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This episode was so incredible that it was hard to choose a title. Other possible titles for this episode included:
"How To Heal Your Trauma While Parenting"
"Mothering When You Have A Difficult Relationship With Your Mother."
"Breaking Cycles Of People Pleasing And Finding Your Authentic Self."
In this episode of Robot Unicorn, Jess and Scott welcome special guest Libby Ward, founder of Diary of an Honest Mom [https://www.instagram.com/diaryofanhonestmom/]. Libby opens up about her journey of setting boundaries with her parents, healing from childhood trauma, and finding her authentic self as a mother.
The conversation dives deep into the challenges of cycle-breaking parenting, dealing with family judgment when setting boundaries, and learning to regulate emotions as an adult.
Listeners will gain valuable insights on:
• How to set boundaries with family members, even when it's difficult.
• The importance of accountability and repair in healing relationships.
• Strategies for regulating emotions and breaking generational cycles.
• Finding your authentic self after years of people-pleasing.
This raw, honest discussion offers hope and practical advice for anyone working to heal from past trauma and create a healthier family dynamic. It is a must-listen episode for parents seeking to break cycles and nurture stronger relationships.
Hear more from Libby on Instagram! [https://www.instagram.com/diaryofanhonestmom/]
Get 10% OFF parenting courses and kids' printable activities at Nurtured First [https://nurturedfirst.com/courses/] using the code ROBOTUNICORN.
Learn more about the Solving Bedtime Battles course here [https://nurturedfirst.com/courses/solving-bedtime-battles/].
Credits:
Editing by The Pod Cabin [https://thepodcabin.com/]
Artwork by Wallflower Studio [https://www.wallflowerstudio.co/]
Production by Nurtured First [https://nurturedfirst.com/]
Join me, Jess VanderWier, a registered psychotherapist, mom of three, and founder of Nurtured First, along with my husband Scott, as we dive deep into the stories of our friends, favourite celebrities, and influential figures.
In each episode, we skip the small talk and dive into vulnerable and honest conversations about topics like cycle breaking, trauma, race, mental health, parenting, sex, religion, postpartum, healing, and loss.
We are glad you are here.
PS: The name Robot Unicorn comes from our daughter. When we asked her what we should name the podcast, she confidently came up with this name because she loves robots, and she loves unicorns, so why not? There was something about the playfulness of the name, the confidence in her voice, and the fact that it represents that you can love two things at once that just felt right.
Welcome to Robot Unicorn.
We are so glad that you are here.
As always, let's start the show with a question from Scott.
Hey, so this is gonna be a little bit of a different episode.
We think there's no introduction that's really necessary for this one, and we just want to get straight into it.
Libby is a dear personal friend of mine and so this conversation got really deep.
We covered so many different topics
We felt like we didn't want to add more to the conversation than it's already there because there's already so much important but deep and maybe even triggering content inside of the episode.
if you've been through abuse yourself and have had to set boundaries.
Let me just tell you a little bit about Libby.
Libby is, as I mentioned, a dear personal friend of mine.
She is the founder of
Diary of an honest mom.
You might recognize her from TikTok or from Instagram at Diary of an Honest Mom where she talks about all things motherhood related and talks about them.
Honestly.
Libby is an incredible speaker.
She is so thoughtful.
and shares a lot about her experience today and I can't wait to share this conversation with you.
So let's dive into it.
Enjoy.
Libby, welcome to a robot unicorn.
I'm so excited.
Thank you.
I am so excited to be here.
This is my first in-person podcast that I've ever done, and I feel like I want to do them all like this now because it just feels homey
And nice.
There's something cozy about it, right?
Yeah, when Scott and I were setting up for the podcast, we just had this idea of when we have guests in to take them in, we take
take you out for lunch after, just doing the whole day together.
It just feels a lot more intimate.
Is that an okay word to use?
It's okay for you to use.
Yeah, it's okay for me to use.
Yeah.
Maybe not you.
Yeah, no, it's it's good.
And I'm so looking forward to this.
conversation and it's so good to see your face.
I feel like I'm so lucky that we live within an hour of each other and it's been really great like getting to know you and
It's so hard online because you can see people and think you know who they are and they're not always the same person in person and you very much are that and it's great to be able to have
this in-person time together.
Yeah, same, same for you.
And I know we've both had those experiences with other people online where it's like, oh, you think they're one way and then they're not.
So it's just there's something so nice about finding each other in this space
I was thinking about the first time we met in person.
You remember this?
I think, yes I do.
We went out for dinner with a group.
Oh that was the first time we met.
Yeah, I wasn't the first.
Yeah, you're right.
That's actually a year before.
I was even thinking
First time we met was out for dinner with a group.
Yeah.
And you had just kind of come on the social media scene, right?
So I don't think I we knew who each other was.
I had no idea who you were.
Yeah, I didn't know who you were either.
But we got along.
It was really nice.
And then I don't think we really talked much after that.
I think I maybe followed you.
Yep.
And then a year and a bit, maybe later
Cause I was just pregnant with our third that day that we went out for dinner.
I remember that because I was very nauseous when we were out for dinner together.
And then when our third daughter was born, I think one of us had reached out to each other, I can't remember.
And then we went out for lunch in Hamilton.
Yes, we did.
That's the time I was thinking about as our first meeting.
Yeah, that was a fun time.
That was fun.
That was a good time.
I remember our third daughter was literally an infant child.
Like she was
Tiny.
She's probably six, seven weeks old, something like that.
And we went out for lunch and uh it was the first time I think I had actually gotten like
formally dressed since having her.
So yeah.
I remember there's a piece of me that was excited.
I'm like, oh this is gonna be nice.
I'm a real person again.
But then driving there, I think she cried the whole way and I was like, oh no, I'm meeting with this famous influencer.
My daughter is screaming and crying and it was summer, it was hot, and I was just like, oh no, like this is not gonna go well for me for sure.
She's gonna be like, who is this?
But you were so lovely and kind and we had the nicest discussion and I'm pretty sure my boobs were out because I was breastfeeding and it was just normal.
It was normal.
Except for the server wasn't normal.
The server I don't remember exactly what it was, but I remember leaving being like
that was super awkward.
Yeah.
I feel like things get weird and I am this mom, so I'll I can own that, but I am like the crunchy mom when I had the baby where the boobs are just out.
Like they're just there.
And I feel like when you're at a restaurant and that's happening.
I think servers get that it's not normal for parents.
Yeah, yeah.
For me it's just very normal, yeah.
It's normal for parents, but if
If the server was not a parent, then it gets awkward and and then people make awkward comments about your baby and it was so hot that day.
Like I was never hot using a cover.
We bonded over several different things.
There's something about being a small town girl.
Like
Canadian small town.
I feel like I meet so many people in this industry and in the world who are from big cities or they're American or they're in the entertainment industry and
sometimes it's they're just like a different mindset.
And so meeting someone who does something similar to what I do online, who's just a regular like
small town girl mom who like whips her boob out at a restaurant is just very comforting for me.
Yeah I know we felt
I know, I can't not be exactly who I am, and I feel like any person I've met online is like, oh yeah, yeah, you're the exact same.
But
Yeah, it it was so nice.
And I feel like that was the first day that our friendship truly started forming.
Yeah.
But since then that was probably two years ago.
Because it I remember it was hot, it was summer, she was just a few weeks old.
Yes, it was probably just two years ago.
And since then we've done a ton of things together.
Yeah.
It's been good.
Especially I would say the last six months or so we
We've seen each other a lot.
It's been really nice.
Yeah, I highly recommend anyone making friends with therapists.
It's it works so well.
It works so well for
Great conversation.
Yeah, yeah.
Or marrying one.
Or marrying oh okay, guys.
Too far, too much.
I think the thing about being a therapist and a
friend, that's nice.
And this is the same kind of thing that I think I do on Nurtured First is it just it opens up conversation.
Because you know I can handle
talking about harder things.
Right.
And that's one of the reasons I wanted to bring you on today.
Because I think one of the things that we bonded over was just our ability to have these like deep, honest conversations, which is also what your account is all about.
And
Because of that, we were able to talk a lot about different wounds that you've had or different experiences that you've been through.
And I was able to share there's some
similarities between yours and Scott's story.
So we've been able to kind of talk about that a little bit.
And yeah, even though I don't have the same experiences as you, I think we've just had some really important conversations and
Yeah.
And there's something about being able to skip all the small talk that I usually cannot stand.
It feels like such a waste of time and when you're a mom and you're trying to make friends and you already have such a limited amount of time to connect with people and you spend the whole time
talking about the weather and all these surface level topics, I can find those conversations really draining.
Yeah.
And I don't know if it's an ADHD thing.
I'm not sure what it is.
I just don't love small talk.
And so being able to connect with someone who's
Let's talk about our trauma.
Let's talk about our childhood.
Oh, this thing happened with my kid today that reminded me of when I was six and then I cried about it.
And then it's just a normal conversation and not something that you need to, I don't know, make into a big thing.
It's the only way we know how to talk.
And I feel like that's why we bonded.
And I think that's Scott and I are like that too.
We struggle with the small talk.
Yeah.
So one of the topics that we talk about often, and this isn't just about your story or Scott's story, but it is
our communities.
So your community is Diary of the Honest Mom.
My community on Instagram and everywhere is Nurtured First.
And our communities have this crossover where a lot of them are cycle breaking parents.
right they're trying to do things their own way and even I feel like cycle breaking like that's a big word I think most parents are doing something a little differently than their parents
That doesn't mean it's an offensive thing to their parents.
It just it's just part of being a parent and taking that on for yourself.
Well we've even talked about that too.
I have that conversation with our oldest daughter right now regularly
How I mean you're the parenting expert, and I say that with in air quotes.
Yeah, I don't love the phrase.
Parenting expert, but I said to our oldest daughter that at some point
She's gonna potentially have kids of her own, and she'll probably wanna do things differently than how we raised her too.
It's just inevitable.
No parent is perfect.
It's gonna happen.
Yeah.
I think for some of us, maybe you can relate to this too, we've been through things that are so very rarely are things black and white, but
maybe our experiences as kids were pretty black and white, like we know we're not gonna do this the same way.
Yeah it's wrong.
And I think a lot of people have difficulty because they're probably raised with
parents who are amazing, but there are still certain things that they might need to do differently or break cycles over where I've said this to Jess a bunch of times recently that I think I was kind of lucky in that a little bit because
I know for a fact that I want to do things differently.
And and you can openly speak about that because your childhood included abuse.
Right.
So it's pretty easy to say.
It's a clear distinction.
This is right and this is wrong and we're not gonna do this anymore.
And I know when I first became a mom, I thought about trauma and about my childhood and about cycle breaking in more black and white terms.
because so many of the people I was surrounded by had relatively normal upbringings.
You know, they might have had some things they didn't like, but they're relatively normal, whereas my life was so starkly different and my experiences were so abnormal and the
abuse that I experienced was so different that I sort of felt, Well, I have trauma, you don't have trauma.
I'm a cycle breaker, you're not a cycle breaker and I've come to realize that literally every parent has
things that they could or want to do differently, even if they had loving parents, even if they still have a relationship with their parents or things that we know now that we didn't know back then.
then there's things that you experience now that you realize, oh my goodness, like that was messed up in my childhood.
Like I know for me there was even certain things that I thought were just
part of my story.
Like I had no emotional reaction to it.
And then when I became a mom and I looked at my own daughter, I all of a sudden was hit with this wave of
Why was it so hard to love me in this way?
Where like I never really thought of it that way before.
And so I think in becoming a parent you
find these different things that you want to do differently that maybe you didn't notice before.
And it's not always as black and white as traumatized, not traumatized, cycle breaker, not cycle breaker.
Like there's things that we want to do differently.
Yeah, for sure.
You're talking about a moment when you were looking at your daughter like, I don't want to do that.
Was that kind of your first opening to, hey, maybe I don't want to parent the way I was parented, or was that something that was already in your mind?
You were already thinking about it at that time
I knew before I ever even thought about conceiving that I was going to be a different parent or I wanted to be a different type of parent than what I had.
But I didn't really have a concept of what that would look like
or feel like or the multitude of little moments throughout my whole journey as a parent that would
make me realize just how differently I wanted to do it.
Or like there was things that hurt before I became a parent.
But then when I became a parent, they became so much more obvious and it gave me more of a drive.
to be different because it made me realize how much it affected me.
Right.
Yeah, definitely.
Personally I feel like for myself, of course you're not lucky to be abused, but like I felt the same way.
So
knowing how I was raised and didn't want to do the same thing.
You don't really know what it's like to raise kids until you actually have them.
So it kind of makes sense to me that you don't understand the full
I don't know, the brevity of the what it takes to be a parent.
And then from there you start to realize, oh yeah, okay.
Well, it's more difficult than I thought, but here's one aspect I want to do things differently.
And then another couple hours later there's another thing and
It brings it all back to the surface.
But I feel like at least for me, I felt like it would have been more difficult if I received, let's say
half of what the abuse I received or like half of the experiences I had because maybe it wouldn't have been enough for me to like actually think
Oh, I want to do this completely differently.
Right.
Well, and I think before I became a parent, I was more objective about it.
Yeah.
This is wrong, this is right, this shouldn't have happened.
I'm not going to do it this way.
And then when I became a mom, I was all of a sudden hit with all of the emotions that I'd never really had access to before.
I'd never really allowed myself to
feel the pain of not having the love in the way that a child deserves and it hurt more.
Very confusing.
Yeah, it is very confusing.
And it's almost like, wait a second, like why have I not been able to feel this until now?
Like why am I being hit with it now?
while at the same time having to show up as a parent every day.
Like I don't have time to grieve this now.
Like I don't have the energy or the money to go to therapy now.
It would have been nice if I maybe started this healing journey a little bit
before and it's not as objective and black and white as it was.
Do you think part of that is because like you didn't know how much you could love another being until you actually had your own child?
So then like I felt that for
For me, all of a sudden we have our daughter and I'm like, how is it even possible that someone could have done the things that were done to me to something
As innocent as this.
Yeah.
And so immediately.
Yeah.
I think when I became a parent, I thought it would be this slow, gradual love.
That I would love, you know, them immediately, but it would be slow and gradual and it wouldn't
go from you don't have a child, you do have a child, you would literally die for this person you've never met overnight and then stopping and going, wait a second
All of those things that happened to me, like why didn't that bother my mom?
Right.
Why didn't that break her heart?
Why was she able to do those things to me and not
ever take ownership for it.
And then that really hurts knowing how much you can love someone else and wondering why you didn't get that
And for me, I've had moments of like self blame and self shame of like, okay, well if I can love my child this way and so easily, what is wrong with me that I couldn't be on the receiving end of that?
And it's very confusing.
I don't know if I ever felt that way personally.
Just because I mean I know uh from what I'm told I was a very difficult child.
I'm still highly sensitive to uh basically everything in life.
Same.
So I under yeah, you might understand that too.
Yeah.
Yeah, you guys have some similarities there too.
Yeah.
But even with like I would say our middle daughter.
She and I relate in that way.
Maybe it's because I'm that way.
I don't blame her for like yeah, I get annoyed sometimes and of course it's gonna let's say it I don't love using the word, but like it triggers me to feel
annoyed or angry when she does certain things, but in the same sense, I can't blame her for feeling that way.
That's just kind of the way she is to the world.
Yeah.
And I mean maybe they didn't have the information that we have now, but I still don't know that that I necessarily give that as an excuse to them for
for not having a bit more patience.
I'm thinking, Scott, just about something that you said, I just want to clarify it a little bit.
Because you said something about like, oh, it's easier because I was abused to know that this wasn't
Okay, that kind of thing.
But I don't want anyone to think like it was an easy decision for you to set a boundary with your
family or for you to go through that because maybe I should use the term simple.
It was simple for me to understand that this was not right.
Yeah.
It was definitely not easy for me to have
Put in place the boundaries that I put in place like there were Exactly, yeah.
Yeah, yeah
As an adult man, like that's not especially from where I come from, that's not a normal thing to experience.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
I know
For me, this is going back to earlier in the conversation, but before I became a parent, I thought that some of the worst things had happened to me had to do with growing up in poverty
or moving around a lot or not fitting in with my friends because I didn't have clothes that fit me or going to food banks or living in shelters or more of those surface level things.
That happen around us or you know to us as kids.
And it wasn't until I became a parent that I realized that
the worst things that happened to me had nothing to do with those service level things and everything to do with emotions and being seen and being safe and knowing I'm loved.
and being free to be myself or not be myself and the dysregulation of my mom that I had to deal with and how that impacted like how I saw myself
And so it's just really fascinating how we can think we want to do certain things differently and then realize, oh no, the thing I thought that hurt me the most, it wasn't that.
It was something different.
Yeah.
So you say you l grew up in poverty
Do you think that was a major contributor to the way that to your mom treated you?
Or they kind of go hand in hand?
I think that it's yes and no.
Okay.
Right?
Like if you're a mom who's living under the poverty line and you don't have access to therapy or you don't have the same level of
education as someone else or the ability to understand or process emotional regulation techniques or you're not surrounded by other people who maybe are more regulated.
It's so complicated because when you don't have enough money
There's all these different layers of your life that are impacted from your social circles to what you have access to, to like the stresses that you have to endure if you can't.
feed your kids, right?
So that's I think why I have such compassion for so many of the women and mothers in my community who feel
stressed out and strung out and struggle with rage or dysregulation where it's not as simple as just
well learn how to be different.
It's like, well I can't learn how to be different if I'm working three days.
four children and I'm a single mother and so that has given me a level of compassion for my mom that maybe I didn't have before where I've realized that you know living under the poverty line and struggling with
those surface level things had a direct impact on her ability to regulate along with her own childhood and her own trauma and all of those things but it's like multi-layered I would say.
Okay.
Yeah I think that makes sense
Well, I even think I mean we are in in real terms, like we have no issues financially.
I mean, we don't own a house, that helps us, but
Like the privilege, how to be able to regulate easier.
Sure.
I think it's important to mean that.
But I even think when we are stressed, our kids feel it.
Oh yeah.
Mm-hmm.
And I feel like the reality is our stress levels are so much lower.
Well, maybe they're the same, but they're over things that maybe this is the wrong word, but like should be less.
Stressful for us?
I think what you're trying to say is like no matter how stressed we are, the basic needs are still being met.
Yeah.
Like in general our was it Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
Yeah, if your needs aren't being met, then how are you even able to highest level?
access your ability to regulate.
Yeah.
And that doesn't excuse it necessarily at all.
No.
And if you're surrounded
This is a big thing that I I think about because when I was growing up I didn't know anyone who had a university education.
I didn't have anyone I could talk to about what kind of jobs that I might be able to get one day
There was nobody around us who was like this positive influence as children to model what it looked like to have a healthy conflict.
or a healthy conversation about a hard thing.
And so that would have been the same for my mom, where if you're living in poverty and you're living around people who have
a lot of issues and you don't have that model, then where are you supposed to learn those skills?
Yeah.
I think that makes sense.
I think it makes a lot of sense.
And it that's so much what we talk about too, right?
These early years of parenting.
The important thing is teaching our children
those skills through our own regulation because that's how they learn to regulate themselves.
But if we this is where the cycle breaking comes in, if we were never taught how to regulate our emotions
And then you're also being told by people like me, hey, you know, you gotta regulate your emotions with your toddler's tantrums.
And people come to me like, well, how am I supposed to do that?
I don't know how to regulate my emotions yet
Right.
And you haven't been taught.
And then when you realize, oh, I need to be able to be regulated in order to help my child regulate, I don't know how to do that.
I don't have the time or energy to learn how to do that, but I know it's important and now I feel guilty for not being able to do that.
And I logically know in this scenario when my child is losing it that I need to be regulated, but the alarm bells inside of my body don't understand that and like don't
know how to calm down, so what am I supposed to do in this moment?
Totally, yeah.
And it so then it just adds more pressure and more layers of guilt of I want to be regulated.
I know it's important to be regulated
But how the flip am I supposed to do that when I am gonna be late for work if we don't leave and my child is on the floor rolling around making me very angry inside
Scott's smiling, he's like, I get this, this whole conversation.
I can already f it's like the phantom feeling.
I know I can feel what you're talking about already, just thinking about that with my own kids.
For me, I feel like I am on fire.
Like I feel like the house is burning down and I am on fire.
And if I
don't yell, so I've done some healing, but there was a time when I felt like if I don't yell and scare my children
and shut this down, the house is going to burn down, proverbially.
Like it it feels like a fight or flight, a dangerous situation.
I'm so dysregulated and I need whatever is happening to stop so that I feel safe.
But then when you are reactive and you do yell or you do do the scary thing, then you're just contributing to them being more dysregulated.
And it's so hard to know in the moment, like, I don't need to yell right now, the house is not burning down.
But your body isn't listening to you.
Yeah.
I mean, I'm on and maybe you're doing the same thing, but I'm on this journey of trying to
grow the connections in my brain again, like flex those and that's I think that's gonna be a lifelong journey for me.
'Cause it's just I don't know, from childhood it's ingrained in you.
Your brain has now grown in a certain way that you have to try and re
Exercise it in order to make it not feel like the world is on fire.
say to me, well how do you do it?
Like what's the one thing?
They want the one answer.
Like how do I stop myself from yelling?
What do I do in the moment?
And it's not
simple answer.
I wish I knew.
You know, like it's not a simple answer.
Like the first time, maybe I plugged my ears and like walked away really angrily.
and then I did that a bunch and then I like found a different technique and then I found a different technique and then I practiced that.
Then I got to the point where like when I realized I was becoming more dysregulated, I could stop myself from doing it and internally
do s a breathing exercise or something like that.
And I think that's something that's so hard as a parent because you want the easy answer.
Like, okay, well if I'm not supposed to do this, what am I supposed to do?
And it's not that simple and it takes a lot of practice for it to become or even feel remotely natural.
I think about this picture I used to show clients.
So
Something that's unique, like that is true in Scott and I situation is I had the ultimate privilege, which I truly believe is like the ultimate privilege to grow up with parents who didn't yell.
They were calm.
I can barely remember times when my parents yelled.
And like I speak about that openly because people are always like, Jess, how are you so calm?
It's like, well, I was wired to be calm.
Like I have that privilege that not a lot of people have.
And clients would come to me, this similar situation to Scott and I, right?
Where one child's grow grown up in abuse and the other one's grown up in a calm home and then the calm home one is like
what's your problem?
Stop yelling at the kids.
Like stop getting so angry.
Stop being so dysregulated and they're mad at their partner.
Right.
Because we are coming into it with two completely different experiences.
So for me to be more calm, it makes sense.
For you to be more like needing some time to learn these skills, that makes sense.
And the the picture is like these two runners on a racetrack, right?
And so parenting, it's the same race.
We're doing the same thing.
We're both raising the same kids
But on your racetrack, there's all these obstacles in the way, all these different things that you have to jump over.
So whether that's like, you know, well oh well I was this piece was abusive or I got yelled at for spilling milk on the table or this happened to me here
So my racetrack is clear.
I can just run down it and and be calm.
Whereas you're just like dodging obstacles your whole way on your racetrack.
Yes.
So we're doing the same thing, but we're running two different races.
And I think it's important for parents to say that because I have a lot of parents say, Oh, my husband loses his calm all the time or oh I can't be as calm as my husband.
It's because we're running two different races.
So the strategies
I might need that work for me.
Like I can take a deep breath and be like, okay, I'm good.
You know, but that's not necessarily gonna work the same for you.
And Libby, what you're describing is what I would call to people as a ladder.
We talk a lot at nurtured first about laddered approaches.
It's just I just like the visualization of a ladder.
So you're not gonna go from yelling at your kids all the time and
Truly, your body does not know that you're safe.
No.
Your body can't differentiate a lot of the times between your child yelling at you and you being yelled at as a child
Like your body goes back into that same state, but now you're bigger, you're louder, you are the one in in control, but your body is still protecting that little version of yourself that was yelled at as a kid
So your body literally thinks when your child's screaming at you, I don't want to put my shoes on, I'm unsafe.
It goes back to being five years old and unsafe.
I gotta protect myself.
How am I gonna protect myself?
Well, it's either fight back, aka you're gonna yell at your five-year-old, freeze, you're just gonna stand there and have just be completely stuck, or flight, like you're just gonna be like, I can't deal with this, and just walk away
So it to get past that, we have to create a laddered approach where you said like maybe the first time you're just like, I just want to stop yelling.
The first time you just have to
Close your ears and like I can't hear the yelling.
And that's a step towards not yelling.
And then you slowly work your way up to the point where you're calm.
But it it's okay to know that you might not get there right away.
And I think sometimes the awareness
That dysregulation impacts our kids so negatively can almost make you more dysregulated.
Because before
you're kind of in this understanding of how I'm acting is really, really impacting my child and could impact them for the rest of their life.
You might not want to yell, but you kinda do and you kinda move past it.
But then when you know how hurtful it is, like
to their development, then you are all of a sudden like, oh my gosh, I'm not supposed to yell and you have like that like knowledge and that like pressure of like don't yell, don't yell, don't yell which is just like another voice and like another thing on the racial.
It's another obstacle of like
Oh, I know this now, but like what do I do?
And I know there's been times when my husband has been like, oh well you just choose to be calm or just choose to react this way.
Like I don't
have access to my choices like you do.
And if I like that, my heart will have access to my choices.
This is true, yeah
Realistically speaking, and I'm open about this too.
Realistically speaking, it wasn't until recently when I went on anti-anxiety medications that
I actually, for the first time in my entire life that I can r remember, feel a sense of calm and can
actually feel the ability to make those choices.
And that's not to say I don't think you were ever a yeller.
No, I was never I don't think I've ever yelled at the kids.
Maybe once, twice, I don't know.
Like
It's more just like I get angry or I get annoyed.
Like dad's grumpy.
Yeah, and that would be the joke.
Dad's grumpy.
Yeah, dad's grumpy.
And we can all tell and
But I think what the anxiety meds helped you with is because of your trauma, because you didn't have the ability to wire your neural pathways at a young age for regulation.
couldn't use the tools.
Legitimately, like it felt like my body was constantly on fire.
Yeah.
And it was just day and night, every day, for years on end.
That's exhausting.
Yeah, so now all of a sud now all of a sudden I can sleep well.
I it like a whole bunch of things have been I'm not gonna say fixed, because that is not ever
That going to be the case.
Well now that I'm calm I can sleep better and now that I've slept better, I remember to do these other things that are good for me and
It's like a whole bunch of things have now been made better in my life.
Just because of the fact that I've been on this medication and it seems to be working for me.
And now I I truly like I've always known that I was highly anxious
But this has sort of shown me that, yeah, it was because I had grown up with it a lot worse than what I even imagined
Well, and you acclimate to it.
So even though you know you're anxious or you know you're feeling a certain way, it becomes normal to you to be in that way, even if you don't like it.
Like I think of my hearing.
So I've been severely hearing impaired for a decade
But I've just become so used to it that like even though I get frustrated by it and even though it impacts my life every day, it kind of just is what it is.
And then when I got hearing aids a month ago and I heard sounds I'd never heard before
I was like, wow, my hearing was very, very bad.
My hearing is very, very bad.
No wonder I was exhausted.
No wonder I get frustrated with my child who doesn't speak clearly.
No wonder
When I'm driving, I'm really irritable because I can't hear in the back seat.
Like no wonder all these different things.
And it wasn't until I could actually hear
properly that I realized how badly I couldn't hear before.
Yeah, for sure.
That's definitely been my experience with these medications too.
I think it makes sense your your body, like you said, acclimates to the situation you're in.
And when it's internal, other people can't see it.
Yeah.
And I think that's the piece that maybe our partners who are more calm by nature or wiring, they might
see you in a certain scenario when you're out with your kids and think you're a certain level of calm.
And it seems like the smallest thing sends you over the edge.
But you just
generally are at this higher level of irritation that you're masking so that when this tiny little thing happens, they're like, oh, it was you just got interrupted one time.
But you're processing
your grief about something and you're irritable because of something rubbing on you and there's like all these different things that you're dealing with internally and you're trying to mask and you're trying to look normal.
So then it looks to everybody else like you're flipping your lid over something small, but it actually is like this mountain that you like keep inside of you that no one can see on the outside.
Well when the doctor asked
What level of anxiety do you think out of ten?
It's like I think I've been living at around an eight or nine out of ten for the past since the one Christmas uh program a few years ago or a couple of years ago.
I think I've been basically at that point, so
Like you said, anything little would just irritate me beyond belief.
Yeah.
I I feel like not that you need to talk about the event that happened there.
Yep.
But there was there was a very triggering traumatic event that happened that kind of ended up sending you into this, I would say ten out of ten anxiety.
Well, I would say I had been had been living at Before Prior to that, yeah.
And I still think even when I was like my calmest after that, I was still.
It wasn't always 10 out of 10, but for six months after that event happened, yeah, it was probably 10 out of 10.
For that entire time.
Yeah.
Not sleeping at all, not like, yeah, I was messed up, but Yeah, and I kind of want to touch on that and it's not just your experience, but also Libby, your experience.
and kind of bring it to a point of the conversation we wanted to get to, which was boundaries.
So I think some of the time, so we can talk about boundaries for people who have been abused.
Like like both of you have different kind of boundaries with your parents.
But some of the times like it's that internal world that people don't know, right?
So you maybe set a boundary with your parents, something happened there where you set a boundary.
And other people think they know better than you.
They think they know what you need and what your parent needs and all of this kind of stuff
But they don't know that 10 out of 10 or 8 out of 10 anxiety that's been going on in you.
They don't know the wounds that you've had for years and years.
They don't know how hurt you've been or that you cried for six months.
Like
Nobody knows that.
And I think that like you guys are incredible for sharing those stories because that's so many people that I work with as a therapist that are going through that and they have to set a boundary and to this broader community of people
They see you setting a boundary with your mom, for example, and they say, Well, how dare you?
Like how could you ever do that?
Right?
But they would never have you had that?
Oh so much.
Yeah.
Like so much.
I well how could you do that?
They're your parent.
You should love them no matter what.
And I just think what a privilege it is for you
to not even be able to conceptualize the pain that a parent can inflict on their child for so long that their child, after trying everything, then decides
to build a very large wall and set a boundary.
Like what a privilege it is for you to not even be able to wrap your head around how much it hurts and how hard it is.
Yeah, definitely
Yeah, so that's what I was thinking of when you guys are describing that pain, that fire, that feeling inside of your body, like all of these things that you've had to overcome because you've come from abusive homes.
So you go through all of that, you have your own child and you're both of you, your stories are so similar and you're like looking at them and you're, how could anyone love someone this much and do that to them?
And then you do everything you can and and you can talk to that too, Libby.
Like you do everything you can to like make that relationship right.
And then when finally you have to build a wall, and the wall looks different depending on the person
Then people say, well, how dare you do that?
And it's like, oh, I feel like that is one of the most invalidating things that can be said.
Yeah.
And like no one knows what you've gone through or what that means for you or how hard it is either
I think there's this misconception that when you set a boundary or you build a wall, you're just doing it willy-nilly, like, oh, you hurt me.
You didn't babysit the kids this week.
Like we're done when in fact it's often like years and years of layered pain and hurt and lack of repair and lack of accountability and potentially abuse
that have built up to that moment of setting that boundary.
And then even when you maybe don't have a relationship with a parent or you have a very boundaried relationship
it doesn't mean that it's easy.
Like it's still painful to not have that and to think about what it could have been or what it could have looked like.
And knowing that it will never be that way.
And so even though it is more peaceful and maybe you're more regulated and maybe it's what's healthier, it doesn't mean that it's
Cut and dry and easy to do.
Yeah.
Yeah, definitely.
I would say for me, like so I have a legal boundary in place now, which I feel like
After that officially went through, I had a breath of fresh air and I was like I can finally breathe.
But what it didn't stop is, let's say in our community, hatefulness that was brought against me and like even bringing my daughter to school would
I felt like people didn't like me just because of what I had done.
Meanwhile, nobody was getting curious about
Any of what had happened, they all thought, well we know this pr we know your your parent, like we know who they are.
There's no way they could have done this.
They're the nicest person ever
Right.
And so then Scott, like not only did you have to set a boundary, after years and years of trying to make something work, and even though trying to make something work went
against your internal voice telling you that this was not what's best for you.
You still did, right?
You still tried to make something work.
Well mostly I did it for the kids.
Yeah, that's why the boundary ended up happening.
Well, yeah, and even trying to m make that relationship work was kind of for the kids, but then I saw it became more and more dangerous to do so.
For the kids.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that has kind of pushed me over the edge to actually go through.
Right.
But then you have people be like, How dare you do that?
How could you ever do that?
What it makes me think about is all the parents
maybe in the middle where maybe, you know, we use the word cutoff.
Maybe you haven't cut off your parent.
Maybe they're not so toxic that that has happened.
Or maybe it isn't a situation where there's abuse or danger.
But that you're setting a boundary to protect yourself, to keep your kids safe, to
protect like your emotional health and there's this domino effect on everybody else in your life where they don't understand.
So maybe your relationship and your boundary with your parent is to do with uh Christmas get togethers or get-togethers in general.
and you don't want to go if it's going to be at their house because XYZ happens and you set the boundary that you are not going to go to their house for this social occasion.
Not only do you have to deal with how that impacts your relationship with that parent, but then you maybe have to deal with your siblings or aunts.
and uncles or the other people that are potentially involved or maybe it's a a different kind of boundary where it's maybe not as extreme.
Maybe it has to do with, well
we have a relationship with my parent, but they can't babysit.
And then you have to deal with the judgments of people like how dare you not give your parent the ability to babysit or spend one-on-one time with your child
And it just adds that extra layer.
It just puts another thing on your racetrack to have to deal with of like I not only
have to do this hard thing.
I've not only been through all these hard things, I not only have to deal with the reaction of the person I'm setting the boundary with, but now I have to deal with the judgment of everybody else.
And for me, for a long time, I let the judgments of other people determine what I did
And because they maybe saw it as wrong, it felt wrong.
And I had to realize that just because other people don't agree with it, it doesn't mean that it's wrong.
It just means they don't understand and they'll never understand
Right.
And and at a deeper like a deeper level, you probably were taught at an early age, right?
You've got to fix your emotions to keep the others around you happy.
Right?
That's part of the experience of growing up in the way that you both grew up, right?
So you better fix the way that you feel to keep the peace, to make sure no one's ever mad at you, to make sure no one knows what happened in our home.
That's a secret, you know, all of those things.
no matter what the level of boundary is that you're setting.
When someone starts to set a boundary and be the first person in the family to do something different, like that actually
unsettles the entire family dynamic that's now been going on and now you're the black sheep in the family.
It's a whole ecosystem.
Like you think of like in nature, it's like an ecosystem.
When something changes, it changes everything.
Yeah.
And then rather than the toxic person getting the blame
You can often get the plants.
You're the first one making a change.
One doesn't that make sense though?
I mean humans are innately tribal.
That's how we're yeah.
There's so many of us on earth because we are tribal.
So as soon as you do something that kind of disrupts your family unit, your tribe the dynamic.
Yeah, the dynamic of your family, yeah.
Then you're kind of you're making it less safe for everyone.
Almost feels like the opposite is true at the same time, where I know for me, it took me a very long time to actually set boundaries and keep boundaries.
I would try.
I would say I was trying.
I would say something that I'd
you know, I would give in or whatever.
And I think part of the reason it was so hard for me to set boundaries with my mom and then even with people in my life in general and to show up as my true self.
It was so hard to do that because of the fear of losing the tribe
Because of the fear of if I am fully and authentically myself and I say what I mean and what I feel and what I need, I am risking breaking my tribe apart
losing relationships that keep me safe.
And so it is an act of survival to not set those boundaries sometimes.
Like for me it took so long to do that because I was so afraid of losing what was safe and w what I knew.
And it's scary.
to do that.
There can be safety and chaos because you're it's normal for you.
Yeah.
And if you set a boundary with someone
and that fractures that relationship, you have to be okay with it potentially fracturing other relationships.
And I mean, I've shared with Jess privately that I have felt
my word for the last couple of years has been untethered because I know who I am and I like who I am more than I ever have in my life.
I feel like the most authentic version of myself
And at the same time, it has changed so many of my relationships, how I relate to my community, where I fit in.
to where I feel like I don't quite fully know who my people are anymore or where is a safe group for me to belong.
Because I know exactly who I am, but I've spent a whole lifetime building relationships with people who thought they knew who I was.
Yeah.
Because I was
masking and pretending to be who I thought they needed me to be.
Right.
And it really like messes with you.
Like it legitimately does change the ecosystem and that's a whole other hard thing.
Yeah.
Do you think there's any like the difference I guess between the two of us, you being a woman, me being a man, like
Is there a difference there even in how like your friend groups accept or don't accept certain things?
Like I feel like maybe it's also my friends have been mostly pretty open about things.
Some family members maybe not.
But in general.
The negative impacts for me have been less about boundaries that I've set with my mom, with parents, for example.
And more about me deciding to be less of a people pleaser.
Yeah.
That's a modest thing to do.
My belief system and my
perspective on the entire world has shifted and my perspective on myself has shifted and my self-worth has grown and think one different
for men and women is like women are generally more expected to be people pleasers and be servers.
Right.
Like there is that more of an expectation for women to just like go with the flow, be small, be
Quiet, do what other people want you to do, serve them.
And when all of a sudden you've spent a lifetime doing that and all of a sudden you don't anymore, even not in relation to a parent, people are like, well, who
Who are you?
Who is this?
Like oh you're you're abrasive now.
Oh, like why are you maybe angry or why do you have these opinions?
You've never shared these opinions before and like people can't
maybe handle that change.
Right.
You know.
And that'd be mu might be more difficult for you than it is for me, right?
Because I think for myself
It might just be a little more normal.
Me being a guy, I can kinda get away with not being a people pleaser.
And I've never really been one in general for my whole life, but
My take on on how trauma manifested in both of you, like your experiences are similar, but I think it manifests in different ways.
Like I think for you, Libby, it manifested in like you didn't have the love that you needed
So then you're seeking that love out by people pleasing and being like, I just want to feel worthy of acceptance.
I see where you're going, yeah.
Right?
So you're like, I just want to feel worthy of acceptance by everyone.
So I'm gonna actually mask and not even get to the point where you could be curious until the last few years about like, who am I actually?
Mm-hmm.
Because and I only say this because we're friends and we've actually had these conversations off camera.
Otherwise I wouldn't say this to Libby, but you know, you're like you just are coming to the point where you're feeling comfortable with who you truly are.
So to be accepted and to be loved, you've masked yourself to fit in with people to be accepted, but that's not like true acceptance because you're not actually being yourself.
Scott, for you, I think how the trauma manifested is I can't trust anyone.
Right.
Right?
So instead of being a people pleaser being like, I want people to love and accept me, you're just like, I won't let anyone in
Right.
And I have to be self sufficient because no one else is looking out for me anyway, so I need to look out for myself.
So I think even entering into a friendship or a relationship with
anyone.
Like you're never trying to please them because you're kinda like, well take it or leave it 'cause I don't trust you anyway and you're probably gonna leave me anyway.
So you know I'll my friends who are listening that's not as true anymore.
No that's not true anymore.
There's been healing done.
There's been healing done.
But I'm saying like historic
Until that first day, and we talked about this on another episode when I still remember it, we just had the baby, and you were looking at her, how much I love her.
I can't believe this.
Like
How could anyone hurt me like when you should love someone like this, right?
And you were broken and we were going through a bunch of real things at the time too.
And it was really, really hard.
And you decided then like I have to tell someone how I feel.
Yep.
And you went out for coffee with your friend Dan.
We went to therapy together.
And I think then it's not like you trusted everyone all of a sudden.
Like it's still a work in progress.
But you started to share your truest version of yourself with your friends.
And I think only then, only when you actually started sharing the truth, and that was the first time in your life, like not until you became a dad that you actually told anyone outside of me.
what happened in your home.
Then I think you started to make real friendships.
So for your friends that are listening, these friendships are real and trusting because you've actually told, like you've bared your heart and soul to many of our friends.
Yeah, because I think
previous to that point, I would have shared maybe little bits of information, be like, uh that's not possible.
That would be the response I would
Right.
Would get.
No, there's no way.
This person is too nice.
Like I can't believe that that would happen.
Yeah.
So then you're like, no one cares anyway, so why would I say anything?
Yeah.
Why would I say anything?
No one believes me, so I'm not gonna say anything.
Yeah.
That makes a lot of sense
Well, the first person who actually listened to you and believed you, I think, showed you, oh, someone outside of Jess might actually believe me.
And since then I actually think like
For a dude, for a ma like for anyone.
You have a You have a lot of deep friendships.
Like you actually do.
You have a lot of amazing friends.
And I think it's because you start the conversation off by being vulnerable with them
them.
Like you're actually really open and honest about your experience.
And then that allows vulnerability to exist within the friendship which is needed inside a real friendship.
That's an aside, but I feel like kind of back to what you said, like you're right.
It makes sense that the last few years have been harder with your friendships because now you're like, oh no, I'm being my true self and you can take or leave it.
And then that's really hard
Yeah.
And I have spent so long trying to belong somewhere and trying to earn my belonging, whether through people pleasing or serving or giving or making people laugh or whatever it is that I
didn't even belong to myself.
Like I spent so much energy trying to belong in all these places
And then looked in the mirror and was like, I don't even know who I am.
Like, I don't know if I belong to myself.
And so it was really freeing to finally figure out
Who I am and to love who I am and to feel confident in who I am.
And almost surprising for me to see how much it changed dynamics
And I mean there is the layer of that was happening while I was exploding on social media and all of a sudden going from having a private life to a public life.
There's a whole dynamic there.
I'm not just like sharing my
opinions and my thoughts and my perspective on the world in one-on-one conversations, I'm like ranting to millions of people on the internet.
So that
you know, can change dynamics as well.
Do you think that that part played a role in you figuring yourself out, like being on social media, or do you think that was
kind of a private thing happening outside of social media.
It was happening simultaneously.
Okay.
I would say.
Like before I went on social media.
I mean obviously I've known what social media was
Before I posted anything publicly on social media, I was already doing my own work and I had been spending a few years questioning things and digging into things and reading books and I had gone back to university as an adult with
small children and so for the first time I was learning these sociological terms for things that I was dealing with and things that were happening in the world and things that I had always felt in my core were
the way that the world worked.
Like I was learning that all these gut feelings that I had pushed aside.
So we weren't gonna talk about this, but
like the role of the church and how I latched on to so many beliefs without stopping to question anything.
And like I'm still a believer, but I for so long didn't question anything because I just wanted to belong somewhere.
And then when I started questioning things and I started
thinking for myself, it felt really icky.
And then when I went back to school and I started learning about the world and my perspective started changing and I started integrating my
beliefs with what all the research said, that was really beginning to shift how I saw the world and in particular how mothers are treated by society and how the systems are oppressive and how
women's health and mental health aren't taken as seriously and how the mental load and the invisible load impacts women's mental health and well being, it all started to make sense.
Like
I'm not broken and messed up.
I don't need to just shove all this stuff inside and be a martyr and serve everyone because that's what I'm supposed to do.
All this stuff feels really heavy because it is really heavy and it's kind of a phenomenon that's happening everywhere.
And then I log
onto TikTok and started making videos and rather than just learning about things in university and being like, yeah, that makes sense, I then had
hundreds of thousands of people being like, oh yeah, that's my experience too.
Oh yeah, that's happening to me.
And so then it did happen simultaneously.
It was this like, oh wow, I feel myself changing.
I feel my perspective changing.
And now I have all this like
primary data from all these thousands of women being like, yes, I feel quite broken.
And so not only did I realize I'm not alone, I'm not crazy, but like this is a really big issue.
And
then it all happened simultaneously.
That was a long answer and I went on a lot of tangents.
I'm sorry.
It was good.
I think it was great.
I think it's uh it is true.
It's all the things, right?
I think your answer makes so much sense.
It's something we've talked about so much, right?
Like you sometimes until something comes up that makes you question the way things are being done, you just live it and you're just like
I guess this is what I'm supposed to do and who I'm supposed to be and what it's actually like to be a parent and but then sometimes you start to question and then if you have the social like other people are saying, No, I feel the same way.
That's so validating
Like I think that's where social media can be really healing because in your community there's so many moms who are like Libby, I haven't ever heard someone else name this.
I haven't ever heard someone else talk about this
And for me getting the words to describe what I was feeling was so empowering.
So I love being able to do that for other people.
But it's not siloed.
You know, there's so many times we talk about just mental health or just cycle breaking or society or poverty or all these different things, but
this conversation is I feel like proof that it's never just one thing, right?
Like our social circles impact how we relate to our parents and how we see ourselves and how we're in in relationship with each other and parenting and it's all like
Life is all interconnected.
A messed up web with racetracks overlapping.
It is.
Hey friends, so at pickup last week our daughter asked Scott a truly kind of tricky question in front of her younger siblings.
Scott was telling me that when he heard a question like this, he used to panic, but this time he had a plan.
And he said to our daughter, Thank you for asking.
Let's talk tonight when we've got privacy.
And that's a line that he learned straight from our new body safety and consent course at Nurtur.
So this new body safety and consent course is taught by me.
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I wanted to bring back to two points.
So first, I just had wanted to say this earlier, but I think something that really helped me when you were going through your journey of uh setting boundaries and stuff like that.
It's like no child ever wants to have to set a boundary with their parent, that means that they're not in their life.
Or that means that they're not in their life
Very often, right?
Like every child, even if you're an adult, you're still a child of of your parent, wants to, in their deepest core, be in good relationship with their parent.
Yeah, definitely.
So if someone is setting that boundary, like just for anyone listening who's like, oh, I can't understand ever setting a boundary with my parent, like, hey, that's such a privilege.
And and I can understand that because I have a good relationship with my parents.
And
Just know that if s if someone in your life is setting that boundary, whether you know, it's like you, Libby, where there's a wall and and sometimes there's still communication.
or it's like you scot and it's legal, like no child seeks to do that for no reason.
So if someone in your life is doing that, maybe know that they've been through so many hard things to get to that point and be curious with them instead.
And
know that if you come across as judgmental and they end up kind of also putting up a boundary with you, it's because you're not being a safe person to them, if that's how you come across.
So that's one of the first things that I wanted to say.
I just thought that was really important to name.
The second thing I kind of wanted to bring it back to boundaries and both of you have your experiences and then maybe we can talk a little bit about the person who's setting a boundary with an in-law or a parent.
That's not quite so extreme.
But is there any suggestions or recommendations you'd have for a person who's in either of your shoes and has to set a boundary for the first time and has never done it before, knows that this is important, but
is worried about judgment, like what would you say to that person if they were I would say that you're responsible for setting the boundary.
You're not responsible for their reaction.
Mm-hmm.
For so long I avoided
setting boundaries because I was too afraid of what the reaction was and I felt responsible for that and that's not your responsibility.
And just because they react poorly it doesn't mean that you've done something wrong
I would say the biggest thing that got me through all of it was focusing on the fact that I'm doing this to protect my children from an unsafe person.
And I think that's the only way I was able to get through
Yeah.
That whole process.
Because I've it was very difficult and I probably would not have done it otherwise.
But it was specifically I had my children in mind and
my main focus and that's the only thing that I think that got me through is knowing that the at the end of this there's a protection set in place and they don't have to deal with anything that I had to deal with
I remember when we were going through that journey and I mean there was times when we had so much stress on our place 'cause we didn't have the boundaries in place and our stress would impact our children because of the lack of boundaries
And all of a sudden our children would be more dysregulated.
There'd be things going on with them.
And I remember like in in those moments, that's when you have the biggest struggle, right?
Because you're like, wait, it is still impacting my kids.
Oh, we could definitely see like they obviously they're gonna see that their father who was not really emotional at all was all of a sudden crying constantly every day.
Like
That has a major impact on them too.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
I know in my experience it got harder before it got easier.
So my question to you is, did it get easier after it got
Harder.
Yeah, definitely.
Right.
I wouldn't say it was again, like after the document was set in place, it was easier in that I felt like, okay, there is a legal consequence for this person to show up at any location we are known to be at.
So there's a consequence to that, and to me it seemed very unlikely that they would risk accepting that consequence.
So it definitely, I will say, it was infinitely easier than what it was.
It was still not easy.
Right, right
I think I just for me for so long I didn't set boundaries because I felt unsafe in my body when they reacted poorly.
And I wanted to avoid that feeling.
And so I avoided it for so long and so long.
And I'm so grateful now that I was able to push through like the icky feeling.
I've I've disappointed them
They're unhappy, it's gonna affect them in all these ways.
Like I was able to push through that to now, obviously I have moments and days where
I'm really sad and griefy and and it's hard, but I'm really grateful that I pushed through that really, really uncomfortable, painful
first few days, few months of like this feels like my entire world is imploding and I want to give up on the boundary
so I can stop feeling this way.
And so I just would want to encourage anyone who's listening that if you are setting a boundary, you're setting it for a reason and the
really, really hard parts that come right afterwards, they will eventually dissipate.
Because I am like as an ADHD person, when I have a feeling it feels like it's literally gonna last forever.
Like I can't even imagine it not feeling that way.
And so I would just want to say to anyone, like if you feel like deep, deep discomfort with a boundary, like push through it because there's peace on the other side
I would agree with that.
Yeah, I think that's so true.
Uh one of the visualizations that I would teach to my clients would be when we're setting a boundary, whether it's a big boundary like a legal boundary or a wall like you described, Libby.
Or a little boundary, like, hey, you know what?
We're not gonna be able to come for Christmas this year because we're prioritizing staying home with our family.
We don't want to do the travel.
Like there's little boundaries too, and those sometimes feel
very hard to set as well because you know on the other end of that little boundary is disappointment from your parent.
And that brings us back to like again that fundamental need of all children, no matter how old you are, want to be in right relationship with your parent
And you are not wrong or bad for having that feeling.
And sometimes we need to sit in the discomfort of that feeling that my parents are not okay with me right now.
And I'm still okay.
I'm gonna be safe.
So what I would imagine clients doing, and and maybe this sounds woo-woo to some people, would be literally picture.
So if there's an emotion coming back from your parent, right?
So you say
You know what, Mom, I'm sorry, we can't make it home this year for Christmas.
It's too much travel.
It's too much on the kids.
We just want to be here with our family.
You can feel free to come visit us if that works for you.
but we're not gonna make the travel down this year.
And your mom comes back.
Like, how dare you!
Every year, we all come, every single Christmas, everyone's here.
You just imagine those words coming and almost putting up like a shield
Right?
Like almost imagine a shield coming and being like, I'm gonna protect myself from this.
Those are her words, her emotions.
I'm gonna hand them back to her.
And so I would have clients literally imagine like giving that emotion back to that person that's not yours to take on.
Right, that's their feeling.
And so many of us from an early age have been trained to take on everybody's feelings so that we can people please.
And you know, that comes for many different reasons, but
Trying to visualize giving it back and then at the same time looking at your own family and deciding what outcome do I want from my kids
And so whether that's an outcome like I don't want my kids to be in this trauma abuse where I'm have a toxic parent who's, you know, being awful to me and now
I'm stressed every single day in my home and I can't parent my kids.
Or if it's something as simple as like, I want my kids to have the opportunity to rest and to play.
And I can't do a busy weekend every single weekend.
Like it's too much.
I can't visit my in-laws every single weekend.
And I know my mother-in-law is going to be disappointed in that.
But
My job is to give my kids opportunity to play and and when I go to their house, they just tell them they have to sit in the basement all day and and I have to talk with the other adults and I don't want to do that on the weekend.
So even those little boundaries, like imagining, well, that's okay, my mother's in-law is allowed to be upset with me.
And I'm allowed to make the choice that's right for my family.
So that's what I would say to parents who maybe don't have quite the same experiences, but still need to set those boundaries
Mm-hmm.
If you're setting a boundary, let's say it's about going to their house, it's about a hug, right?
Like you can't force my kids to hug you.
Yeah.
It's about don't force them to sit at the table and finish every bite.
Yeah, finishing the food at the table, right?
Like those little things.
The reason why your parent or your in-law is so triggered is that that is what they've probably done, what they think is right.
So you challenging them feels like a personal attack against them.
I do believe we can set boundaries with love, with respect for the other person.
Like I even love that we both of you talk about your
parents, you're not bashing them in any way, shape, or form in this this episode, right?
Like there can be a respect, a care for them.
I want what's best for them.
And my job is to protect
my kids.
So whether that's I'm not gonna let you force my child to eat every bite of food.
And it's okay if you're upset with that.
They're my child, like this is my choice.
So I just want to empower parents that they can make decisions to advocate for their kids.
And when your kids see that, they learn to advocate for themselves too.
And that's going to protect them from all this people pleasing that we've been talking about throughout this episode.
And you don't have to explain your boundary.
I for years felt like I had to justify and explain my boundary to the person I was setting it with, to everybody else.
And sometimes, depending on your relationship, you can set a boundary and tell them why.
But you learn pretty quickly who the people are that like don't need an explanation.
And sometimes you can just say, This is in our house we don't force our kids to
finish their plate, so we're not gonna do that here.
You don't need to give them all the research and send them 14 Instagram posts and you can read a book or tell them why.
You can just say that's the boundary and not explain it.
Even if it feels deeply uncomfortable
For you not to overexplain it.
Like to say, yeah, you know what, we leave family things at 630.
That way my kids can get to bed by 730.
You don't need to overexplain that like say, and here's all the research on why a 7.
30 p.
m.
bedtime is best for kids.
Like
No, you're just allowed to make that choice.
You're the parent, you're in charge.
When you were talking about setting a boundary with your mom and saying we're not gonna come to Christmas and the mom getting
really upset about it.
It made me think about a mother and a child and how it's the exact same thing.
How, you know, if you're setting a boundary with your mom
and your mom loses her mind, she's doing that in an attempt to get you maybe to change your mind.
I think about like being at the front door and trying to get the kids out the door for school
and they're having big emotions, we so easily, well like some of us, want to immediately react and like get angry or scare them or like do the big thing that is going to make them do what we want them to do.
And stopping yourself and realizing that just because that's something you want to do and just because it might be a shortcut to getting what you want doesn't mean that it's the right thing to do.
And actually that's what fractures the relationship
'Cause when you set a boundary with your mom about Christmas and she yells at you, that fractures the relationship, just like when we scream at our children.
even if they do what we want them to do, it's so it fractures the relationship.
And that's for me what I've realized is the most important of all of it is the relationship, not the
getting people to do what you want them to do just because it feels unsafe or like an attack or Yeah, because imagine like along that note, imagine you call your mom.
You live three hours away.
Right?
You know what, we just can't come home for Christmas this year because it's just too much.
The kids are too little.
It's not gonna work.
And instead of yelling, the mom goes, Oh, okay, like help me understand what's not working.
And then the kid goes, Well, you know, it's just a lot with their nap schedules and all that kind of stuff And the mom says, You know what?
I totally understand that.
Christmas is really busy.
Why don't we come up a different weekend, we'll do something special together?
And the child goes, Oh, that sounds great
Like that response now we're we're bringing you closeness.
And the next time that adult child is gonna feel like I can tell my mom how I feel.
And we can have a discussion about it and we can still be in right relationship.
And it's the same thing with the shoes or whatever we're yelling at our kids about, right?
It's like
Hey, like I want you to put on your shoes.
No, I'm not gonna put on my shoes.
This happened this morning.
Um like literally happened this morning too
Um, no, I'm not gonna put on my shoes.
And your instinct is to yell, right?
Control.
Uh inside you go, oh, help me understand.
Like, what is it about your shoes that you don't like?
Well I don't have socks on.
Oh, okay, well maybe we could get socks together.
Do you want my help with that?
Yeah I do.
Go get the socks.
Okay, let's find a pair of shoes that's comfy.
And now we've worked together in a strong relationship, right?
Like what the other one this morning
had to get the the dish brush out and clean off the bottom of her inside shoes because they were too dirty.
Oh yes I have one like that as well.
I've had moments where
I had the time and capacity and regulating ability to stop and and do that.
I have it so much more now.
And
There's been a few moments where I've stopped and my kid has explained, you know, why something is so hard for them.
And I've seen the logic in it.
And I've seen the like, oh well, no wonder.
They're feeling this way and almost immediately been hit with waves of like sadness and grief over all the times
that I wasn't able to do that or all the times I was like, No, we just need to go or whatever it whatever it was and thinking about how that
you know, may have made them feel and s it's just like simultaneous like I'm so proud that I'm able to do this now and that must have been really hard for them, you know?
I think there's something beautiful in that there's always time for repair.
So even if there's damage that's been done.
And I I say this if there is a parent listening who has a complicated relationship with their adult child
Even then, there is still time for repair.
You can still come in with curiosity.
You can still come in with, hey, I see that this is hard for you and you're not coming here or
I notice that you're setting some boundaries here, like help me understand.
Like why why are you setting these boundaries?
What's going on?
There's always time for help me understand.
I'm sorry.
I want to help you.
Like there's always time for that, whether that's with our children who maybe we've yelled at for long more times than we
wish to have done that or if you're an adult and you have an adult child who is struggling in relationship with you.
That's the hope of it, right?
Is the accountability at
whether you're an adult with an adult parent or whether you're a parent with a ten year old who you've spent ten years parenting a certain way.
There's something that is inc
incredibly healing about accountability and repair and like how much that can heal relationships.
Yeah.
And sometimes parents will say like Jess, how do I know that I'm not gonna mess it up
in the same way my parents did with me, right?
My parents never repaired and I'm now I yell at my kids and how am I gonna make sure I don't mess my kids up for life?
And to that I can say, like, well what would it have meant for you if your parents
Ask that same question, right?
Like it is so powerful that people are even asking the question of like how can I repair?
How can I make this better?
Because like for so many people, you didn't have a parent
who paused and reflected and said, Oh, maybe I I messed up.
Like how can I do it better?
So I would leave people on that note.
Like if you're worried that you've repaired a like that you've ruined a relationship
Whether that's with your own child or an adult child, like ask yourself, like, what would it mean for a parent to be curious and reflect and wonder how they can repair the relationship?
I think that's really
A beautiful note to end on.
Mm-hmm.
Thanks.
Well thank you, Libby.
Thank you.
Thanks for being here.
Let's head over to Coffee Time where Scott and I share
some of our reflections from this amazing conversation.
So Scott, that was a big episode with Libby.
I feel like we covered a lot of different topics.
We talked about boundaries, we talked about your own relationship with your parents and your triggers and trying to stop yelling and healing and all sorts of different things.
But what I'm wondering is
How are you feeling?
Just that this episode, but just in general, you're on a podcast now and you're sharing your story and anyone can listen to it.
How does that feel?
I don't know.
I feel like I've gotten to the point where I've dealt with it, so
I feel pretty pragmatic about it.
Like it is what it is.
It is what it is.
You don't feel any sort of way, like is it
I know I know you're not gonna like this.
Does it feel empowering to share your story?
Do you get nervous or is it just is what it is?
Like it's just fine.
Honestly.
The like truly the way I feel is just it is what it is.
It's not like it's empowering or I feel as though some of my story that I shared
Today was it could be helpful for people, so I feel like it's valuable to share the information, but I don't know that it's like I feel so empowered after doing it.
It's just yeah
I feel like that's how I am in general.
Yeah, I was gonna say I feel like that's what you're like.
But one of the pieces that was interesting to me is we were saying in the episode today, we were talking about how
you didn't share your story with anybody until after we had our child.
Like basically not one person in your life knew.
And now you're sharing the same story with the entire world.
So that's why I was wondering, like, oh, it's so interesting in let's say eight years, how much has changed.
Yeah.
I feel like that's life though.
I don't know
I think I've gotten to the point where I've told so many people personally already and like significantly more details to other people.
Yeah.
that this seems kind of like it's whatever.
It's what I have to do.
Like it's not like I feel anxious about saying any of this or that I feel like I shouldn't be talking about it.
I mean it's my story
There's a lot more detail to it than we're even sharing.
For the record, do I ever force you to share your story?
No, you don't for I mean you don't force me to do anything.
I got that feedback from someone.
Yeah.
Making Scott share his story.
I don't make that man do anything that he doesn't want to do.
That'll be in another episode we'll talk about.
the way we we talk to each other and debate and Yeah exactly.
Yeah I don't make I don't make you share your story because I'm like, oh I need content to share about and I want to be related.
Yeah, sometimes.
Okay.
I get negative comments on everything.
But yeah, sometimes people will be like, oh, you're just getting Scott to share his story because you haven't been through that.
I'm like, yeah, but the reason I want Scott to share his story is because
I've watched you go through it and I've seen how painful it was for you and I know how it would feel if you had anyone in your life.
at the time being like, hey, I went through something similar.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, and I feel like it's more me wanting to share it than you necessarily.
Like you're not trying to convince me that I have to share any of this.
It's mostly just
I am sort of putting myself out there more than I normally would because I think it is helpful for people to know that this is my story and it could be similar.
There could be similarities in other people's stories who listen to this podcast or follow you on social media, and I think there's power in that and that you could change
Even changing one person's trajectory in life just because they heard my story is a worthwhile endeavor.
Like it's worthwhile for us to get this out there.
I feel like we've said that since day one of starting our mama village.
Like if
If the work that we're doing makes one child grow up in a safe and loving home, then it's worth it.
Yep.
And I'm pretty sure we wrote that out the day that we launched the Parenting Level Kids course the first time.
It was like if this course only helps one person
one child, then it's worth it.
And I still feel that way.
Yeah, I think I saw that recently.
I was organizing my notes and I saw that in there.
Yeah.
Anyway, so I just wanted to touch on that because I know sometimes people are like
Oh, he shares a lot about his life and a lot about his childhood.
Like, is he actually comfortable with sharing this?
And how does it feel for him to share this?
And I think
Yeah.
The answer's yes.
I mean I wouldn't share it if I didn't feel like I was comfortable with it.
And there's still stuff that I'm not going to share, maybe ever, just because I don't think people are prepared to hear it.
Yeah, exactly.
And I think it sounds like you're sharing so much what you are.
But there's so many pieces that you haven't shared of the pain.
I guess that's for me.
The reason I feel like it is what it is is because the details
that I'm sharing are sort of surface level in terms of the abuse that I Yeah, you're not going into deep de detail of I'm not explaining every situation.
Maybe in like fifty years if you write a book then you can share that in there.
Yeah, right
Maybe if I ever write write a book, but Yeah, exactly.
Well anyway, thank you.
I honestly to you and to Libby, if you're listening to this, Libby
I thought this conversation was one of the best ones we've ever had.
You and her are both so open and honest, and I feel like I get along with Libby because she's very similar to you in so many ways.
Honestly, I could see how we the two of us relate and it was kind of fun to fun.
Maybe that's not the right word, but like interesting to have that conversation with her and be able to
Again, we have some similarities in our stories, so it Yeah.
And I love when we have friends on the podcast 'cause it just feels so natural and easy and the conversation with her was What's funny is you say a friend.
I had met her once before, very brief
Oh yeah, but you guys were like instant friends.
I feel like you got along so well.
Yeah.
Anyway, thank you all for listening.
I know this episode had a lot in it and I'd really love to hear from you.
So if there's anything that stood out to you about this episode
just send me a DM on Nurtured First or you can send us an email.
We'd love to hear what stood out.
If you wanna have Libby back on, I betcha I could get her on for another episode.
Uh but you could let us know what you'd want us to talk about more in depth.
the next time and that's it from us.
I I hope you really found this episode valuable.
Alright, we'll talk soon.
We'll talk again soon.
Bye.
Hey friends, thank you so much for listening to today's episode.
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