How to Stop Resenting Your Parents

0:00Welcome back to another Sunday session with your father, everyone. You know, I love Sundays because they're just you and me. No distractions, no drama, just the girls chatting about life, right? Which I guess can actually inevitably cause a little bit drama, but we always aim to leave feeling a little bit better at the end of these episodes, right? We dive in, we address things head on, sometimes they can be uncomfortable, and then we lift ourselves right back up all on a Sunday. It's beautiful. So in the spirit of addressing things head on, something I always say we have to go back to on call her daddy is our childhood because like it or not, so much of who we are, how we love, how we react, how we fight, how we cope, it's deeply impacted by what happened

1:06to us when we were younger, right? I think we all know that. And the truth is, I think when you start actually reflecting on your past, it can be a total mixed bag, right? Sometimes it brings up really intense happiness and nostalgia, but a lot of the time it more so brings up a lot of hurt and confusion or just raw emotion that maybe you've kind of swept under the rug years ago and continue to kind of sweep under the rug. And it's almost like as we grow up and we step into adulthood, it feels like the fog starts to clear. We start looking at life with a completely different perspective and something that heavily influences us in a way that so similar to our childhood yet totally different because now you're an adult with an adult brain is our parents. Our relationship with our parents with them now, verse back then, how we feel about them when we

2:13look at them, adult to adult now, how they showed up for us or how they completely failed to do that, what their presence or their absolute lack thereof has done to our nervous systems as adults today and also back in our childhood. And parents are a lot. This is a big boy, this is a big boy topic to take on because I feel like as an adult, you suddenly realize your parents aren't invincible super heroes who have it all figured out, right? They are flawed, they're traumatized, they're messy human beings who made mistakes will continue to make mistakes. But I will say knowing that logically, it doesn't automatically erase the damage like we can be like, no, no, no, I know, I know my, I know my parents are just some randos that decide to have kids, but I'm still messed up. And it's like, yeah, you know, that's actually so fair. Today, I want to talk about what I truly believe is

3:14the ultimate emotional mind, which is resenting your parents while desperately wanting to love and be close to them. How do we do that? Growing up, we're fed the Disney version of family where your parents are these perfect heroes, then you hit your 20s and your 30s and you go to therapy and you spend a lot of money and you look back and you're like, wait a second, that was actually so messed up. Wait a second. Oh my god, that is not, that is not okay. What happened to me? And suddenly you're kind of like trapped in this exhausting tug of war, right? And so on one hand, understandably, you're angry and you resent the emotional neglect and the pressure and the projections or the boundaries that were constantly enforced on you as a kid. But on the other hand, it's like, you love them and they're your parents and you see them getting older and you remember

4:17the good times and you just want them to get it. You want them to understand where you're coming from. You want that warm supportive relationship, but every single time it feels like you try, you then leave the conversation feeling drained and judged or just totally unseen. This tracking for anyone else. Okay, perfect. And so yeah, the truth is I think let's just call a spade a spade. Moving past childhood resentment is one of the hardest things that you will ever do because like I said, when you're a kid, your parents are your entire world. So you don't have context for life yet. And so when they fall short, whether that was, you know, screaming matches, emotional coldness, severe neglect, micro criticisms about your appearance, making you feel like a burden. Any of it, you don't think when you're a child, oh, that's just my mom. That's just my mom. She's projecting

5:22her unealed trauma on me. Classic. Like, no, when we're children, we innately are like, wait, what is what's going on? Something's wrong with me. It can't be my parent. Something must be wrong with me. And so you grow up and you go to therapy and you talk to your friends and their experiences and you read books on a concept, you experience relationships and you finally connect the dots and you start to realize like, oh, I was just a child. And they really failed me. And I think that realization brings up this like, understandable burning rage for a lot of us, right? You're angry. Right. Fully so. Because suddenly you see all the ways that you were forced to, whether it was mature too early or all of the emotional mess that you're still trying to untangle in your adult relationships today. You're like, oh, now I get why? And you're pissed off that you have to spend your 20s and your 30s paying some therapist and maybe isn't even that good to try to help you

6:28fix things that you weren't even the one who broke. You didn't break any of this. You're like, send the bill to John and Carla, okay? AK my parents, because they did me dirty. All of this issue that you're trying to unpack therapist lady, send it there, send it down over to Idaho and you're like, here you go. Here's the bill, parents. But obviously we can't do that. So what do we do? We are human and because we fundamentally, we crave our parents and we want their love and so we try to fix it in real time. And we think, okay, okay, I'm an adult now. Oh my god, we guys, we're so going to start fresh. Like those wounds. Oh, I don't feel them anymore. I'm an adult. They're an adult. It's perfect. We can have wine at dinner together. And so we hope that maybe just maybe, you know, they've grown up too. And so we hope, okay, they're going to step up now. They're going to take

7:35accountability and they're going to finally be the warm supportive, safe parent that I always needed. Like now, now we can finally, we can put this to bed, right? And so you get, you get excited. You're like, okay, and I remember this, like, I'll talk to my friends about this. It's different for everyone. Like sometimes this happens to you if you're in college and you're like, your parents are coming up on certain weekends and you're like, Oh, now I'm an adult with autonomy. You're not really in college, but it feels like it. And there's like, you're starting to feel that or it's right when you get out of college, right? And you're like, Oh, I've got my own apartment. I'm living and like, they're coming into the city to see me. And so like, you feel like there's, it's almost like equal ground now. Like, I'm not a baby anymore. Like these are two adults having an adult conversation at this restaurant. And so you take a chance and you open up and you extend the olive branch and you call them to share good news or you bring up a painful memory

8:36trying to get closure. And you're expecting them to be different like you are and say, you know, I am so sorry. I see how much that hurt you. And then the letdown happens. And more often than not, I think it's the letdown rather than like, Oh my god, listen, some parents may actually be quite evolved and changed and like, you're a lucky one. But for the most part, the letdown happens. And instead of accountability, you, you get gaslit. And maybe it's your mother, your father, and they say, I never said that. Becky, I never said that. Or they say, you're being way too sensitive or they hit you with the, we did the best we could. You're so ungrateful. Or I guess worst of all, they just go complete defensive stonewalling.

9:37Like it never happened. Literally, they make you feel crazy. What are you actually talking about? And at that moment, that exact second is where you realize as an adult that they still fall short and they still can't give you what you need. And so it breaks your heart all over again. And it re-traumatizes the exact same wound from when you were seven years old and we're back to square one. And you're left standing there thinking, how do I stop? How do I stop this? How do I stop holding onto this resentment when they keep proving to me that they haven't changed? But also, why can't they change? And so today, parent child dynamics, let's get into it. So I think the first dynamic to address in relationship to child parent dynamic is

10:54when I was thinking about it, they're basically generally two distinct paths people take when growing up with parents who ultimately fall short. Okay, so path A is you basically are someone who put your parents on a massive pedestal only to watch them fall off of it. Or path B is you were someone who never respected your parents in the first place and you saw right through them from day one, baby. Okay. On the surface, these two adults, it looks probably completely opposite, right? Because you're like, oh, at one point you thought your parents were great. I never thought mine were great. But underneath the hood of that, these two paths, no matter which one you grow up with, they are suffering from the same exact fundamental wound, which is the deep aching void of not feeling unconditionally loved and supported or safe with the people who brought them into this world, right? So I want to first kind of acknowledge and start with the people who held their parents on a pedestal

11:55at one point in their life. And I am not. And it may feel distant, right? You may be like, oh, let me just dust off those cobwebs, babe, because God damn, I think at one point it was that happened Alex, but it's been, it's been decades, honey. I get it. I get it. It's been a long time. But let's go, let's go back for a second. Okay. If you were this kid, your parents at one point could do no wrong. Maybe they were very charismatic. They were high achieving or maybe they just provided you a great lifestyle, right? Or maybe they were just your absolute heroes and you hung on to their every word and you just idolize them regardless. Something eventually happened, right? Everyone is going to have a different situation, whether it's through a big betraying moment, like in fidelity happened in the dynamic with your parents or there was substance abuse or a financial mess or

12:56a slow realization that their love was conditional on basically you pleasing them. Something happened. There was a rupture. And when the pedestal falls, it feels disorienting. And it impacts your identity and it creates self-doubt. Because you just went from thinking these are the greatest people in the world that will protect you at all costs. And now you're like, wait a second. Hold on. What is going on? And then your whole reality is shifted, right? Because your foundation was built on trusting their perfection. And so when they fall, your whole reality, yes, collapses. And so you start asking yourself, okay, if they aren't who I thought they were, then who the fuck am I? And now I'm a part of them. And how does this work? And you're constantly second-guessing yourself and your own intuition and you question your judgment in adulthood, right?

13:56And you then essentially, you do go into a form of shock when this happens. And it may not be as extreme for some people. But to some degree, you're going to go into shock when you realize your parents aren't who you thought they were. And the transition from worshipping your parents to betrayal is going to cause significant grief. You don't just lose a parent, but you basically lose the blueprint of your entire childhood. Everything you thought that was real has somewhat shifted. And then as you get older, you could possibly start hyperfixating on trying to fix them, right? I'm not saying that's for everyone, but some people may try, right? Because in your head, there may be some people that are like, oh my god, but like, I know how good it felt when things seemed right. I just want to get back to that. And so you spend a massive amount of your adult energy now trying to bargain and push or rehabilitate them back onto that pedestal so you can feel safe again, which also is so hard in therapy because then you also start to realize as a child,

15:00we don't see things completely clearly because our brains aren't fully developed. So then you're like, oh my god, even if you went back and you looked at the pedestal now through your adult vision, it usually isn't a pedestal. It's like a little dinky rock. And you're like, oh my god, it looked so big back then. And it looked so mighty and it looked so incredible. And it's like, no, it actually wasn't a pedestal. Like it was a piece of shit on the ground. Then you were, you were reaching. But again, some people did have the pedestal, right? That's one dynamic. And then there may also be some people listening who would say, I never had the luxury of pedestal. I actually never even had the luxury of that little rock you're talking about Alex. I never even had that. Never even got close to that. Even as a little kid, you basically from day one, maybe someone who just saw your parents' flaws and their instability, their selfishness, or just their cruelty, right? Everyone has different degrees that they're coming at it from when they're listening to

16:01this today. And you never respected their authority because they never earned it. And so you might be someone who has chronic cynicism and hyperindependence. You're like, never in my life will they ever show up for me. It's never going to happen. And you learned very early that relying on them was dangerous or just pointless. And so then now fast forward as an adult, your default mode is, I don't need anyone. I'll do this myself. And to missy is terrifying because letting someone in feels like opening myself up to guess what just be failed again because the first relationship that ever showed me love in my life was my parents. And they completely let me down. So if my own parents can't be there for me, then why the hell would a romantic relationship ever work out or other relationships work out, right? Because you never felt a parent had your back. And so your nervous system spent its form of years on high alert. And so some people who experience that you

17:06may suffer from anxiety, you may have constant expectations that like, oh my god, the other shoe is always going to drop. There's just no way that this can be sustained. And so naturally, this is a huge one. A lot of I feel like adults in this boat, they feel in moments they can feel like bad people because they feel emotional numbness or coldness or apathy towards their parents, right? You want to care more. You're like, I wish I could care. I really do. But the lack of foundational respect in general just makes the connection feel like an exhausting acting job. So these two very different but somewhat similar experiences, regardless which experience you relate to, pedestal or not, they do both kind of converge and collide. And here is where that happens. Whether

18:09you used to worship your parents or you've looked down on them your whole life, the core longing, I feel like between these two people is identical to some degree. Inside, both of these people, both of these adults is a child standing in an empty room holding out their hands, waiting for a parent to say, I see you, I love you for who you are. I've got you and you are safe. And so the pedestal adult is grieving the loss of a safety that they thought they had, right? And the never respected the parents adult is grieving the loss of a safety that they never got to experience. They're getting to look at their friends and all these people around them being like, that was what your things givings were like. That's what your childhood was like. Never experience anything like it. But both people are carrying some capacity of the burden of justice,

19:12like unrequited, natural, biological need that we all have. You want your parents to love you. No one is like, I don't want my parents to love me. And so acknowledging that, acknowledging that your anger and your cynicism or your heartbreak, they all come from the exact place of just, we literally all just want to be loved. That's it. It's really quite simple. All of that goes into this is very complicated, but it is really that simple. And I think it's a really, I don't know, I think it's a hard pill. We have to swallow. Like I said earlier, that like all of this feels so heavy. And then we just have to accept that our parents are just random people who had kids. They're just these random 25 year olds who decided, yeah, let's have some kids and we're going to wing it. And then oh yeah, naturally they just brought all of their unhealed childhood trauma into raising you. What a great situation. And I think something that I have been talking about a lot with my friends

20:16recently is realizing that that your parents are just also a version of you and us and our friends and everything. Realizing that, it doesn't mean guys that like we have to just excuse everything that our parents did, right? Like it is okay to look back and be like the way that you spoke to me, it affected myself the steam. Or like you made me feel like I was only valued for my achievements. Like yeah, I get it. They're still humans and they have flaws, but like that doesn't take away from the fact of what they made you feel. I think the resentment kicks in because we're mourning the parents that we think we deserved to have. And we're doing this while we're trying to deal with these flawed human beings who are sitting there across from the dinner and we're like oh and this is what I actually got. I had this idea of this and then this is what I got handed.

21:21And as adults and I don't know if this is relatable for anyone, but it is very relatable in my friend group and Matt and I talk about this a lot. It's like the hardest part is wanting your parents to apologize or change and realizing they might never do it. So I want to talk about how do you deal with this? How do we deal with that reality? Because then you're like we, oh my god. And I think there I feel like we're at the age and like the demographic that watches and listens to this show that like that may be for a lot of us right now where we're starting to be all right. Got out of college was feeling like things were turning around or maybe you didn't think they were turning around. That's fine. And like you're at we're at this age. Maybe it's like mid 20s 30s maybe you're in your 40s maybe you're early 20s and we're like all right like no no this is going to change. And then you're realizing like okay now there's been like so many different Christmases and different holidays where like nothing has changed and we're all

22:25starting to the eyes are just getting wider and wider and wider and we're really seeing 2020 here okay. Let's say you haven't seen your parents in a couple months right and naturally that can leave you feeling guilty. You think all right it's going to be different this time. I'm an adult I can handle this and you genuinely probably want to see them and I think a lot of times distance with family it gets you excited you're excited to see them you want to show them love you want to connect. You haven't had maybe a riff in a second so you're like oh my god I'm excited and so you walk through the door and within 45 seconds your mom makes a passive aggressive comment about your weight or your career or your relationship status or your dad brings up politics and you immediately revert back to being a defensive angry 15 year old and the worst is if they also still live in the same house that you grew up in oh my god you're like I actually have to get out of here I can smell my old bed sheets. The creek in the floor is the same in the bathroom where I left it 15 years

23:30ago I have to get out of here I have to get out of here like hey I'm going to lose my mind and so you immediately want to leave early right you're like nope nope oh my god and maybe you did stay there may be some crying in the car on the way home depending how long you lasted you probably lasted the whole dinner honestly a lot of us do it's really hard to set boundaries and be like peace and you're hating yourself you're hating yourself for getting so upset over this and you're hating them for making you feel as way and you're also hating yourself for like why am I letting it affect me this much like oh my god I thought I was walking in and I thought I could handle this dinner with my parents and somehow everything they said is triggering me and it's just oh my god I really I believed that it would be different and it's not I literally feel like I'm 15 again I feel like it's just this emotional roller coaster and it happens because we keep walking basically

24:31into the lion's den expecting the lion to be like now this like fluffy gorgeous house cat that we can just be like oh my god I love you now it's like no babe she's still a lion or he's still a lion like nothing has changed but it's fair that you want you want it to change and again of course everyone's dynamic is going to be different but you get the idea of what I'm saying right like this phenomenon of where it's like an adult child builds up a hopeful idealized version of an upcoming interaction with their parents so excited only for the old dynamic patterns to play out and on my on my research grind this is known in psychology as the false hope cycle or people also somewhat refer to it as the wishful thinking dynamic what does this mean okay can you guys help I'm like so deep in therapy right now basically as adults when we walk into these scenarios expecting

25:32a different outcome with our parents but then we're met with the same old behaviors whether again it's rude comments or boundary violations or emotional coldness or even as extreme as abuse the psychological and emotional impact is going to be so intense when this happens you guys because we are so intensely disappointed when you mentally rehearse a positive interaction your brain it's like priming itself for safety and connection and it's going to be different this time and so naturally you lower your defenses you're going in like oh this is going to be good so then when your parent inevitably drops this passive aggressive comment or you know triggers a sore spot the sudden drop from the expected safety and enjoyable experience you were looking for to instead just this like very familiar rejection it is so triggering and it literally creates

26:39emotional shock you're like how am I here again oh my god because you were actually trying to show up differently and they gave you something that you were convincing yourself they weren't going to give you this time and so naturally the disappointment is it just is magnified because the contrast between that mental expectation and the reality and I don't think you guys don't need to be hard on yourself I've done this so many times we shouldn't be hard on ourselves for having these expectations you may be an adult but you're still a child within this dynamic you are going to see your parents they are still the parents in the dynamic they still quote unquote have the power right or some semblance of the power and so of course you're going to go in hoping and wanting and unfortunately we a lot of the times are just met with these like old wounds and it feels like we are regressing like that I feel like is maybe one of the most triggering things that's ever happened with me and a

27:43lot of times when I talk with about Matt or when we talk like I talk with my friends like that feeling of regressing that also bites so hard because if you are someone you're living on your own or you're living in a different city or you live in the same place as your parents but you're on your own finally or maybe I'm little someone's listening in their in their 40s or their 50s or their 60s it still happens where like you you you spent your formative years under this person supervision you are now an independent and you are now paying your own bills probably and you're doing all these things and so to go back into a dynamic where you have changed so much you're not the little girl that 616 anymore right like you're so different so how is this dynamic still stagnant how has nothing changed I've changed and then you start to get annoyed too because you're like I interact with my bosses this way I interact with my peers in this way like and I'm such an adult and then somehow they get me right where I feel like I have no autonomy no say no self respect I have no voice

28:50and I'm like how did this happen and I think it's so important for us to remember and to recognize that old wounds carry so much emotional memory when a parent uses the same tone or phrase or judgment that they used when you were younger your nervous system is going to bypass your rational adult brain that you've been so you've been working on that thing babe you are pouring into yourself right it doesn't matter so quickly it can just trigger that state of regression and I feel like this is why it can also get so better on the holidays for a lot of people right like because you have your hopes up for a good interaction and you are even more obviously invested because we all want holiday joy okay we're all like come on Santa bring me around town and like we're looking at the movies and the aesthetic and the lights and the things and the carolers and

29:52you're like oh my god you just want to be like oh drop me right into that family perfect movie that like that's what you're expecting right and so the expectations are even higher around the holidays and so even though you are a fully functional adult you suddenly feel like a defenseless eight year olds or maybe it's more of like an angry 15 year old wherever your worst days were guys okay um and then just inevitably it leaves a lot of us as adults feeling really disoriented and upset with ourselves I think it we get mad at ourselves for losing our cool right or shutting down um and that adds another layer of self frustration you get upset and as mad as you are with your parents it's almost like yep typical them but shame on me for even thinking for a second and believing that things were going to be different the pain isn't just about the specific common right it's not the thing they said in the moment it's about what that common represents

30:58every time a parent falls short of the ideal scenario we have us as adults are forced to confront the loss of the relationship that we wish that we had it's like it triggers it's almost like a grieving process right we're grieving that we don't have the supportive validating parent they just don't exist in this in your reality and because you as an adult went into the situation with the explicit goal of having a smooth loving interaction a common reaction to a bad dinner or a bad lunch or a bad meeting with your parents it can be it can literally feel like failure and obviously not everyone will do this some people may but some people you're gonna blame yourself but I will say I think a lot of people end up leaving and slowly as they process things they think maybe I should have I don't know

32:04maybe I should have phrased it like that or maybe I maybe if I didn't bring up that topic then maybe they wouldn't have snapped or if I was just like a little different maybe it would have been a different situation they would have treated me a little bit better like that if that's you in those dynamics that dynamic just keeps you as an adult trapped in the loop of just trying harder next time right you're hoping that altering just a little bit of your behavior it's gonna unlock a different response from your parent now you may be on the complete opposite side where you're like hell the fucking no I do not do that when they fail me time and time again I I'm over it like I like literally hate these people I don't want to acknowledge them but then I do still somehow come back to them when they ask me to go to dinner next time and so I'm just in this angry cycle I think it's obvious that humans psychologically are wired to just seek safety and validation from their parents so this is like a very hard cycle to crack even in adulthood the attachment

33:07system drives people to just hope that this visit or this holiday or this phone call will be the moment that the parent finally steps into the role of a safe comforting figure and it's like a lot of times it doesn't happen and I think recognizing this pattern it's usually the first step to breaking the cycle which I want to talk about today it's basically like we need to be shifting from wishing for how they should be to protecting your own peace based on who these people actually are so let's talk about it we need the survival guide to resenting our parents now that we've sat here and we have really

34:10dug the knife and being like this is trauma this is frustrating how do we actually now protect our peace while trying to maintain a relationship with our parents from all the therapy that I've done from all the friends I've talked to from all the research I think we got to just change our strategy okay hold on let the pregnant lady just get her legs out my child is really kicking right now all right here we go oh my god that's actually like so terrifying being pregnant being like okay now you're not gonna resent me we're gonna we're gonna do this better okay no every parent there's gonna be a problem with parent child it's always gonna happen I guess it's it is just to what degree we're hoping for not not not not too traumatic you guys okay we're trying to we're trying to correct some things how do we change this are you listening now I'm like oh my god I hope this child's

35:11that was seem to any of this um comes out the womb like what did you do to me I'm like oh my god you listened to him any colored adiab sauce shit gonna bet I think step one is we need to stop auditioning our parents for a role that they are never going to get cast in what do I mean by that stop trying to get validation from the person who's incapable of giving it to you if your mom has never praised your career choice she is not going to start today so stop offering up your vulnerabilities to people who use them as ammunition right keep the conversation light and safe and surface level if that is what's gonna protect your emotions and your heart and is this excruciating and so hard yes and yes and yes but again our parents we have to remember are just random people too they are just figuring it out if you are trying and they keep letting you down

36:15at some point you guys we need to try to separate the hurt from the facts does it hurt that our parents can't show up in these moments for us yes but have they ever really shown up sometimes but not really consistently okay so no so stop waiting for it and I know that's sad and it sucks and the next annoying bit of advice that I will share when it comes to parents and maybe a lot of you have already done this is just like you got to lower your expectations and I think this is the hardest therapy concept that I've ever had to learn which is um radical acceptance it basically means accepting reality as it is without trying to fight it and I believe when it comes to the child parent dynamic it is the hardest to ever achieve truly right trying to

37:17accept that your parents love you to the best of their capacity even if their capacity is only 20% of what you actually need that hurts so bad and that is not what I want to hear that is not what you want to hear but once you stop expecting them to be 100% because I keep showing you that they can't be 100% they can't even be 90 80 70 60 then you're going to stop getting disappointed when they just give you the 20% you will eventually I also think something that kind of plays into this and it's probably the hardest thing to ever do one let's put this at the top of one of the hardest things to ever do in interpersonal dynamics yeah I bet this would go in the top like three is setting boundaries with your parents what what how do you what a boundaries with parents that's not even a thing right oh no it is all my adults listening you learn and sometimes it doesn't

38:23work and you've been trying you could be trying for a decade you could be listening to this be like oh babe give me any tips because it's still ain't working the reality is again hard to swallow you don't owe your family an entire weekend of your mental health if you know that after two hours with your parents the vibes go completely off the rails then you only stay for two hours or maybe it's an hour and 50 give yourselves 10 minutes to get to the car quick okay give a buffer and so you're just say to them hey guys I love you and I wanted to grab lunch but I have to head out at 2 p.m. and so you can kind of like you're starting to lightly put that boundary in for yourself because you know where your triggers start and if they start criticizing you on the phone for putting that in place of like oh we only get two hours you can say I love you but I'm not going to stay on the line if you're going to speak to me like that like let's talk tomorrow and then you hang

39:24up guys I understand that probably sounds insane setting boundaries with parents who consistently let you down it is one of the most taxing emotional projects that you will ever probably tackle as an adult because there's a there's like rarely any reciprocity right people talk about like how hard a lot of things are an adult a bit like this thing you're just like I am literally getting nothing back from this and I'm just still getting punched in the face but I do think something that we can control is I think part of the difficulty when it comes to this topic of setting boundaries with parents usually stems from a fundamental just misunderstanding of what boundaries are right I think most people treat a boundary more as like a rule for someone else to follow you are completely misunderstanding boundaries if you think it means like a boundary is you need to stop flaking on me

40:25or you need to stop making passive aggressive comments towards me and then expecting your parent to say oh you're right I'm so sorry or even if they don't even say I'm sorry but you saying these statements like and I mean also don't get me wrong it would be so lovely if you were able to say those things to your parents and your parents actually apologize and address the issue because then we probably wouldn't need the boundaries right but if you are someone who is dealing with difficult dynamics when it comes to your parents you probably have tried that already and like I said earlier it probably hasn't worked and they either stonewalled you or gaslit you or told you you're being too insensitive and so I think where boundaries come into play with parents and our so clutch is with parents who pretty consistently fail you or trigger you a boundary is not about controlling their behavior it is a decision about what you will do when they act just like themselves that's it

41:28it's not it's your boundary this is my boundary right here it's not theirs it kind of honestly has nothing to do with them it does but like you're the one that is in full control actually so if you think you're setting a boundary and you feel really out of control then that's you're probably not setting the boundary correctly or you're not looking at the boundary right if your parent repeatedly lets you down making requests to that parent to please stop don't do xy or z it's gonna stop working like you're not eventually gonna get anywhere and so you have to move to like action based boundaries so if this happens then I will do this right so it's like they can do whatever they want to do but if they keep acting inappropriately then you're gonna do this here's an example maybe in the past you would request mom please stop cancelling on my kids at the last minute it absolutely breaks their heart so that relies on her just to completely change

42:34which leaves her completely still in control leaves you vulnerable when she's probably inevitably gonna flake again and you have zero power so how do you change that and then take an action with a boundary that would look like hey mom I am no longer telling the kids that you're coming over until you physically walk through the door because this protects my kids from emotional safety regarding whether you show up or not I don't want them to be let down so then the grandmother now or your mother now needs to make the decision oh so your life isn't gonna be impacts at all she shows up or not your kids had no clue and you're just you're going about your day and you're gonna be in your schedule and if she chooses to come then you will accommodate it but you're not gonna sit around and wait for this person another one that maybe used to do let's say with your dad is maybe you said to your dad dad you have to stop calling me just to complain about your life or

43:38to complain about mom for two straight hours like I cannot do this anymore and then it just keeps happening and you're like I don't know how to get a phone what's happening so taking an action with the boundary you can now now say to your father hey dad I have 15 minutes to talk today before I have to go if you guys are texting like oh are you free yeah I have 15 minutes before I have to go and if the conversation turns into a negative rant you can tell him hey also if this goes off the rails and you start talking negatively about mom again I'm going to say goodbye and I'm going to hang up I don't want the conversation to go that way I have 15 minutes I would love to have a nice conversation with you but then it's on you so if he acts exactly how he always acts and he's at that 10 minute mark and he's getting that itch and then he starts bitching about your mother and it's getting inappropriate you say hey dad like I told you I do not want to have this conversation so I'm going to hang up now um have a great rest of your day and then you actually hang up and you're in full

44:39control and he's left there being like oh well and then all they're left to do is oh I guess they did tell me they were going to do that if I did this right it's all on you now you can do all of this but sadly it's not guaranteed they're going to respect the boundaries like I just said your dad can go and do that thing and that's when it gets really hard right I think parents aren't used to be parented essentially by their child they're not used to you setting the rules for them and I will say when a parent pushes back against a boundary I think the most common trap from what I've learned from therapy is you end up trying to explain why you set the boundary and to an overstepping parent your explanation no matter what it is because you shouldn't give an explanation to a boundary but your explanation it just sounds like arguments that they can debate

45:43and dismantle like don't do it and so I know it's so tempting but I'm telling you do not explain yourself when you set a boundary don't defend why being like I need to leave early because I have a big day tomorrow so no no no you have to leave early you're leaving early and like don't over explain the like oh the reason I don't want to discuss you know my weight is because it really triggers me no no I don't want to discuss my weight that's a boundary for me don't excuse it by being like I would never you know I would bring my kids over you know but the traffic is really bad like making up niceties to kind of cushion your boundary a lot of them times it can be lies right you're kind of like a little white lie like oh the traffic no no no I can't bring my kids over today you have to state the boundary once very clearly and then you move straight to the consequences because again anyone listening to this like we're dealing with people who cannot seem to have

46:48any respect for your time and your boundary so like you got to get it's him or time baby or it's never going to actually become a boundary and so maybe before this episode maybe you used to say you know mom please don't comment on my relationship it hurts my feelings and it makes me uncomfortable and you know we talked about this and and I don't like when you do it well now because she keeps doing it now the boundary you will say is I won't be discussing my relationship today and if it comes up again I'm going to head home again she can do whatever she wants but you now will be removing yourself if she decides to act inappropriately I obviously could do an entire episode on setting boundaries because it is it is very very complicated I'm still in therapy learning about it um it's really really complicated boundaries and families are probably the hardest

47:49boundaries in relationships boundaries in friendships boundaries in work like it is so exhausting because it is not an overnight solve and a lot of people who cross your boundaries you then start to feel bad by setting a boundary and if you somehow are feeling bad about setting a boundary you have to remember all these things are what are happening to you so you have the right to enforce the boundary because the bottom line is enforcing a boundary it's a two-step process you state the line and then you execute the consequences and you try to do it without drama and a lot of times the people on the other side are going to try to cause drama and you just keep it nope this is it and it can become infuriating for the other party honestly um and it can create a lot of fights in the very beginning and you have to stay strong I think holding a boundary it's one thing to set a boundary I think therapists always say this one thing to set a boundary to hold a boundary you got to be a really strong person

49:03stopping the cycle of resentment and letting go of hatred towards your parents is not about it's not about convincing yourself that what they did was okay it's about freeing your own brain and your body from just carrying the toxic weight of just this ongoing war that like you literally cannot win resenting someone means you constantly are measuring who they actually are against who you want them to be and who you think you know you deserve them to be and the gap between those two things is just literally where disappointment is gonna live an anger and hatred right and I think the truth is hatred and just the intense resentment it feels like a self-defense with our parents right it feels like that but functionally that just keeps you bound actually to your parents and this dynamic the more angry you get the more hatred you have when you hate them for falling short your

50:07emotional state is just gonna keep being dictated by their behavior giving them all the power and I think you're gonna experience so much relief when all of a sudden one day you can try to get to the point where you're like oh their flaws actually no longer have power over me and it's not gonna ruin my night or my afternoon or my lunch whatever it is with them a major hurdle to accepting parents is the fear that if it's almost like we are we're so scared that if we understand why they are the way they are and we contextualize it we're almost letting them off the hook and that's just not the truth like understanding your parents limitations or anyone's for that matter it's insight it's not absolution I think to stop presenting your parents yes you have to look at their story with an unbiased or as much of an unbiased lens as you can right like what kind

51:12of an emotional environment where your parents raised in what unhealed trauma do they have did they grow up in poverty did they have addiction in their family did they had addiction what are all the dynamics that influence their childhood and do they possess the self awareness or the cognitive tools that are required to literally break generational cycles and the honest truth is for a lot of people the answer is sadly probably gonna be no and when you realize that your parents are likely operating at the absolute limit of their emotional capacity eventually their behavior stops feeling like a personal attack on you and it starts looking like a reflection of just their own internal issues and then you're like oh it's just kind of sad like they couldn't give you emotional wealth because sorry if this is cheesy but they were emotionally bankrupt how are they

52:14gonna fill you up right if they've got nothing you did nothing wrong so again I think that like difference between like oh if I give it it's almost like you feel like you're giving too much empathy if you're like well it's because of their childhood no no understanding it is fine and you're not letting them off the hook you're also just accepting them for who they are so you don't have to keep getting let down and so I think it's okay to like mourn the fantasy because resentment is only gonna be sustained if you do have these unrealistic expectations right every time you interact with your parents hoping today will be the day that they act like the wise and the passionate and the validating parent you're just gonna reopen the wound and so to accept them is to allow yourself to feel the sadness and the grief and the anger that you yeah you didn't get the love or the safety or the support that you definitely deserved as a child that's a fact so hold the funeral

53:16hold the few mentally laid arrest the ideal fantasy version of your parents that is what we're doing today we're laying it to rest okay I'm a lot of them I'm not saying your parents are dead they're still here you're just gonna hold the funeral because the fantasy version it needs to go you could also probably do this with friends even I promise you there's probably so many of your friends that are like I I I will absolutely partake in this one um because I promise you almost everyone goes through this to some degree and then once that funeral and your mourning has happened you're like all right then you can actually move forward and interact only with the real human being in front of you flaws limitations and all not the person who you wish they were and I am not saying that it's not gonna piss you off they are gonna be so it's it's gonna be so annoying you're like you're you're still annoyed by them but they don't have the power of you because you're not expecting

54:16them to show up in the way that is still internally as a little kid you are hoping you're like oh they they're not capable okay let it go at the end of the day I think truly you have to recognize that holding resentment is literally like drinking poison into your body it is entirely possible to say I love my parents I am grateful for the sacrifices they made and I am deeply hurt by how they treated me both truths can exist at the same exact time you don't have to forgive and forget to move on that's literally not you don't have to do that it's not a thing like you just have to decide how much power you're gonna let their opinions have over your life now today you're an adult now you get to curate your life you get to put the boundaries in place they're they can't they can't tell you to go to your room anymore they can't tell you can't have the sleep over anymore like you're now in control

55:17of your inner peace which is actually such a nice I hope way to end it remember the beginning where I was like sometimes we get into the trenches and then we literally just like one two one two one two hit it hit it hit it and then boom we leave on a high so much I feel like of what I've been talking about in these Sunday sessions is like being the driver of your own life and not handing the keys over to someone and actually taking control of your life it's scary because it means if something maybe doesn't work out or whatever then you're gonna feel it more it is gonna be on you and so now that you're gonna be more cognizant of like oh I do have the ability to basically remove the resentment for my parents it actually is on me because they've just stayed stagnant for decades and it's on me to somehow fix it once you realize that and then you keep not fixing it it kind of becomes really hard to just be like oh it's a waste of energy to even be mad at them anymore that's the obvious that's the easy thing yeah they're idiots they're over there they're giving you

56:20nothing so why are you still you're it's it's like the definition of insanity is doing the thing over and over and over again and thinking you're gonna get a different result right so I think there is power it takes a lot of self-esteem work it takes a lot of courage and it takes a lot of honesty within ourselves to be like are you ready to start living your life to the capacity where you are going to fully take the keys and be in charge and be an adult and own your shit and own when you mess up and own when things maybe are hard or painful but the more you're in control of your life the more that you're going to have a life of freedom and so being constricted to like oh my god and my parents emotions in this and getting anxious for holidays I'm not saying the hurt won't be there but it will impact you way less everything in life everything with friendships and dynamics and and friends and romantic relationships like the more accountability you actually can take in life I believe the more enjoyable life is being a victim of your circumstances you're just like

57:29why did this keep happening me oh my god why they did this to me no one can do anything to you yes they did something to you but how did you handle it and then how did you come back from that and again I am speaking literally from experience this is something clearly I'm very passionate about because I think there's just a lot in life where it's like you get dealt certain hands and how are you going to handle it parents are one that we couldn't pick them guys we couldn't pick them and how they impacted us we also couldn't pick that but now you can you guys I'm telling you once you set that clear boundary with a parent and it's start you you are going to actually want to show your pants some of us some may be better than others and then the day that like you're like you're crying to your partner you're like I can't I can't you just do it and then there's a fight but you hold your ground you're holding ground and a couple other times you keep doing it do it and then when the boundary is just like in place and it's there and it almost just becomes like it's a part of your everyday life and it's oh my god you're gonna feel peace and bliss and guess

58:34what you get to be proud of yourself you did that you stood up to the people who raised you who you have all of these really really complicated power dynamics with and you were able to do that if you can do that you can literally do anything I swear to god you can do anything it's so intimidating to have these these dynamics with parents and if you can fucking hold your ground on a boundary with a parent girl you're going far in life you're gonna run some fortune 500 company and you're gonna be selling off into the distance okay your parents are gonna be begging you to call them and I'm like can we can we get it on that can we like you're gonna be fine you're gonna be fine but the first step is just trying and recognizing it um okay daddy gang that was a lot and I hope that was helpful some capacity um always DM me or write in questions to the website and let me know what you guys want me to talk about and I will do my best to research and to

59:35bring my personal experiences to the table and talk things through with you guys all right you know the mother fucking drill I will see fuckers on Wednesday goodbye good