, what's the true north? And I think true north

681
00:43:05,660 --> 00:43:09,260
to me means their true north is I have to have a

682
00:43:09,260 --> 00:43:12,540
constant source of praise. I have to be praised constantly,

683
00:43:13,019 --> 00:43:16,780
or I have to constantly have attention of some kind. And

684
00:43:16,780 --> 00:43:20,340
so for some people, it can be I need to have all

685
00:43:20,340 --> 00:43:24,090
control of money. And that's their true north. Some of them might.

686
00:43:24,090 --> 00:43:26,650
It might be sex, and that's their true north,

687
00:43:27,770 --> 00:43:31,330
but they have a true north that is somehow centered

688
00:43:31,330 --> 00:43:34,970
around attention on them, it coming to them and

689
00:43:36,250 --> 00:43:39,970
controlling their circumstances and people around them

690
00:43:39,970 --> 00:43:43,610
to get that true north met. Yeah,

691
00:43:43,690 --> 00:43:46,650
I think that's a really good way of putting it. Yeah.

692
00:43:47,210 --> 00:43:50,930
Yeah. So. And until you understand what their true. Once you

693
00:43:50,930 --> 00:43:54,500
understand what the true north is, all the pieces, it goes, oh, that all makes

694
00:43:54,500 --> 00:43:57,220
sense then. That's why they make that decision.

695
00:43:57,940 --> 00:44:01,460
Yeah, this is why, you know, like, if

696
00:44:01,460 --> 00:44:05,060
pity is a true north and they don't care if the kids suffer,

697
00:44:05,460 --> 00:44:08,220
they don't care. They don't care. And I think that's one of the hardest things

698
00:44:08,220 --> 00:44:11,140
for an empath to, to understand because our,

699
00:44:11,780 --> 00:44:15,460
the way that we think is the polar opposite to how

700
00:44:15,780 --> 00:44:19,260
a narcissist thinks. Literally can't

701
00:44:19,260 --> 00:44:22,100
comprehend why they're doing the stuff they're doing.

702
00:44:23,060 --> 00:44:26,860
And our very nature is to try and entreat them to be, you

703
00:44:26,860 --> 00:44:30,580
know, sensible, to be sympathetic

704
00:44:30,580 --> 00:44:34,340
to the needs of the children. And they, they just

705
00:44:34,660 --> 00:44:38,180
don't have any of it, that they will not compromise.

706
00:44:38,900 --> 00:44:42,660
I mean, they can fake it. That's. That's the one thing in society

707
00:44:42,660 --> 00:44:45,000
they can appear to be caring.

708
00:44:46,280 --> 00:44:50,000
And then the love bombing, I think, is, you know, can be part of

709
00:44:50,000 --> 00:44:53,800
it if there's a, you know, they just tell everyone it's. They're in the best

710
00:44:53,800 --> 00:44:57,280
and, you know, they're gonna, they're gonna say that they're the ones who has the

711
00:44:57,280 --> 00:45:01,040
best interest of the kids and they're the ones who are doing X, Y and

712
00:45:01,040 --> 00:45:04,600
Z. And I'm, you know, always doing all these good things. Yeah.

713
00:45:04,600 --> 00:45:08,280
And they're gonna, they're going to make sure that. And then the

714
00:45:08,280 --> 00:45:11,720
projections that they will project whatever they are onto you,

715
00:45:12,140 --> 00:45:15,980
the negative traits. So I mean that,

716
00:45:15,980 --> 00:45:19,620
that projection is the best truth.

717
00:45:19,620 --> 00:45:23,460
It's a truth serum. It is being projected

718
00:45:23,460 --> 00:45:26,860
on the other parent or the other person is.

719
00:45:27,180 --> 00:45:30,380
They're telling the truth about who they know they are.

720
00:45:30,940 --> 00:45:34,660
Yeah. Well, they, they're basically telling you what they're up to. That

721
00:45:34,660 --> 00:45:38,430
all the things they're accusing you of doing is, is, is the

722
00:45:38,430 --> 00:45:42,190
stuff that, it's like they're quite remarkable in this regard.

723
00:45:42,190 --> 00:45:45,830
If they're accusing you of having an affair, that's because

724
00:45:45,830 --> 00:45:49,190
they're, they're sleeping with somebody. If they're accusing you of

725
00:45:49,350 --> 00:45:52,910
hiding money, they're hiding money. And it's really

726
00:45:52,910 --> 00:45:56,750
helpful but unfortunately most of us learn this too late. But

727
00:45:56,750 --> 00:46:00,350
it's really helpful once you realize that all the things you're being accused of is

728
00:46:00,350 --> 00:46:03,830
the very thing they're doing. So go try to root out what they're actually

729
00:46:03,830 --> 00:46:07,630
doing. Yeah. Because they're tell. I mean it is. They are

730
00:46:07,630 --> 00:46:11,310
telling you. That is. I don't know why what in psychology it. That

731
00:46:11,310 --> 00:46:14,670
is. But anyone who's hiding is going to be

732
00:46:14,670 --> 00:46:18,510
projecting what they're doing onto you. Absolutely. I

733
00:46:18,510 --> 00:46:22,070
mean again, this is where the books on, on narcissism are really helpful

734
00:46:22,310 --> 00:46:25,950
because it gives you such an advantage or it gives you

735
00:46:25,950 --> 00:46:29,670
not an advantage, but it gives you a much better level of understanding

736
00:46:30,240 --> 00:46:34,080
about dealing with. But I would also say with narcissists,

737
00:46:34,080 --> 00:46:36,880
be really careful about what I call prodding the bear.

738
00:46:37,840 --> 00:46:41,680
Because if you do something to hurt a narcissist, and this is

739
00:46:41,680 --> 00:46:45,400
why the five triggers were so important, if you do something to nuts,

740
00:46:45,400 --> 00:46:49,080
they will do stuff back to you to, to try

741
00:46:49,080 --> 00:46:52,560
and hurt you. So a lot of the time you need to be

742
00:46:52,800 --> 00:46:55,520
careful about how you tackle

743
00:46:56,120 --> 00:46:59,960
narcissist. You know, you want to be firm, but you

744
00:46:59,960 --> 00:47:03,280
want to be fair. A lot of time having as limited contact with them as

745
00:47:03,280 --> 00:47:06,960
possible is much the best thing. But they're

746
00:47:06,960 --> 00:47:10,760
also used to you being a certain person in the relationship. And a

747
00:47:10,760 --> 00:47:14,560
lot of time we've been way too compromising. And what, what we have

748
00:47:14,560 --> 00:47:16,760
to learn as empaths

749
00:47:18,120 --> 00:47:21,560
is to basically be much stronger, more resilient.

750
00:47:23,540 --> 00:47:27,380
Start rebuilding us our self confidence once More our

751
00:47:27,380 --> 00:47:31,140
sense of self worth and stop fixing

752
00:47:31,140 --> 00:47:34,500
stuff. Because one of the things that is our Achilles heel

753
00:47:35,060 --> 00:47:37,940
is seeing our kids in a position of discomfort

754
00:47:38,980 --> 00:47:42,100
because we feel deeply,

755
00:47:42,740 --> 00:47:46,420
we feel scared basically when we see our kids being

756
00:47:46,420 --> 00:47:50,140
uncomfortable. Because that's our coping mechanism. If I go fix it,

757
00:47:50,140 --> 00:47:53,860
everything will be all right again. So we have to learn with an alienator kid.

758
00:47:54,260 --> 00:47:58,100
Okay, this is an acceptable, although we don't want it

759
00:47:58,100 --> 00:48:01,780
to be acceptable. This is, this is how it is right now.

760
00:48:02,020 --> 00:48:05,860
My kid is going through this right now. It's not actually about

761
00:48:06,340 --> 00:48:09,980
me. It's about their experience. And what we're doing all the

762
00:48:09,980 --> 00:48:12,820
time is we take a kid who's,

763
00:48:14,100 --> 00:48:17,900
who's rejecting us. So I always, I use this analogy as

764
00:48:17,900 --> 00:48:21,740
a parent. We should be focused 100 on our kid. So if our kid is

765
00:48:21,740 --> 00:48:25,540
there in their universe, two universes, us and the kid

766
00:48:27,140 --> 00:48:30,299
we need to be focused on. What do they need from me at this point

767
00:48:30,299 --> 00:48:33,900
in time? I don't care about them. You know, I'll look beyond their

768
00:48:33,900 --> 00:48:37,660
coping mechanisms. I understand what they're experiencing.

769
00:48:37,660 --> 00:48:40,760
So I'm going to give them the love, the care, the support, support that they

770
00:48:40,760 --> 00:48:44,520
need in this moment. But what tends to happen instead

771
00:48:44,520 --> 00:48:48,280
of us being able to focus 100 on the kid is the kids do

772
00:48:48,280 --> 00:48:52,080
things trigger us. And, and these old insecurities and

773
00:48:52,080 --> 00:48:55,879
vulnerabilities that we have from our past get brought to life

774
00:48:55,879 --> 00:48:58,880
again. And we put our old insecurities

775
00:48:59,440 --> 00:49:02,640
around what's going on with the kid. So

776
00:49:03,040 --> 00:49:06,650
path because we got rejected to some degree and now

777
00:49:07,050 --> 00:49:10,410
we're bringing our old rejection into the present

778
00:49:10,810 --> 00:49:14,530
with the kid rejecting us. And we're tying those two things together. They

779
00:49:14,530 --> 00:49:18,330
don't fit together. So in our healing, we have to

780
00:49:18,330 --> 00:49:21,130
learn to deal with our insecurities.

781
00:49:22,010 --> 00:49:25,690
Let all those things go when we can. Now

782
00:49:25,690 --> 00:49:28,570
we can focus. We can really focus 100 on the kid

783
00:49:29,450 --> 00:49:32,890
because we're not getting triggered. We're not getting upset set. We're no longer

784
00:49:32,890 --> 00:49:36,290
associating the child's behavior with us

785
00:49:36,930 --> 00:49:40,570
as a person because those things are, they're not actually

786
00:49:40,570 --> 00:49:44,290
linked. Yeah. And I, you know, I

787
00:49:44,290 --> 00:49:47,970
certainly would say for anyone who's experiencing this to have the

788
00:49:47,970 --> 00:49:51,250
support of someone who's a trauma informed therapist or

789
00:49:51,490 --> 00:49:55,130
working with someone like you, Charlie, that, that really understands.

790
00:49:55,130 --> 00:49:58,650
It or do the two together. So a lot of the time,

791
00:49:59,130 --> 00:50:02,490
yeah, I mean I'm a, I'm a coach, so

792
00:50:03,290 --> 00:50:06,890
I'm, I'm not a qualified trauma therapist.

793
00:50:07,210 --> 00:50:10,850
Okay. And, and I specifically didn't go

794
00:50:10,850 --> 00:50:14,530
off to qualify as a psychologist. Because the

795
00:50:14,530 --> 00:50:17,770
bit that I was most interested in is not recognized by the

796
00:50:17,770 --> 00:50:21,130
psychologists, which is parental alienation. So I've read

797
00:50:21,530 --> 00:50:25,350
tons of stuff and, and very qualified without

798
00:50:25,350 --> 00:50:29,190
the letters. But what I would encourage people to do is, is

799
00:50:29,190 --> 00:50:31,990
yet work with. With people who do have.

800
00:50:33,190 --> 00:50:36,950
Who are very good at trauma. But this is the. But a

801
00:50:36,950 --> 00:50:40,070
lot of the time those, those therapists don't understand

802
00:50:40,070 --> 00:50:43,750
alienation. And this is the gap

803
00:50:43,830 --> 00:50:47,510
because they're trying to heal a more generalized

804
00:50:47,510 --> 00:50:51,240
trauma as opposed to something that is very

805
00:50:51,240 --> 00:50:54,920
specific to alienation, which is the stuff that I can help with. So it's

806
00:50:54,920 --> 00:50:58,360
very complimentary having, having both

807
00:50:58,360 --> 00:51:02,120
parties work together on people saying, oh, I'm in therapy, should I stop the

808
00:51:02,120 --> 00:51:05,960
therapy? I will say, no, keep it going. Yeah, work with me on the

809
00:51:05,960 --> 00:51:09,640
stuff that I'm expert in. Work with them on the stuff they're expert

810
00:51:09,640 --> 00:51:13,320
in. Yeah, well, and I can say the stuff that you experience when you're

811
00:51:13,320 --> 00:51:15,530
going through this is, is. It is

812
00:51:17,610 --> 00:51:21,450
possibly more traumatizing the reactions you get from

813
00:51:22,090 --> 00:51:25,770
family and friends or, you know, people that you're trying to. Because

814
00:51:25,770 --> 00:51:29,290
you need help. But then the advice they come back with is

815
00:51:29,290 --> 00:51:33,130
so not helpful and a little bit arrogant,

816
00:51:33,290 --> 00:51:37,010
but they're trying. So good people are trying. And then there's other people

817
00:51:37,010 --> 00:51:40,740
that come back with advice that aren't trying to. And this is my.

818
00:51:40,820 --> 00:51:44,660
And I do want to talk because my. One of my experiences was that

819
00:51:45,060 --> 00:51:48,820
while I was going through this, such the target.

820
00:51:48,980 --> 00:51:52,700
And this is like a smear campaign. Whole community, whole

821
00:51:52,700 --> 00:51:56,500
family. I'm the target, right, of a, Of a massive smear

822
00:51:56,500 --> 00:52:00,260
campaign that I don't understand because I'm not even being told what. What people

823
00:52:00,260 --> 00:52:03,700
are being told about me. So I don't even know how to. What to say

824
00:52:03,700 --> 00:52:07,550
because I don't even know what the. What's being said. But there were.

825
00:52:07,550 --> 00:52:10,510
So I was trying to find new new community, right?

826
00:52:11,470 --> 00:52:12,750
And in doing so,

827
00:52:15,150 --> 00:52:18,990
wounded people will come to you as a friend

828
00:52:19,310 --> 00:52:22,910
because they know they can throw their crap at you and

829
00:52:22,910 --> 00:52:26,670
you're already a target. So then it escalates. And I had that

830
00:52:26,670 --> 00:52:30,310
happen. And thankfully I had a few super. A couple super stable

831
00:52:30,310 --> 00:52:33,570
friends who, who work with

832
00:52:33,730 --> 00:52:37,170
extreme people who've been extremely, you know,

833
00:52:37,570 --> 00:52:41,050
in extreme situations. You know, one

834
00:52:41,050 --> 00:52:44,770
prosecutes murders, for example, so like, wow, you know, and another

835
00:52:44,770 --> 00:52:48,490
one has lived through the. The stuff that is unimaginable. So,

836
00:52:48,490 --> 00:52:52,250
like, I had two people really, who did understand trauma, even though

837
00:52:52,250 --> 00:52:56,050
they didn't understand this. Go, you need to stop. You need to stop

838
00:52:56,130 --> 00:52:59,670
collecting these people. That are hurting you. There is something

839
00:52:59,670 --> 00:53:03,190
in that energy where it just seems like,

840
00:53:04,230 --> 00:53:08,070
like you're, you're bleeding in the water and you're looking for

841
00:53:08,070 --> 00:53:11,350
help and people, sharks that. Sharks

842
00:53:12,070 --> 00:53:15,790
who look like good people are coming. Yeah, they all

843
00:53:15,790 --> 00:53:19,630
come. They all come out. Yeah. And that was, it was, it's interesting to me

844
00:53:19,630 --> 00:53:22,790
because I had never had that experience. That was the only time in my life

845
00:53:23,190 --> 00:53:26,710
where I was the bleeding person in the water with sharks swimming around me

846
00:53:27,670 --> 00:53:31,110
was at that point. Right. Super post

847
00:53:31,110 --> 00:53:34,070
divorce. It's really interesting as well because in.

848
00:53:35,030 --> 00:53:38,470
And I think everything that you said is a really good point for parents to

849
00:53:38,470 --> 00:53:42,150
be aware of. I also think that a lot of people

850
00:53:42,710 --> 00:53:46,230
do try to be supportive, but

851
00:53:46,390 --> 00:53:49,350
they're coming at it from the lens of their own experience,

852
00:53:50,150 --> 00:53:53,850
normal family life. So that it's a

853
00:53:53,850 --> 00:53:57,650
bit like somebody from, you know, Earth trying to give somebody on

854
00:53:57,650 --> 00:54:00,930
Mars advice on how to live on Mars. Because, well, it must be the same

855
00:54:00,930 --> 00:54:04,090
on Mars as it on Earth. No, it's completely different.

856
00:54:04,570 --> 00:54:08,210
So they're well intentioned. But also what happens is

857
00:54:08,210 --> 00:54:11,890
that the, this is where bereavement comes back

858
00:54:11,890 --> 00:54:15,570
in. I use that as an example when, when we, when

859
00:54:15,570 --> 00:54:19,100
somebody close to us suffers, you know, somebody close to us dies.

860
00:54:19,980 --> 00:54:22,620
The world around us and our family

861
00:54:23,420 --> 00:54:27,140
understands what we're going through. They know how to support us. They know

862
00:54:27,140 --> 00:54:29,420
when to support us, what to do and how to be helpful.

863
00:54:30,380 --> 00:54:34,139
Alienation is the opposite, polar opposite of bereavement.

864
00:54:34,139 --> 00:54:37,900
Insofar as nobody understands what you're going

865
00:54:37,900 --> 00:54:41,700
through. Instead of having a community of

866
00:54:41,700 --> 00:54:45,410
support around you, you're very isolated. And it,

867
00:54:45,730 --> 00:54:49,570
it gets worse because you then have to be, you have to become the person

868
00:54:50,610 --> 00:54:53,490
that helps your children to heal.

869
00:54:54,210 --> 00:54:57,970
You have to be the person that helps your own family to heal.

870
00:54:58,370 --> 00:55:01,490
You have to be the person that helps your partner to heal.

871
00:55:02,450 --> 00:55:06,130
And so you have to be so resilient

872
00:55:06,210 --> 00:55:09,900
as a person and as a parent that. Well,

873
00:55:09,900 --> 00:55:13,740
under attack. Yeah. While under attack from,

874
00:55:13,740 --> 00:55:17,020
from, from all these people. And it's a really,

875
00:55:18,300 --> 00:55:21,980
it's a tough gig. It's probably the toughest thing that any of us

876
00:55:21,980 --> 00:55:25,500
will go through. But there is, there is a plus

877
00:55:25,900 --> 00:55:29,180
for, there's a couple of pluses from all of this.

878
00:55:29,900 --> 00:55:33,140
One of them is you. If you do the sort of things that I would

879
00:55:33,140 --> 00:55:36,180
advocate and other people who have the same sort of opinion that I have,

880
00:55:36,900 --> 00:55:40,380
you become really resilient. You become far

881
00:55:40,380 --> 00:55:44,060
stronger as a result of this experience than when you went into

882
00:55:44,060 --> 00:55:47,700
it. And that, that helps you as a person.

883
00:55:48,100 --> 00:55:51,820
It will literally Transform your life if, if you, if you do the things

884
00:55:51,820 --> 00:55:54,500
that will be beneficial for you in your healing process

885
00:55:55,380 --> 00:55:59,060
so that you come out of this better

886
00:55:59,060 --> 00:56:02,180
off than when you went in, and hopefully you'll have your kids back as well.

887
00:56:03,260 --> 00:56:06,980
Within yourself, you're now very different. The

888
00:56:06,980 --> 00:56:10,460
other thing that it teaches you is love

889
00:56:10,940 --> 00:56:14,140
at a completely different level, because

890
00:56:15,180 --> 00:56:19,020
love is something that when you're in a normal family situation, it's really

891
00:56:19,020 --> 00:56:22,860
easy to love the kids because, well, even when they're

892
00:56:22,860 --> 00:56:25,340
teenagers, it's still pretty easy to love them. But

893
00:56:26,380 --> 00:56:30,150
nobody's in this, like, very conflictual position

894
00:56:31,670 --> 00:56:35,510
child that's rejecting you. Learning to love a child that

895
00:56:35,510 --> 00:56:39,110
is pushing you away all the time is really hard. And

896
00:56:39,350 --> 00:56:42,950
something that we spoke briefly about before, which

897
00:56:42,950 --> 00:56:46,470
we have experience of, is going no contact

898
00:56:46,550 --> 00:56:50,270
with a child where you are the person who initiates

899
00:56:50,270 --> 00:56:54,030
that, because that's something I had to do with

900
00:56:54,030 --> 00:56:57,530
one of my kids because I could see, see the damage that was being done

901
00:56:57,530 --> 00:57:01,290
to our relationship and, and how difficult it

902
00:57:01,290 --> 00:57:05,010
was for her to spend time with me. And so

903
00:57:05,010 --> 00:57:08,810
I decided to. I said. I literally said to her, okay, we're going to take

904
00:57:08,810 --> 00:57:12,290
a holiday, is how I, How I framed it. We're going to take a holiday

905
00:57:12,290 --> 00:57:15,650
from each other. We're just gonna have some space, some time between us

906
00:57:16,210 --> 00:57:19,730
and just give. Give ourselves an opportunity to, to

907
00:57:19,810 --> 00:57:23,530
kind of heal a little bit before we. We're back in each other's lives.

908
00:57:24,170 --> 00:57:27,810
I had no idea how long that period was going to last. That was two

909
00:57:27,810 --> 00:57:30,650
years before we started having contact again.

910
00:57:31,850 --> 00:57:34,810
That was done from a place of, of love,

911
00:57:35,930 --> 00:57:39,690
not fear. And so we learn this whole new

912
00:57:39,690 --> 00:57:42,650
dimension of love. And the other thing that we learned at a whole new dimension

913
00:57:42,650 --> 00:57:46,370
is compassion. Compassion for

914
00:57:46,370 --> 00:57:50,220
our child, empathy for our, for our child, you know, to be able

915
00:57:50,220 --> 00:57:53,900
to not look at the behaviors they're exhibiting, but to

916
00:57:53,900 --> 00:57:56,420
understand you're only doing this because you're keeping safe.

917
00:57:57,940 --> 00:58:01,380
So I'm going to give you that compassion. I'm going to give you that love.

918
00:58:01,380 --> 00:58:05,220
I'm going to give you that support because I recognize what you're going

919
00:58:05,220 --> 00:58:08,940
through. That's ultimately how we

920
00:58:08,940 --> 00:58:12,420
win the kids back is through that love and compassion.

921
00:58:13,470 --> 00:58:17,230
And I think the, the hardest part about that is that

922
00:58:17,230 --> 00:58:21,030
there, I guess maybe it would be like a Stockholm syndrome or something like that,

923
00:58:21,030 --> 00:58:24,590
is that you can experience. Well, there's more than one hard part about that,

924
00:58:24,590 --> 00:58:27,950
but you can experience, like, the abuse of,

925
00:58:28,270 --> 00:58:31,870
you know, an ex through the kids. All of a sudden, they're just

926
00:58:33,390 --> 00:58:36,510
saying exactly what you were trying to escape.

927
00:58:37,390 --> 00:58:41,120
Yeah, I mean I think that's definitely. Your mouth and that's, that's a surreal experience.

928
00:58:41,190 --> 00:58:44,950
Experience. Yeah, it's called, it's called enmeshment. And, and

929
00:58:44,950 --> 00:58:48,270
so that's basically where they start parroting what they've

930
00:58:48,270 --> 00:58:52,030
adopted. The perspective of that parent, you know,

931
00:58:52,030 --> 00:58:55,750
their worldly view that parents ideas about

932
00:58:55,910 --> 00:58:59,630
you, you know, how they think about you and they start using their own

933
00:58:59,630 --> 00:59:03,350
terminology. And you often see this with really young

934
00:59:03,350 --> 00:59:06,550
kids as well that you know, sub 10 years old

935
00:59:07,710 --> 00:59:11,430
just acting like a mini me version of, of the parent

936
00:59:11,430 --> 00:59:15,110
who's alienating them. And it's very distressing for us because

937
00:59:15,110 --> 00:59:18,790
we've been traumatized already by alienating

938
00:59:18,790 --> 00:59:21,870
parent and now we're getting re traumatized

939
00:59:22,670 --> 00:59:26,190
or additionally further traumatized by our kid acting

940
00:59:26,270 --> 00:59:30,070
as, as that person. And also the kids are

941
00:59:30,070 --> 00:59:32,680
encouraged to psychologically abuse us as well. Well,

942
00:59:34,360 --> 00:59:38,160
which can cause all kinds of, you know, talk about they

943
00:59:38,160 --> 00:59:41,160
could develop the cluster B, you know. Yeah.

944
00:59:42,360 --> 00:59:46,160
Like it is so damaging. And this is in, you know, in part why it's

945
00:59:46,160 --> 00:59:49,840
like if in society if there's a way to step in as this is

946
00:59:49,840 --> 00:59:52,840
happening, it could prevent so much stuff

947
00:59:53,960 --> 00:59:57,720
and it's hard to recognize I think but it's all treatable.

948
00:59:58,170 --> 01:00:02,010
I mean there's been quite. I don't know

949
01:00:02,010 --> 01:00:05,570
if there's been a rise in narcissism that some of the statistics would indicate that

950
01:00:05,570 --> 01:00:09,130
there has been a rise in narcissism. I'm just think maybe it's becoming

951
01:00:09,210 --> 01:00:12,490
more understood. But yeah,

952
01:00:12,890 --> 01:00:16,010
trauma, it can be treated. The problem is that the narcissists

953
01:00:16,650 --> 01:00:20,330
don't go off and get the treatment because they don't want to face

954
01:00:20,330 --> 01:00:23,770
the trauma which is why they're doing the very actions they're doing.

955
01:00:24,420 --> 01:00:27,900
Yeah, yeah. It just seems like it's been said that they're not

956
01:00:27,900 --> 01:00:31,540
treatable because of how the. How it is but which

957
01:00:31,540 --> 01:00:35,340
is EMDR. Works really well with narcissists. What's

958
01:00:35,340 --> 01:00:39,140
that? Emdr. So it's like a

959
01:00:39,380 --> 01:00:43,100
tapping association. Well, I was going to recommend EMDR too

960
01:00:43,100 --> 01:00:46,900
just for like that's one of the things I did. And I

961
01:00:46,900 --> 01:00:50,740
was thinking, you know, like if you're going to get counseling when you're

962
01:00:50,740 --> 01:00:54,430
going through stuff, I have recommended to

963
01:00:54,430 --> 01:00:57,670
people to seek a counselor who can do emdr.

964
01:00:58,390 --> 01:01:01,910
And part of that is just because I've my some experience.

965
01:01:02,070 --> 01:01:05,790
I just feel like I've wasted money with people who aren't helpful. But if

966
01:01:05,790 --> 01:01:09,590
they do mdr, the EMDR does the work. Because

967
01:01:09,590 --> 01:01:13,030
you're saying EMDR actually helps narcissism. Yeah.

968
01:01:13,990 --> 01:01:17,390
Yeah. So there are people who work in this stuff called

969
01:01:17,390 --> 01:01:21,160
attachment therapy theory, which is incredibly good at really

970
01:01:21,160 --> 01:01:25,000
diagnosing what's really going on in people's behaviors and how it

971
01:01:25,000 --> 01:01:27,560
fits back to childhood experiences.

972
01:01:28,760 --> 01:01:31,960
And they, they talk about EMDR being very effective.

973
01:01:32,280 --> 01:01:35,880
Something up and God, there's so much we can talk about. Mary. Something

974
01:01:35,880 --> 01:01:39,720
else is often associated with alienation is

975
01:01:40,760 --> 01:01:43,560
diagnosis of autism and adhd.

976
01:01:44,970 --> 01:01:48,010
And this is not genuine autism. This is

977
01:01:48,570 --> 01:01:52,090
the child's reactions, coping mechanisms of

978
01:01:52,090 --> 01:01:55,810
dealing with parental alienation. And we

979
01:01:55,810 --> 01:01:59,530
also see other things like children acting in a very infantile

980
01:01:59,530 --> 01:02:02,810
way, literally regressing with their mental age

981
01:02:03,370 --> 01:02:07,130
as a mechanism to have to kind of move away from having any

982
01:02:07,130 --> 01:02:10,890
responsibilities and acting more childlike so they don't have to deal

983
01:02:10,890 --> 01:02:14,710
with the pressures that are being put upon them. A lot of the stuff that

984
01:02:14,710 --> 01:02:18,390
alienators do because it's, it is a loyalty conflict.

985
01:02:19,270 --> 01:02:22,390
They, they do things like, they put them, they give them false choices.

986
01:02:22,950 --> 01:02:26,750
So they'll say to the child, you decide if you're going to go and

987
01:02:26,750 --> 01:02:29,990
see your mom, you know, today or tomorrow, or you decide if you're going to

988
01:02:29,990 --> 01:02:33,630
respond to the, to, you know, a text or a letter or an email, or

989
01:02:33,630 --> 01:02:37,270
you decide if you're going to accept that present. And what, what they're doing is

990
01:02:37,270 --> 01:02:41,100
that, that's coercion and it's psychological abuse because the

991
01:02:41,100 --> 01:02:44,940
child shouldn't be having to make these decisions, but instead what,

992
01:02:44,940 --> 01:02:48,660
what the parents doing is they're giving them that authority, but, but

993
01:02:48,660 --> 01:02:52,500
they're not giving them actual choice. So I call it false choice because they

994
01:02:52,500 --> 01:02:55,900
don't have options. It's like, well, you decide if you're going to see your mom

995
01:02:55,900 --> 01:02:58,460
or not. Well, the child knows that the answer has got to be, well, I'm

996
01:02:58,460 --> 01:03:01,660
not going to, I'm not going to see my mom because that's going to my

997
01:03:01,660 --> 01:03:05,340
dad. And then it legitimizes the, the father or the

998
01:03:05,340 --> 01:03:09,180
alienator to turn around to you and the courts and everybody else and

999
01:03:09,180 --> 01:03:12,620
say, well, I asked them and I gave them the choice. And they said they

1000
01:03:12,620 --> 01:03:16,020
don't want to go and see you, and I can't force them. And there's, there's

1001
01:03:16,020 --> 01:03:19,140
so many different ways that they manipulate the kids.

1002
01:03:19,780 --> 01:03:23,380
Yeah. And it's, you know, all of them. We, we have,

1003
01:03:23,540 --> 01:03:26,860
we have the rule book. We can walk, you know, I can literally walk a

1004
01:03:26,860 --> 01:03:30,550
parent through all the things an alienator will try and

1005
01:03:31,190 --> 01:03:34,950
you can do. That works to help to kind of get your child

1006
01:03:34,950 --> 01:03:38,670
Back. And also the things that doesn't work because we

1007
01:03:38,670 --> 01:03:42,470
make lots of mistakes. There's loads of bear traps out there and it's very.

1008
01:03:42,470 --> 01:03:46,270
It's very counterintuitive. Yeah. And everyone, you know,

1009
01:03:46,270 --> 01:03:49,990
I don't know that, you know, there is a lot of great options.

1010
01:03:50,150 --> 01:03:53,590
It seems like from what I was, you know,

1011
01:03:53,590 --> 01:03:57,350
discovered and that my situation isn't everyone's situation, of course, but

1012
01:03:57,720 --> 01:04:01,360
it just didn't seem like there was a good option.

1013
01:04:01,360 --> 01:04:05,200
And in part, it's because no matter what you do, there's going to

1014
01:04:05,200 --> 01:04:08,920
be something said. Negative. Yeah.

1015
01:04:09,240 --> 01:04:12,760
So if, like, I need space, so you give them space, then you're.

1016
01:04:13,319 --> 01:04:16,280
Then you don't care about them and you don't love them.

1017
01:04:17,080 --> 01:04:20,920
If you, if you're, you know, trying to be in communication

1018
01:04:20,920 --> 01:04:24,360
and, you know, trying to call every day or text every day,

1019
01:04:25,130 --> 01:04:28,490
then you're desperate and just don't accept

1020
01:04:28,570 --> 01:04:32,170
boundaries. Yeah. So no matter, no matter

1021
01:04:32,170 --> 01:04:35,850
what you do there, they will

1022
01:04:35,850 --> 01:04:39,450
frame it in a way where you're a bad person.

1023
01:04:39,610 --> 01:04:43,130
Yeah. And you're the controlling person. Yeah.

1024
01:04:43,210 --> 01:04:46,930
You've segued beautifully into counterintuitive and bear

1025
01:04:46,930 --> 01:04:50,250
traps because that's a really good example. When.

1026
01:04:50,800 --> 01:04:54,640
When we're experiencing alienation and our child is beginning to reject

1027
01:04:54,640 --> 01:04:58,080
us, our fear kicks in because we're thinking, I'm losing the

1028
01:04:58,080 --> 01:05:01,520
relationship with my child. So what do we do? We inundate them

1029
01:05:02,000 --> 01:05:05,440
with telephone calls, with text messages, with

1030
01:05:05,440 --> 01:05:08,800
emails, and the kid is withdrawing

1031
01:05:09,120 --> 01:05:12,880
because of the pressure being put on them in this loyalty conflict to

1032
01:05:12,880 --> 01:05:16,280
not have the contact with you. So this is where you can actually end up

1033
01:05:16,280 --> 01:05:19,850
estranging your kid because sending too many

1034
01:05:19,850 --> 01:05:23,610
text messages, you know, and we often say things

1035
01:05:23,610 --> 01:05:27,210
like, I miss you, I miss you. Guilt trips. The kids,

1036
01:05:27,850 --> 01:05:31,650
I love you is fine, but I'm

1037
01:05:31,650 --> 01:05:35,490
always advocating to parents, you know, dial down the amount of

1038
01:05:35,490 --> 01:05:39,210
communication that you're sending off to your kid because you're actually

1039
01:05:39,290 --> 01:05:43,130
pushing them away from you. And it's counterintuitive because you think, no,

1040
01:05:43,130 --> 01:05:46,610
no, no, no, I must increase the level of communication. No,

1041
01:05:46,770 --> 01:05:50,570
it doesn't work that way. It. When you decrease the level of

1042
01:05:50,570 --> 01:05:54,370
communication, the message you're giving to the kid is, I love

1043
01:05:54,370 --> 01:05:57,930
you, I'm there for you. My door is always open for you. You don't have

1044
01:05:57,930 --> 01:06:01,770
to say those words. They'll know that from the communication. But also if you send,

1045
01:06:01,770 --> 01:06:05,610
you know, if you're no communication with your kid, texting them once a week or

1046
01:06:05,610 --> 01:06:09,410
once every two weeks is sufficient. It lets them know you're still there.

1047
01:06:09,730 --> 01:06:13,470
If you. They're no contact with you because they

1048
01:06:13,470 --> 01:06:16,950
feel they can't have the relationship with you right now. So if,

1049
01:06:17,670 --> 01:06:20,550
if you text them every day, they're going to block you.

1050
01:06:21,270 --> 01:06:24,870
Because I think I can't cope with this person. I can't cope with the pressure

1051
01:06:25,110 --> 01:06:28,789
they're putting me under. They don't, they don't understand my position

1052
01:06:29,990 --> 01:06:33,350
because we don't. Because we're not looking at that position. We haven't

1053
01:06:33,350 --> 01:06:37,070
experienced it. So, I mean, you know, I haven't. So, I

1054
01:06:37,070 --> 01:06:40,600
mean, it's, it's. And it's surreal. Like, at the time, I hadn't known

1055
01:06:40,600 --> 01:06:44,120
anyone who'd experienced it. I didn't even know what was happening. I

1056
01:06:44,120 --> 01:06:47,400
couldn't have known too, that this was a thing that existed.

1057
01:06:47,800 --> 01:06:51,440
Yeah, yeah. And again, I think, I think most people come into

1058
01:06:51,440 --> 01:06:55,040
parental alienation. They have no idea they're experiencing it. There

1059
01:06:55,040 --> 01:06:58,560
isn't education and awareness out there that, I mean, you,

1060
01:06:58,560 --> 01:07:02,240
you stumble across it in most instances and you suddenly go,

1061
01:07:02,240 --> 01:07:05,160
oh, wow. So this is the thing I've been going through. This is real.

1062
01:07:06,090 --> 01:07:09,370
There's, there's, you know, 22 million people in the US

1063
01:07:10,170 --> 01:07:13,370
alone affected by this. That's the kids, the parents, the families.

1064
01:07:14,250 --> 01:07:18,050
You know, it's 6 to 8% of the populations of most Western countries. And it's

1065
01:07:18,050 --> 01:07:21,810
exactly the same experience in Australia and Europe as it is

1066
01:07:21,810 --> 01:07:25,410
in the U.S. canada. It's. It's the same stuff

1067
01:07:25,410 --> 01:07:29,210
everywhere, you know, India, the Arab states. And I help parents

1068
01:07:29,210 --> 01:07:32,780
all over the world through zoom because it's the same stuff. The

1069
01:07:32,780 --> 01:07:36,420
legal systems are slightly different and they're completely ineffective

1070
01:07:36,420 --> 01:07:40,180
everywhere. Well, there's a couple of places that are

1071
01:07:40,180 --> 01:07:44,020
a little bit better, but generally speaking, they're very ineffective. And

1072
01:07:44,020 --> 01:07:47,660
that's part of the challenge. We feel very isolated and alone to deal with

1073
01:07:47,660 --> 01:07:51,500
this by ourselves, which is why it's so important to have

1074
01:07:51,500 --> 01:07:54,900
the tools to have every means possible

1075
01:07:54,980 --> 01:07:58,680
available to us to, to help our

1076
01:07:58,680 --> 01:08:01,120
kids, to heal and reconnect with them.

1077
01:08:02,160 --> 01:08:06,000
Yeah, it is, man. There's so much to it. And, you

1078
01:08:06,000 --> 01:08:09,640
know, also, the thing about this that I just feel like the society

1079
01:08:09,640 --> 01:08:12,720
in general would. Might help with understanding

1080
01:08:13,200 --> 01:08:17,040
is that when you're being psychologic, like as an adult. Right. So

1081
01:08:17,200 --> 01:08:20,560
this is. Does fall in the realm of psychological abuse.

1082
01:08:21,280 --> 01:08:24,810
And like, you're, you're not yourself,

1083
01:08:25,130 --> 01:08:28,970
like, and I, I really. I almost would love to see some studies

1084
01:08:28,970 --> 01:08:32,490
maybe, if, you know, if there's any been done. But, like, I'm like, your brain

1085
01:08:32,490 --> 01:08:35,610
doesn't work right? Like brain doesn't work the same.

1086
01:08:36,090 --> 01:08:39,810
You can't, it's like you're, it's not, it's like the way

1087
01:08:39,810 --> 01:08:43,570
I took care of things prior to this. I feel like

1088
01:08:43,570 --> 01:08:47,210
I'm still trying to find my way back to where my brain can manage

1089
01:08:47,210 --> 01:08:50,230
some of the things, things in my life that I

1090
01:08:51,430 --> 01:08:55,190
managed before. Yeah. This is why your own

1091
01:08:55,190 --> 01:08:58,870
healing is so important. Because you, you, you

1092
01:08:58,950 --> 01:09:02,710
reach a point where you're very vulnerable, you're very self doubting,

1093
01:09:02,710 --> 01:09:06,190
your confidence has been shot to hell. Your self

1094
01:09:06,190 --> 01:09:09,870
worthiness is, is very low as well. And your

1095
01:09:09,870 --> 01:09:13,430
coping mechanisms are all about fix, fix, fix, fix, fix. And you're

1096
01:09:13,430 --> 01:09:17,140
finding I can't fix stuff. And, and so the very, very.

1097
01:09:18,340 --> 01:09:21,780
Your empathetic nature is actually working against you

1098
01:09:22,420 --> 01:09:26,180
in your healing process. Because the focus is outside of,

1099
01:09:26,500 --> 01:09:30,260
inside of you. Yeah. What you need to be working on

1100
01:09:30,260 --> 01:09:34,060
is your self confidence, you know, letting go

1101
01:09:34,060 --> 01:09:36,900
of self doubt, rebuilding your self worth.

1102
01:09:37,860 --> 01:09:41,599
That is the stuff that will help you with your kids and letting go of

1103
01:09:41,599 --> 01:09:45,439
fear. Because your kids need you to be the strong,

1104
01:09:45,439 --> 01:09:49,239
resilient parent. They need you to be a parent. And what we

1105
01:09:49,239 --> 01:09:52,879
end up being is very needy individuals who are scared

1106
01:09:54,399 --> 01:09:58,199
because power all transfers to the kid and it,

1107
01:09:58,199 --> 01:10:01,839
and the kid loses a parent and we have to get back to

1108
01:10:01,999 --> 01:10:05,599
being confident. And this is why this hope is so important.

1109
01:10:06,890 --> 01:10:10,690
Know in your heart that you're going to reunite with your kid. Doesn't matter

1110
01:10:10,690 --> 01:10:14,050
how long it's going to take. Sometimes it can be a very long period. Know

1111
01:10:14,050 --> 01:10:17,610
in your heart you're going to, you're going to reunite with them because

1112
01:10:17,930 --> 01:10:21,650
you think differently, you act differently. When

1113
01:10:21,650 --> 01:10:25,210
you've got that mindset, if you're coming from a place of

1114
01:10:25,210 --> 01:10:28,490
fear, your relationship with your child will

1115
01:10:28,490 --> 01:10:32,290
constantly be strained. Person who's

1116
01:10:32,290 --> 01:10:36,010
doing that, this is the, this is the counterintuitive, absolutely

1117
01:10:36,010 --> 01:10:39,850
crazy stuff. The person who's doing that is you. It's

1118
01:10:39,850 --> 01:10:43,250
us. We, we are creating the problem at that point in time.

1119
01:10:45,330 --> 01:10:45,810
Yeah.

1120
01:10:49,490 --> 01:10:52,930
Well, I think with me, like, you know, I had been on healing journey for

1121
01:10:52,930 --> 01:10:56,370
a very long time. So it's like before the worst of it went, I mean,

1122
01:10:56,370 --> 01:10:59,940
but it kept escalating. So you know, I had

1123
01:11:00,340 --> 01:11:03,900
done some, you know, detox for the physical. I had

1124
01:11:03,900 --> 01:11:07,620
Lyme' disease and, and, and then, you know, all the

1125
01:11:07,620 --> 01:11:10,740
different things with that and then there was emotional components to that.

1126
01:11:11,220 --> 01:11:14,900
So doing all that healing work and then, you know, kind of

1127
01:11:14,900 --> 01:11:18,500
starting a creative career out of that and just the thought of

1128
01:11:18,900 --> 01:11:22,020
everyone's going to be so excited. But then it turned into,

1129
01:11:22,900 --> 01:11:25,340
nope, everyone is not going to be excited,

1130
01:11:26,780 --> 01:11:30,460
you know, to, you know, it's just like, you know, you think, you think after

1131
01:11:30,460 --> 01:11:33,980
supporting your family for so long, they're going to just have this

1132
01:11:33,980 --> 01:11:37,820
joy, joy come back to you that

1133
01:11:37,820 --> 01:11:41,460
you do that, you know, that's not what it was. And then I did

1134
01:11:41,460 --> 01:11:45,220
hire someone, you know, kind of post divorce to come in

1135
01:11:45,220 --> 01:11:48,860
and really just do a complete reset, which is very effective.

1136
01:11:50,390 --> 01:11:53,430
But then the full alienation happened after that. Right.

1137
01:11:54,390 --> 01:11:57,750
So it's like I had like been very

1138
01:11:57,910 --> 01:12:01,590
proactive in healing work. Yeah.

1139
01:12:02,310 --> 01:12:03,830
And it didn't, it didn't,

1140
01:12:05,670 --> 01:12:09,390
didn't. I don't know how you say didn't fix it, didn't stop

1141
01:12:09,390 --> 01:12:12,990
it, but the engine

1142
01:12:12,990 --> 01:12:16,400
kept rolling. We, it's a lifetime

1143
01:12:16,800 --> 01:12:20,160
mission that we're on. I mean, I,

1144
01:12:20,320 --> 01:12:23,880
I'm, I think I did a huge amount of healing work early

1145
01:12:23,880 --> 01:12:27,440
on, but I'm still, I'm still working on stuff. I,

1146
01:12:28,000 --> 01:12:31,600
I use my, my kids as my teacher. I use everybody

1147
01:12:31,760 --> 01:12:35,440
because basically everybody around you in this world is just reflecting

1148
01:12:35,440 --> 01:12:38,320
back to you how you're experiencing the world.

1149
01:12:39,360 --> 01:12:43,210
And so when your kids say something that is triggering for you or you feel

1150
01:12:43,210 --> 01:12:46,930
bad about your kids, that's a little indicator to, to

1151
01:12:46,930 --> 01:12:50,570
us to say, okay, there's something that I'm still feeling a bit insecure and

1152
01:12:50,570 --> 01:12:54,210
vulnerable about. Right. I need to go off and fix that. And then it

1153
01:12:54,290 --> 01:12:57,650
becoming an issue for us. So we should be thankful

1154
01:12:57,970 --> 01:13:01,250
in many ways when, when our kids help us to understand.

1155
01:13:01,810 --> 01:13:04,770
Okay, that's something that I need to address on my healing journey.

1156
01:13:05,810 --> 01:13:09,370
People around us, family, you know, if, if any, anytime we

1157
01:13:09,370 --> 01:13:13,210
feel sensitive or insecure, that's a little tap on

1158
01:13:13,210 --> 01:13:16,170
the shoulder saying, there you go, there's another one. Go off and fix that one.

1159
01:13:16,730 --> 01:13:19,370
And it's like, we'll be doing that for the rest of our lives.

1160
01:13:20,730 --> 01:13:23,850
And I do think it's also real critical to go, you don't have to take

1161
01:13:23,850 --> 01:13:27,690
everyone's advice. No. For how to heal because most

1162
01:13:27,690 --> 01:13:31,210
of, most of it's going to be kind of bad advice and a lot of.

1163
01:13:31,210 --> 01:13:34,900
It is down to their own personal experience rather than, than something

1164
01:13:34,900 --> 01:13:38,100
that works for a much broader audience. Yeah.

1165
01:13:39,300 --> 01:13:43,020
And I always, I am really curious on your opinion. So let's,

1166
01:13:43,020 --> 01:13:46,660
let's like step outside to that next circle of people who

1167
01:13:47,220 --> 01:13:50,660
are in family members or community

1168
01:13:50,980 --> 01:13:54,780
or a counselor, someone in

1169
01:13:54,780 --> 01:13:57,860
the, you know, the religious circle, anyone in the community

1170
01:13:58,740 --> 01:14:01,060
that they see someone and it's like,

1171
01:14:03,590 --> 01:14:07,030
you know, what, what are the signs they look for and how might they step

1172
01:14:07,030 --> 01:14:10,710
in to help. And as an example, I would go back and

1173
01:14:10,710 --> 01:14:14,470
say before I knew what alienation was, I had an

1174
01:14:14,470 --> 01:14:18,110
experience where I was at my kids school and a dad

1175
01:14:18,110 --> 01:14:21,950
and his new wife or girlfriend or something just

1176
01:14:21,950 --> 01:14:25,550
approached me. I never talked to them before, but they said, yeah,

1177
01:14:25,550 --> 01:14:29,350
we're, we're, you know, these, you know, kids, parents. And just

1178
01:14:29,590 --> 01:14:32,390
lit into the mom. Now I knew the mom

1179
01:14:34,390 --> 01:14:37,910
and it was an interesting thing about, in the, in the, the new

1180
01:14:38,070 --> 01:14:41,830
woman was going, and she's crazy. She's crazy like

1181
01:14:41,830 --> 01:14:45,470
that. I mean really, it was a very animated

1182
01:14:45,470 --> 01:14:49,150
about how crazy the mom was. And I didn't know any of the

1183
01:14:49,150 --> 01:14:52,710
terminology, anything, but I'm like, this doesn't feel good.

1184
01:14:53,160 --> 01:14:56,400
Like I don't like them. And then I went to the mom

1185
01:14:56,400 --> 01:15:00,200
afterwards and I said, like, you know, what's going on? And she's.

1186
01:15:00,200 --> 01:15:03,440
And she was just puny. You know, just

1187
01:15:03,440 --> 01:15:07,120
emotionally, physically, then even puny. And

1188
01:15:07,120 --> 01:15:10,840
it's like he won't stop with, you know, the lawsuits

1189
01:15:10,920 --> 01:15:13,480
and I think I'm going to lose him because I don't have the money to

1190
01:15:13,480 --> 01:15:16,680
keep finding the lawsuits for financial bullying.

1191
01:15:17,160 --> 01:15:21,010
Yeah. So the financial thing there. And you know,

1192
01:15:21,010 --> 01:15:24,850
this was, this was in, it was a Christian school. So this stuff, it doesn't

1193
01:15:24,850 --> 01:15:28,010
like you being in a religious institution or in a

1194
01:15:28,250 --> 01:15:31,810
religion does not prevent it. Sometimes it can make it

1195
01:15:31,810 --> 01:15:35,210
harder for people to even see it, which is very frustrating to me.

1196
01:15:35,450 --> 01:15:39,010
Yeah, it's it that, that happens all the time again.

1197
01:15:39,010 --> 01:15:42,330
It's, it's the lens that people see through.

1198
01:15:43,530 --> 01:15:47,300
Then give advice. I will need to

1199
01:15:47,300 --> 01:15:50,780
disappear in a couple of minutes. I have another call. Okay.

1200
01:15:51,420 --> 01:15:55,020
I'm really sorry that the time passes incredibly quickly when we're talking about this.

1201
01:15:58,220 --> 01:16:01,980
Should we just very quickly, in the two minutes available, just talk about Christmas. Because

1202
01:16:02,620 --> 01:16:06,340
let's do it. This is something that is, this

1203
01:16:06,340 --> 01:16:09,940
is the hardest time of year for many parents and

1204
01:16:09,940 --> 01:16:13,310
especially for parents who are going through this, you know, if it's their first Christmas

1205
01:16:13,540 --> 01:16:17,260
without having your child. And I would strongly

1206
01:16:17,260 --> 01:16:20,980
advocate, please, please, please do not spend Christmas by yourself.

1207
01:16:21,940 --> 01:16:25,620
Make sure that you're with family,

1208
01:16:25,780 --> 01:16:29,219
that you're with friends, you're with other people. Keep yourself

1209
01:16:29,219 --> 01:16:32,660
occupied and try to remember

1210
01:16:32,900 --> 01:16:36,700
that, yes, this is not how

1211
01:16:36,700 --> 01:16:39,680
you want it to be, but this is one Christmas closer

1212
01:16:40,470 --> 01:16:41,750
to being with your kids again.

1213
01:16:44,630 --> 01:16:48,190
Yeah, that's beautiful. Yeah. And it is such a hard

1214
01:16:48,190 --> 01:16:51,670
time, such a hard day. It, it is. And

1215
01:16:51,750 --> 01:16:55,590
part of the problem is we make too big a thing of it. We do

1216
01:16:55,830 --> 01:16:58,910
too big a thing of birthdays. We make too. Too big a thing of Thanksgiving.

1217
01:16:58,910 --> 01:17:02,070
We make two bigger thing of Christmas. It's another day.

1218
01:17:05,360 --> 01:17:09,200
And for the alienators, they always want to control those days,

1219
01:17:09,600 --> 01:17:13,360
so they will go out of their way to make it impossible for you to

1220
01:17:13,360 --> 01:17:17,120
have the kids on those days. Yeah. Oh, they. Yeah,

1221
01:17:17,120 --> 01:17:20,960
they. Yeah. And with love,

1222
01:17:21,360 --> 01:17:25,120
give your kids that the peace give, you know,

1223
01:17:25,120 --> 01:17:28,920
a lot of the time. Yes. Always fight for your kids, but also

1224
01:17:28,920 --> 01:17:32,610
be. Be careful so that you don't do things that causes more

1225
01:17:32,610 --> 01:17:35,690
problem for the kids. Because sometimes when you're fighting for those special days,

1226
01:17:36,090 --> 01:17:39,410
you're actually ramping up the pressure and you're doing the thing that's going to be

1227
01:17:39,410 --> 01:17:43,130
worse for the kids. So with love in your heart, give them some space.

1228
01:17:44,090 --> 01:17:46,810
Allow them to not have to see you

1229
01:17:48,010 --> 01:17:51,770
if that's going to be better for them, and try and see it that way

1230
01:17:51,770 --> 01:17:55,490
rather than. I'm losing out and this is unfair and

1231
01:17:55,490 --> 01:17:58,970
this is not right. You know, this is. I say you learn a lot about

1232
01:17:58,970 --> 01:18:01,650
love. Yeah. This experience.

1233
01:18:02,850 --> 01:18:06,410
Yeah, for sure. Well, we are sending love to

1234
01:18:06,410 --> 01:18:10,170
anyone who is in the. The thick of it, in the

1235
01:18:10,170 --> 01:18:13,730
beginning of it, in the confused state of it,

1236
01:18:13,730 --> 01:18:16,530
or. Yeah.

1237
01:18:19,090 --> 01:18:21,650
But, Mary, I'd love to come back and do more with you in the future.

1238
01:18:24,270 --> 01:18:27,870
For parents, I'd love to help, but apologies, I do need to box.

1239
01:18:27,950 --> 01:18:31,630
I have another call I need to jump onto. But, yeah, for all

1240
01:18:31,630 --> 01:18:35,390
parents out there. I hope. I hope you can get through this

1241
01:18:35,390 --> 01:18:38,270
period knowing that this is all going to be okay.

1242
01:18:40,590 --> 01:18:43,790
Thank you, Charlie. I appreciate you so much for coming on. And

1243
01:18:44,190 --> 01:18:47,870
Merry Christmas to you and your family and to

1244
01:18:48,890 --> 01:18:52,650
all of your clients. Yes. Who's

1245
01:18:52,650 --> 01:18:56,250
going through this. Yeah. For sure. All right. Thank you, Charlie.

1246
01:18:56,330 --> 01:19:00,090
Okay. Thank you, Mary. Yep. I want to thank Charlie for coming on. Thank

1247
01:19:00,090 --> 01:19:03,210
you so much, Charlie. And since I was like, I started losing it a little

1248
01:19:03,210 --> 01:19:06,810
bit. This is a very personal podcast. I do want to say for people

1249
01:19:06,890 --> 01:19:10,730
who. You have these people in your life who are going through something you

1250
01:19:10,730 --> 01:19:14,340
don't understand. You haven't had that experience, whether it's this

1251
01:19:14,340 --> 01:19:18,180
topic of parental alienation or something else. I know my experience

1252
01:19:18,260 --> 01:19:21,980
has been it is very hard to get advice. It's just not

1253
01:19:21,980 --> 01:19:25,740
helpful. And usually people. You just see the world through the lens

1254
01:19:25,740 --> 01:19:29,260
of what you've experienced. So if you have not. If you have

1255
01:19:29,260 --> 01:19:32,660
specifically experienced something that that person is

1256
01:19:32,740 --> 01:19:36,180
going through and you have some things in a compassionate,

1257
01:19:36,420 --> 01:19:40,060
understanding way to share, that's when you share. If you have not

1258
01:19:40,060 --> 01:19:42,990
left Lived through it. Don't give advice

1259
01:19:44,190 --> 01:19:47,990
and saying things like have you forgiven in the, in the Christian community. I just

1260
01:19:47,990 --> 01:19:51,150
feel like no one should say that anymore because you're not

1261
01:19:51,150 --> 01:19:53,950
understanding the totality of the,

1262
01:19:54,910 --> 01:19:58,670
of the nervous system and what goes on in the nervous system

1263
01:19:58,990 --> 01:20:02,710
and the, even the brain function that can go down from

1264
01:20:02,710 --> 01:20:06,430
that and all the different things. Like people will forget memories

1265
01:20:06,760 --> 01:20:10,600
even for 20 years. How would they don't even remember what they're supposed to

1266
01:20:10,600 --> 01:20:14,280
be forgiving. So that's. There's different things that people are saying

1267
01:20:14,280 --> 01:20:18,080
that actually cause a lot more harm than help. Just get over it. Just get

1268
01:20:18,080 --> 01:20:20,120
through it. Well, at least you have one. Some kids.

1269
01:20:21,640 --> 01:20:24,680
Well, have you ever thought of like, you know,

1270
01:20:25,240 --> 01:20:28,760
there's. It's, it's. It's not helpful. What is helpful

1271
01:20:28,840 --> 01:20:32,530
and it's very helpful is your presence. So. So in this

1272
01:20:32,530 --> 01:20:36,210
season of presenys with a T. Presence with a, you know, the CE

1273
01:20:36,290 --> 01:20:40,050
at the end, just being available, being

1274
01:20:40,050 --> 01:20:43,810
an active listener, which means things like you're hearing

1275
01:20:43,810 --> 01:20:47,650
it and like you're thinking. That's not

1276
01:20:47,650 --> 01:20:51,210
something. I just can't even quite understand that. But that sounds

1277
01:20:51,210 --> 01:20:54,850
awful. Should we make

1278
01:20:54,850 --> 01:20:58,650
cookies? I don't know. You know, but not

1279
01:20:58,650 --> 01:21:02,250
all the time will someone, you know have the energy to

1280
01:21:02,410 --> 01:21:06,170
engage with people. But they do need people. People living through

1281
01:21:06,170 --> 01:21:08,890
hard things need people around them. And just

1282
01:21:10,490 --> 01:21:13,530
the whole, the whole action of presence

1283
01:21:15,290 --> 01:21:19,130
and compassionate listening, which means you're not going to have an answer,

1284
01:21:19,290 --> 01:21:23,130
but you can see your, your availability and your

1285
01:21:23,130 --> 01:21:26,020
willingness to be in their life will be what they need. So

1286
01:21:26,820 --> 01:21:30,540
Merry Christmas. And I know this is not for some

1287
01:21:30,540 --> 01:21:33,380
people, it's a beautiful Christmas. Some is a struggle, but

1288
01:21:34,180 --> 01:21:36,660
just want you to know you are seen and

1289
01:21:37,860 --> 01:21:41,620
hopefully someone is listening to and hearing you. So

1290
01:21:42,500 --> 01:21:43,260
see you next time.