The Built Different Podcast with Dr. Zach Clinton - Understanding Estrangement: Finding Peace Even If Reconciliation Feels Impossible with Matthias Barker, Ep. 291

0:00Life Audio Build different as a production of the American Association of Christian Counselors to support this podcast and learn how you can help us to promote all our biblical content, spread the gospel, and provide mental health resources and training to people everywhere. Just go to AACCFoundation.org, that's AACCFoundation.org. I'm Kristi Graham, host of On the Ground with Samaritan's Purse, and I recently interviewed one of our pilots whose plane was hijacked in Africa. I encouraged myself with that reality. That at some point, this is going to end in two hours. It'll end good if I'm on the ground somewhere walking around with the testimony. It'll end great if he pulls the trigger. For me, it will end great. That day, Jim, experienced the power of prayer and witnessed just how mighty the name of Jesus is. If you want to hear this full story, tune in at Samaritan's Purse.org slash listen. Welcome to Built Different. I'm Zach Clinton, your host, and each week I come to you exclusively on the Life Audio

1:01Podcast Network. I'm proud to partner with Life Audio and bring you entertaining, life-changing, family-friendly podcasts for a new generation. At Built Different, our mission is to provide encouragement, hope, and challenge to help push you past your limits and reach goals you never thought possible. Colossians 2.6 says, so then just as you received Christ Jesus' Lord, continue to live your lives in Him, rooted, and built up in Him. Amen? Now, let's roll. Hello, everybody. Welcome back into the Built Different podcast, the place that we really seek to have conversations at the intersection of faith, mental health, and we'll say motivational psychology. We really want to help people reach their fullest potential. I always say that sometimes my heart beats to make your heart beat again. I think today's conversation might have the opportunity of doing that exact thing. Joining me today, Hailing from Franklin, Tennessee, he flew all the way here this morning. He landed.

2:01We've had some great conversations. He has encouraged my heart already. He's a man of deep wisdom. He's a thought leader for today's generations. And really, he is a psychotherapist that focuses on healing trauma, deepening relationships, and reconciling. But I'll say this, restoring the family bond. He's somebody that deeply cares for people. He deeply cares for the family. He's actually the founder, the president, the leader of astrangement.com. Many of you might be familiar with that. If you're not, I promise you, you will not be disappointed. It will help benefit you and those that you love. So joining me today is my thighs, barker, my thighs. Thank you so much for coming all the way here, my friend. I'm honored to be here. Thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to the conversation. Like I mentioned, I followed you for quite some time. I've been encouraged. I've been moved. I've been educated by a lot of the content that God has placed on your life specifically around the topic of the family. I know your wife, Paige, you guys have three little, four, three and one, just to begin what's life like in the busyness and the chaos of just raising the family right now?

3:02Just joyous sparks of energy and life and I hardly sleep. I was going to say sleep, but it's all good. I'm trying to cherish these young years and remember even in the exhaustion, just I'm going to look back on these pictures and just be like, oh, if I could just be there for 10 seconds. So it's like that dual awareness. I'm so tired. It's so hard. And I just want to save her every drop, so that's both at the same time. I thought so. I'll say this. The family is integral, not just for culture and society, but it's biblical in nature. This idea that it is so sacred to God and I just want to ask you, God has called you to specifically work with individuals, of course, but also with the family unit. Speak to the importance of the family and why we need it now, maybe more than ever. Yeah. I just feel like we make sense of ourselves through our closest relationships. We're not really supposed to navigate life just on our own. You know, I don't really buy into this thing that we can just kind of meet all of our own emotional needs and be completely self-sufficient, almost like machine-like entities,

4:06just kind of like trailing through life. Like I think that we need others, and so the relationships that we entrust those needs to and steward those needs with, I can need to be seen. I need to feel like, I don't know, when I'm going through a hard time, I can talk to one about it and be vulnerable. I can lean on other people when I'm struggling. Instead, I just have to, I don't know, muster it all myself and just bear it all alone. To feel safe. Like when my body fails, when my resources fail, I have other people I can call on. And then just to feel soothed, like when I'm stressed, when I'm just holding the burden of whatever I'm supposed to be doing in the world that I can offload some of it to other people or at least take a break and just like have other people there to help carry me. So like family is like, I think the most integral, I mean, especially early in life and childhood is the most important relationships in our life. And then I think as we grow in and mature and become adults, we negotiate those relationships and how much of a role they're going to continue to play at meeting those needs. And I think that's where a lot of my work comes in because I'm a therapist and I work with families where there's been a huge divide.

5:08So whether that's because of trauma or abuse or even just like misunderstandings, shifts in values and faith and people changing what they believe about things, it's like how do we continue to grow together, even as I become more and more different than the kid that I was? And even as my parents age and change into their years, it's, I don't know, I think about that stuff all the time. Man, you just listed not just the importance of family, but some of the things that are working against the family unit, the family dynamic. I think that the thief cometh, but the steel killing destroy. And one of the things that he would love to do more than anything is to divide the family altogether. There's so many different things that are working against it in culture and society today. I even think of like the pace and the pressure of everyday life. I think of phones where so preoccupied. I was at a soccer game just the other day, Matthias watching my little niece, Olivia, who's now seven. And I mean, sometimes I jokingly will say that it is like hard to keep them in a straight line on the soccer field, but to watch them run around and, and in opposing team, there was a little girl that was just trying to get her dad's attention.

6:12Dad was on the sideline buried in his phone for whatever reason. And she eventually just loses her mind. She just goes off and she just yells, would you just look at me, right, a little girl? Just to have the wherewithal that like, man, she wasn't getting the attention that she desired to have. And I'm just, I want to ask you as somebody who works with a lot of families, what do you see in as maybe the most common trends or challenges that is facing the family unit today? Well, you're right. Like where, you know, there has just been like a shift. Like I think about the setting that family used to be situated in. So think like way, way back, not even just like for your parents or your grandparents. But think like we used to like mostly kind of live in like tribes or kind of smaller towns and kind of smaller villages. And it was like your needs and you feeling seen and attended to the attention that you needed. Just amongst a lot of people, it was like you're not just your aunts and uncles and grandmas and grandpas, but also like the whole community. And so now we've kind of globalized and we've industrialized and we live in these, you know, kind of cultures where we really pick the people who are close to us.

7:15It's not just the people you grew up with, but it's like you kind of curate who your close friends are and who you're going to marry. And then also if you live close to your parents, if you live far away. And so many of the cultural, I don't know, the nest that everything used to be set in is kind of brand new. And so I think that a lot of people are trying to figure out what to do. And like when you ask like the biggest things, they're like, okay, what's challenging families today? I often find that it's like a bunch of little things stacked up. Like there's lots of news headlines talking about like a strangement being a trend. And you know, going zero contact being a trend. And for those who don't know what a strangement is, that's like when you're not talking to your mom or your dad or if you're a parent, when your kid won't talk to you, either they've cut off contact entirely or you really notice a big like kind of emotional withdrawal. And it just feels like you're kind of getting those really subtle kind of low energy, you know, efforts from them. Like you get a text, but just with a couple words in it or like it takes like a long time to get them on the phone. And when they're on the phone, it feels like really strained and like they're just kind of can't wait to get off the phone. It's like so you can feel it even though you're physically talking.

8:16There's like this big elephant in the room or this big, you know, chasm between you. And it's like we can call that a strangement too. So that's that's what I specialize in, I specialize in those family conflicts. And so often the families that I work with like within my program, it's like, I don't really know what went wrong. It's just like, you know, we were a normal family. Maybe they went off to school. Maybe they got married. Maybe there was a hard divorce in the family, you know, there's lots of different situations, but it's like they just kind of faded away. And now the other one won't talk to me or when we do talk, it just feels like I only get this like 5% version of them. And I don't even know what happened. And it's hard because then you ask the kid what happened and a lot of kids, like I don't know. And then the big question mark is like, I don't know why, but I do feel weird around you. Like I feel like, I don't know, we use different words like triggered or activated or whatever. But it's just this general feeling of feeling of discomfort, like there's topics I try to avoid. There's like all the dads going off on this thing again or I don't really want to worry long again. And if I bring up that I'm dating someone new, mom's going to ask a million questions

9:18and then I'm going to have to defend like my choices because it's not someone she's going to approve of. And it's like, and it might be all from a place of love and concern and interest from your mom. But for kid, it just feels like intrusive or controlling or pressuring. And it's just some of its misunderstandings, some of its just wounds that have kind of just been on repeat, maybe all through childhood, that are really hard to articulate. It's lots of small things. And I think then, you know, a lot of the cultural conversation, you know, can either tend to like blame parents and call them kind of like narcissistic or abusive or blame kids is, you know, kind of being like these entitled selfish, you know, that just kind of push against everything. And I think what it's missing is like, there is a cultural moment that we're in right now. Where it seems that there's divides growing between parents and kids and for reasons that are really hard to pin down because it's more like death by a thousand paper cuts than this big injury. It would be easy to identify if it was like, well, like a baseball bat to the knee. We can identify that. But a thousand paper cuts is a lot hard to put your finger on. And then if you're like, well, why aren't you talking to mom? And you're just like, well, it's because of the looks she gives me when I talk about

10:20my job. Everyone will be like, oh my gosh, really? You're going to cut off your mom for a grumpy look and you're like, hold on, there's so much more. What about 10,000 of them your whole life? Is that different? So it's like, that's what makes the conversation really nuanced is getting out of the blame game and looking just at the experience and the reality for both people that so often parents have just good intentions of wanting to love their kids and and not but and there's hurt and woundedness and distance that both of them don't really know how to talk about. And my job often is helping speak each other's language and come towards each other to see where the other person is feeling coming from. I'm going to stop this right there and jump in to say, you're listening to build different. I'm Zach Clinton. We need to break for a brief message from our sponsors. I'll be back with our guests to keep the conversation flowing right after this. You're listening to Life Audio. I'm Kristi Graham, host of On the Ground with Samaritan's Purse. And I recently interviewed one of our pilots whose plane was hijacked in Africa. I encouraged myself with that reality that at some point, this is going to end in two

11:23hours. It'll end good if I'm on the ground somewhere walking around with the testimony. It'll end great if he pulls the trigger for me. It will end great. That day, Jim, experienced the power of prayer and witnessed just how mighty the name of Jesus is. If you want to hear this full story, tune in at Samaritan's Purse.org slash listen. Americans have a big healthcare problem. There are 100 million U.S. citizens carry medical debt, but that's not the whole story. With health insurance, your out-of-pocket and monthly costs are way too high. You get surprise bills, denied claims, and poor customer service. That's a serious burden. As Christians, we don't have to pay for a broken system. Christian healthcare ministries is an alternative to health insurance at half the cost. You can enroll at any time and join a proven faith-based solution that's both reliable and affordable. CHM isn't just health. It's financial and spiritual support when you need it most.

12:23Families across the country count on CHM to step in during their hardest moments. And it works. Stand up to health insurance with a low-cost biblical solution. Join CHM today by visiting CHministries.org slash wellness. I appreciate about you, Matthias, is that you really live in the middle of the fairway. You don't really take a side of, you know, I'm siding with the parent or I'm siding with the child in this situation. You really just want people to understand that, like you mentioned at lunch, that parents and children, we can both sin. We can both take responsibility for the areas that maybe we're weak and that we need to grow in. And we need to be moving in the same direction at the end of the day. And I'd love to ask you a little bit because, you know, the buzz word around estrangement right now is that idea of zero or no contact. And I feel like there's a lot of stats that'll show, and you've been mentioning some of the stats that love you to share them.

13:25When does estrangement happen most frequently? And what are maybe the key ingredients that typically lead to this idea of zero contact? Because it's almost a buzz word where there's so many people saying like, oh yeah, no contact, no contact, no contact. And it's like, man, I don't know if that's a good thing at the end of the day. That's not the healthiest thing. And then we'll eventually get to the conversation. How do we get there? But share some of the stats if you would. Sure. Well, I mean, the stats are interesting because it depends if you ask. So let's say you interviewed a bunch of parents and then you asked them, okay, why did you cut you off or why isn't your kid talking? The most common answers that you're going to get are something along lines of like, well, you know, maybe it's value differences. It's very common. Maybe the kid has a different set of political beliefs or religious beliefs. They kind of grow up in the DVA from like the family norms and what we all believe about this or that. So they talk about that. Most of them will say divorce. So about, I don't know, 70% is like more or less depending on the study that you look at. 70% of folks who face estrangement, there was a divorce involved. And that's not the same thing as saying the divorce caused it, but just to say that that's an ingredient in the soup for so many people.

14:27You know, there's a divorce, let's say, an example is like, nine, ten years old, then you go to live with mom, you spend more time with mom. Maybe like there's conflict with dad, maybe mom describes to you like, you know, what's wrong with dad and then you kind of grow up and kind of have a hard time finding your footing with dad because he kind of happened your head like, well, I don't know, mom would say this and this, this, but I don't really want a relationship with that guy. And then dad feels like really like, well, hold on, I feel like I didn't really get a chance to speak for myself. And that could be backwards, too, same thing with mom being villainized and we call that parental alienation. So that's a little different when it's a kid. But there's a lot of different reasons it comes up. Parents will generally talk about their daughter's mental health. If it's a daughter, they talk about mental health. If it's a son, very common, they'll talk about either the son's girlfriend or daughter in law. And it's very common to blame the romantic partner. So I joke sometimes that like the data seems to point, it's like, well, if the daughter's a stranger's because she's crazy, if the son's a stranger's because his wife is crazy. So the one's always like, the one who always gets the short end of the stick.

15:28So we can't go for that, but like, yeah, so, okay, bummer. Well, okay. So that's what the parents say. It's like, maybe it's that. And then there's also, there's other reasons that maybe they'll talk about like an alcohol or a substance or maybe there's a trauma in the family if that's present. Generally, though, maybe political differences, whatever, that's what they point to. Kids, though, they have a very different set of explanations. They don't talk about political differences. They don't talk about a divorce. They don't talk about, well, it's because I started dating this person and you know, like, they quite frequently will talk about emotional neglect and abuse. And those are big words. And parents are like, what are you talking about? We had a normal family. What do you mean I abused you? And I think that there's a cultural reason for why there's this gap here because I think that for folks, let's say that we're born before 1980, abuse, trauma meant a near death experience. Right. People harm. Like a neglect meant no food on the table, no medical, you know, like it was very concrete.

16:31And it was really centered around the severity of something, right? But for a kid, I mean, and this has an explanation for how the DSM was formed for how like clinicians create diagnoses like trauma used to be kind of defined in those terms. But then in the DSM, three of the DSM, four, trauma has started to become more and more associated with the paper cuts thing like I was talking about that someone can have emotional trauma or relational trauma, meaning that's lots of little things over time that build up and create a really big impact. Yeah. I mean, there were studies done for like boys and boys homes, like foster kids. And like thousands, they've studied these really large samples. And they asked them to okay, do you have physical abuse? Do you have sexual abuse? Do you have like emotional relational abuse? And they found that regardless of kind of like the trauma background, there's a certain point where all they kind of the symptoms really start to look very similar. And there's, we can put some of those citations in the show notes, I can put those, send those to you. But it's really illuminating because we saw that trauma isn't necessarily just about

17:31severity. It can also be about the duration and the frequency. And we actually know that this isn't some a serious like a marriage, for example, we know this very well. Lots of people get divorced without their having to be physical violence, right? Right. Like lots of people get divorced without their having to be some sort of like a huge domineering, you know, big malicious thing. There's lots of little things. And people describe it what we fell out of love. We're just incompatible. And what are they saying? What I think they're saying is there's lots of small moments of disconnection that never got repaired and it created a larger and larger distance to, there was a point where there was a rupture in relationship and there wasn't enough goodwill within the relationship to keep trying to repair it. There was just such a divide to where both people just concluded that we're going to part ways or one person or the other. And I think that something similar is happening with a strange minute because I think a lot of the parents are asking, it's like, well, hold on, give me the evidence of abuse. Tell me the trauma. I didn't hit you. Right. And then the kids are like, well, hold on. It's actually probably similar, something analogous to the divorce thing where it's like

18:34lots of small little moments when I felt like you missed me where you dismissed something I was interested in where you made a little passive joke at something that actually really mattered to me. Rip jeans, like, oh, like, and then we think like, oh, what are you going to cut off your dad because he made fun of your rip jeans? But then it's like, well, hold on. What if it wasn't just the rip jeans? What if it was also the makeup and the, you know, the septum piercing and the blue hair? Like whatever, it was that it was the 900 comments he made about the appearance. All little jokes, all like in and of themselves, not really a reason to cut someone off, but someone stacked up, you start to feel like, I just don't feel comfortable around you. And then, like, how long do I come over for dinner or hop on the phone calls and grit through this discomfort? And I think for so many adult kids, they don't feel like they have the tools to be honest with their parents in a way that they're responsive to because a lot of kids try, like, I talked to kids over and over in the program. We have, you know, over 2,000 adult kids and parents from different families, but just within a strangement.com. And the kids just say over and over, it's like, I've tried to talk to mom, I've tried to

19:35talk to that. I've tried to set boundaries. I've tried to kind of like talk about the impact of this. I've used, I feel statements, I've like, I've done all the things and what I get back is dismissal, defensiveness, or throwing the blame back on me. And I think that's so many of them just don't have the tool kit for being able to do. Honestly, like, bridge a generational divide on how to have communication. And this is an area that I, that I'm actually theorizing a lot on and actually forming some studies around right now because I think there is actually a dynamic that the way we communicate, the way we seek connection intergenerational between different generations, we're playing by different playbooks. And because we're, or it may be a better analogy, because we're speaking different languages, we're not hatching the kinds of love that we're trying to send. Like, I talked to parents really frequently, like, let me just help you adjust your wording. Let me try to, like, help you adjust how you're expressing love. And they're like, well, if they can't receive my love, then they don't want to. Like, I guess I'm just not good enough. Like, fine, if they want to write me out of their lives, they can.

20:37And I'm like, here's the thing, what you're experiencing is if they're rejecting the mail. And I'm telling you, there's not enough postage on the mail. Let me show you how to get it to their doorstep. Because I think what's happening is you're sharing your heart, but they can't hear you. I'm like, well, what are you talking about? And I'm like, well, what about the worry? So much of your concern comes out in worry. And the fear is blocking the love in your heart that you have for them. They're not receiving the love through your fear. And they're like, what? You can't they, don't they know that I'm worried because I care. I'm like, it's a different language. So I'm not asking you to lie. Like, when I talk about out of phrase things, how to word things, we have a whole thing in the program on, on just like, literally wording and styles of repair and, you know, like, apologies, accountability, like emotional dialogue that adult kids really are more responsive to. It was made by the adult kids, you know, so these aren't just my theories on this or that. It's like, we literally pulled hundreds and hundreds of adult kids and we're like,

21:38I just asked the question, what do you wish your parents set? You know, it was just simple as that. What do you wish your parents would say? And then I just had the brilliant idea. I'm like, hey, parents, try saying this, you know, like, you know, so, and again, I'm not in the interest of sugarcutting or lying or performing. I want you to share your heart just with tact with wisdom in a way they can hear it. Because I mean, we know from James, like the tongue can just burn everything down. Nothing is more, has more potential for harm or for good than the tongue. And so I'm like, we need to be, I just see Jesus being so careful on how He phrased things and who He addressed. And even being like implicit and strategic in how He'd say things, not because He's trying to be any sort of way or dishonest, but just because I think there's wisdom in knowing He's speaking to and expressing your heart authentically, you know, in the language of their heart. And I teach both that. It's not just on parents. It's not just on parents to learn the language I teach the same thing for kids. Anyway, I've gone on a big rant there. What's spoken out to you and all that? I think so many things that you just listed are hitting home because as I think about

22:42whether it's clients, whether it's just families that I'm familiar with, and I just, I love these people. My heart goes out to them, but there's so much damage. And you continually say, right, death by a million little cuts. And like you said, just over time, something we were chatting about earlier today is the differentiation between tough and toxic. A lot of kids grow up in tough homes. Yeah, advice. And sometimes like you said, the parent might have good intentions or good motives. I love my kid. I'm challenging my kid. That's just how I was raised. So that's families tend to reproduce themselves. So here they are giving their child that tough love that they receive because they turned out okay. But all of a sudden, they don't take the time to attune themselves to him or her, their son or daughter. And they find themselves creating the same level of toxicity that they were raised in. And it wasn't received in maybe the same manner. And then all of a sudden, you have people. And I just thought about this phrase that you mentioned. I'm just thinking about the person out there today who,

23:43this is who I am, Matthias, like take it or leave it. You know, I'm going to try, but at the end of the day, whether my kid doesn't or not, it doesn't really matter. And I think about what you share not long ago at that ABC model. And I'd love for you just to kind of share that because we're not even talking about compromise. We're talking about being curious enough to ask the right questions, make less assumptions, to see if you can find peace with what's possible. Take a step. Well, I mean, I think the, on the front of it, it feels like for parents, let's speak from both lenses for a sec. It's where the parent, it's like, oh gosh, I may have to these impossible standards. Like it's like, okay, you're reading all these parenting books and watching all these TikToks. And it's like, okay, sorry, I didn't get the manual on how to be a perfect parent, you know, if we're saying. And you'll often hear parents tell your kids, like, oh, listen, I really tried my best. Like I sacrificed a lot. There was so many moments where I could have chosen to do what was best for me. And I didn't. I chose to do what was best for you. Like there was so many opportunities that I gave up on.

24:43There's so many times where I would have liked ABC, but I gave it to you. And so like, you're going to look at the, in the face of all this sacrifice, how I've just like given everything I have. And then just cut me off like, none of it mattered. Well, and it just feels like it's such a gesture of disrespect. It's such an insult. It's such like, it's so preposterous that then what? I'm supposed to grovel and like, fall on my sword and like dance around and use all these like, your, your therapist, you know, coded words. Like, no thanks. Like, I've already given everything. How about you show up a little bit in the relationship and do some work and try to come towards me and see me. So that's the heart. And I don't have any confrontation or judgment towards that parent and the slightest. I'm never calling anybody out. I'm just calling people into clarity that what we're not doing is falling on our swords or groveling. What we are doing is moving in humility to see like, maybe there were times where I could have moved towards them. Here's here's what I mean, and I'll just be specific here

25:46because I just feel like it's helpful if it's more specific. Let's say there was a moment when you disciplined your kid and let's say it's genuine, like they knew they shouldn't have done that and they did and let's see you move towards them in a strong assertive way and then you saw them shrink a bit. Like, you saw some light go out of their eyes. Like, you almost saw some pain in there. And there's a part of you that was like, I wonder if they need something else for me right now. And I know that I need to hold structure, right? Like, I know I need to hold this point, but, but there's just a question Mark in the back of my head, like, I'm not fully certain. Maybe they need something else. And in those moments, I think we have three options. I call this the ABC's, you know, I have conflict. First is that I can avoid it. I can just, and I honestly, as a parent, I do this all the time. I was like, well, you know, like I have a three-year-old who had him melt down yesterday before I came here that you couldn't have a snack. It was dinner time and he wanted to snack and said, I'm like, no, we have dinner and he's like, no, I want snack. And what he means is he wants crackers. I'm like, no, we made this whole meal.

26:47You can't just have crackers and then he falls on the ground sobbing. And then I'm like, it's so easy for me to just roll my eyes and be like, listen, kid, it gets so much worse from here. Like life is so much harder than just snack versus meal. So like, I don't have a lot of empathy, honestly, for like, I'll only pour you like crackers. What do I go to like get down there? Like, but when I notice like when I rise in intensity and I get really dismissive, like, like sit down, he gets worse, meaning like he cries harder. And if I just slow down and I'm gentle in his little three year old world of disappointment, that's what he's learning how to do. He's learning how to manage disappointment. He hasn't had a lot of practice. He's only have three years of practice of managing disappointment. And I've done a good job, which means that crackers is a big deal. Like that's actually like an evidence I'm doing okay. Like he's not there's like the hardest thing in his life is he doesn't get crackers. I mean, I've done a good job building an environment where he's flourishing and he's doing all right. So so I shouldn't be too, you know, dismissive of this. Let me help him learn how to be disappointed about crackers, right? So the the whole gentle parenting thing might say like, okay, let's just give him the crackers,

27:50you know, but like we're going to hold we're going to hold sturdy here. But can I be with him in the disappointment and emotionally resonate with him instead of just my sternness or my boundary, can I hold the boundary with warmth? As God does for us, right? It's like we have love and truth with God. We have justice and an invitation as a father. He's not just the judges, the father, but he's both. You know, so it's like, can I hold that fatherly heart towards my kid? Even though I can't relate to it and I mean crackers, you know, I'll get so much worse than crackers. He doesn't know that yet. Okay, anyway, so I have the first ABCs, I can avoid this. I can just be like, well, all right, you gotta sit down. If you're not going to sit down, you don't get dinner and you have to live with consequences. So I can just avoid this whole thing. The next one, you know, be, I can blame him and be like, listen, you're not listening. You know, I can go on a whole rant, a little lecture, you know, and kind of going into this is you. It's all you, you know, or I can get curious. And I think so many parents struggle with this idea of like, well, as I was supposed to go back and be a perfect parent, like, no, like, we're not mind readers.

28:52And no one's asking you to time travel and go back and do things different, we can't. But the idea is like, do you have curiosity now, even on what it was like? Not if you did the right thing or wrong thing because you might think like, well, I didn't have any better resources. I didn't, I didn't know what to do at the time, like, I was just doing my best. And it's like, that's why I'm not actually calling that into question. I'm just asking them like, are you curious? Well, for that little bit of fright in his eyes, you know, going back to the example, you discipline them, you're stern. You saw a little bit of pain in his eyes and it's like, maybe I should have checked up on him. And maybe you didn't know how to, you didn't know what you needed, but I could have just gone and been like, here you okay. Maybe I said something insulting in the moment like, hi, being so difficult. Maybe I could apologize for that. Sorry, I should not, that was my anger. That wasn't, that wasn't my principled spirit-led, you know, love. That was my anger and my flesh got in there and called you a label and started making you feel that and shaming you. That was on me. Like, can I be man enough for, you know, in my case, that's a dead, to like, to own that.

29:58So can I be courageous enough to extend a bit of curiosity? And then what you refine is that so many adult kids, they don't want you to just list off all your grievances and just admit that you were this terrible parent and all these, like, it feels like you're kind of being put on trial to listen to the litigation of all these awful things that you've done. It's not that. It's like, acknowledge, it was hard. Because kiddo, you know, in that example, like, let's use the cracker example, it's just like, I don't know, it's just disappointed. I just wanted you to say, like, yeah, it sucks, it sucks that you can't have crackers. I know, you're, you know, Liza on you or whatever, it wasn't what you had, but it's okay. I just need you to rub my back for a minute. I was gonna, I was figuring out how to regulate the disappointment, but I just need time. You were rushing me. I was three. You wanted me to instantly just get on board with Liza on you, but I'm still practicing. So it wasn't, it wouldn't have taken 20 minutes if you weren't so dismissive. If you would have just gotten down on the ground and rubbed my back in a minute, probably within three, five minutes, I wouldn't have been fine and we would sat at the table, but because you lectured me, because you talked to me how difficult I was, I ramped up into this big tantrum.

31:03And you can call it a tantrum, that's the blame. And really, I was just overwhelmed. And mostly because of your anger, because you're a big dude, you're 10 times bigger than me. And so when you're raising your voice at me and you're a big, low, boomy voice, it freaks me out. And I expressed that through crying, because I don't know how to tell you, because I'm three. That's what's going on. And so then I'm like, parent, can you see that? Can you like, can you see that that was like this minor wound? Happens in every family. What I just described, I don't know if there's a dad on the planet that hasn't had a moment like that. I have. I'm literally describing what happened to be yesterday. It's always like, so we all have those moments. What creates a strangement, what creates trauma is not those moments. It's what happens next. Did we ignore it? Or did we repair it? And when you don't acknowledge, when we do not confess, our sins as a parent, as dads, as moms, even to our kids in appropriate times.

32:06Then that takes up space in our life and takes up space in our relationship. There's freedom in the truth. There's freedom in confession and repentance we receive freedom. Not in just moving on. So many parents are like, well, why are we doing it on the past? I can't just move on. Well, I can't just let it go. And it's like, because that's not even what scripture asks us to do. These are, like, I just feel like these boundaries, like we see a lot of conversation around boundaries. And I'm reluctant to use that word in the curriculum that we teach at the program because I just don't think parents, like it's just a, it's a vocab word mismatch. Because somebody parents are like, essentially, they hear the word boundary and they think, oh, this is an adult kid trying to push me away. You know, and something I tell adult kids a lot of the time is like, there's so many of us, our desire is to hear our mom and dad just say, like, I shouldn't have given you such a hard time about the crackers. And it's not even like we desire that they should have given us the crackers.

33:08That's almost the misunderstanding. It's like, well, you shouldn't have been so mean. You should have just given the crackers. No, no, no, it's just like, I'm actually fine that you held whatever rule you needed to hold there. It's just the how. It's not the what? It's the how. That was the damage. And the parent is like, well, I is really focused in on the what? And then all the external factors that were limiting me, especially with mom. And I'm not trying to put anyone on the spot. I'm just saying like, I hear lots of moms who are just like, I didn't have any support. Your father wasn't involved or not around, especially in the divorce thing. I didn't have any, I don't know, like parenting books like you did. I was exhausted. I was working full time. Like, and then you're sibling maybe was sick or like this and that. Like they have good reasons. No, no, no, no, this is like, I'm not being dismissive here. Like good reasons. And sometimes what adult kids don't know how to say is like, mom, I'm not trying to get you to admit that you're some terrible person. I just want you to hear what it was like for me. How it made me feel is like almost like tropey, like, therapisty, does that sounds? How made me feel?

34:09And so the first thing that I teach parents in the program is just that question, the question of what was it like for you when? And oftentimes the thing we're apologizing for isn't some big abstract thing. I mean, something you can just put in your pocket for anyone listening is just oftentimes it's I should have checked in on you more. I should have kept asking questions. Like I can give an example, like I was talking to a mom that's like, well, I don't even know why she's so mad. You know, like it's not like I could control anything. It's not like I control that dad left. And I'm like, tell me about the first meal you had after your husband left. Well, we had pizza. Let me just watch the movie. Okay. Tell me about the conversation. Oh, we didn't talk, okay. And then after the movie pizza, what happened? It's like, well, she went to her room. And where'd you go? I was like, well, I went to my room, I just went to bed. And I'm like, all right, here's how an apology could sound. Honey, I should have just checked in on you. And then mom, I said, well, I didn't know what to do.

35:10I was grieving too. I was overwhelmed. I didn't know what to say. I didn't know she needed me to ask something. You don't need to know all those things. It's not like, again, I'm not asking to be a mind reader. It's just something like, honey, you can even say I was overwhelmed that night. Be really brief on that point. If you don't want to sound like we're making excuses or like trying to explain, that doesn't heal. I was really overwhelmed, but what I should have done, what I wish I would have done. I love that phrasing. What I wish I would have done. She's just coming to your room and asking, how you doing? And then sometimes, you know, in the group, what we do is we'll bring on parents onto the call and kids on the call and we'll do work in front of the whole group. So there's like, there's maybe a few hundred people on the call and some brave souls will come up. So I have a parent and an adult kid. I'll work for like 20 minutes just with that person, one on one, but in front of everyone. Because we all get to learn from each other's experience. If I'm a little kid and a parent saw, I'll talk to a mom and maybe sometimes mom will say, well, I didn't know. I tried asking. Like, great. So the apology there is that I should have kept asking. Well, I didn't know what she wanted for me. I know.

36:10She kept asking. I did ask. Should have asked again. And I'm not saying you should have in the sense of like, I'm blaming on. I'm just saying the thing we apologize for there. If we're looking for, what do I say? What I say is, I should have kept trying. Well, there's no way I could have gotten through to her. Then I should have kept trying to find a way to get through. Well, I was exhausted. I was on my last limb. And then I just valedity, like a course. I'm not trying to paint some rosy picture that all of us were supposed to be just like batten a thousand as parents. I'm just talking about like someone had to absorb the cost of that moment. And perhaps in like, in that setting, it was, it was them. They had to go to bed not knowing what to do and not knowing how to talk about it. And they had to go to sleep alone with that. And that's not to try to make you feel guilty. It's just that's where you start. For so many parents, it's like, what do I even start? You start with those moments and opening a conversation with like, even with, even with

37:12the kids, you have good relationships with that you want deeper relationships with. Man, I neither was times I was really, I was really being on your grades and I really rode you. I just want to know, what was that like for you? Well, I mean, it was good. I'm really glad that you did that. It really pushed me out. It was good. Was there every time that it was hard? Ah, well, you know, there were some times like, oh, there's a one test in history where it wasn't even my fault. But then you grounded me anyway, but I just, it was hard as trying to explain it to you, but you weren't really hearing me out on it. Oh. What happened? Remind me. Well, I should have listened to you. I should have slowed down. That's a go. I should have slowed down. I should have just slowed down and asked more questions. I should have waited before I responded. I should have calmed down before I responded. And those are all great things because again, you're not admitting that you should have this supernatural knowledge of the perfect thing to do in this situation. It's just I should have just slowed down. So it's those little things that make a huge difference. And let me flip it because I've been talking a lot about the parents for a second for

38:12the adult kid. It's like, well, do you have any questions on that point before I just switch gears? I would ask the question. I'm just thinking about different family dynamics that I've seen throughout the years. And I think sometimes parents don't bring up some of these things or maybe they try to avoid the past and different things like that because they're afraid because they know the answer they're going to get. They know that sometimes their adult children are going to bring up all the moments where they messed up. And sometimes you have to have the humility to sit in those moments in the discomfort, knowing that what you're doing by whether it's apologizing, whether it's taking responsibility is potentially leading us on a path of healing. But that's like the first step is giving them a voice because I just I've seen it so often where parents like won't they don't want to talk about it because they know they know what they're going to say. They remember those moments just as much as the kids do.

39:14But they're so embarrassed, they're so ashamed that they just allow their silence to become deafening. Yeah. I think it's one of two things. You're right. 100%. There's that. But on another level or other folks listening might feel like, I mean, it was pretty good and maybe my kid kind of has a negative view on things and so if I start bringing up on the negative stuff, it might make a negative stuff bigger. And so it's like, why are we doing it on the negative and why are we trying to just talk about all the bad times like on like and there's also a feeling of like, listen, my parents are perfect. You don't see me like dwelling on all the negative. So it's like sometimes you don't want to always go back to the past. It's kind of like every time the past gets brought up, it's just dangerous. Yeah. It just makes it worse. Yeah. And I think there's also a lot of folks and this is kind of like a traditional family value thing depending culturally where you come from. I see this a lot. For example, Asian families and Indian families and African families where it's like part of the value in a way we express love is something called forbearance. It's like perseverance, like persevering through the hard times, moving through it Russians. Same thing. I'm like, listen, I'm not going to hold the old stuff against you. We're just going to let kind of time heal all wounds.

40:17And what I'd say is like for families that are all in agreement on that, do what you got to do. But for families where the kid, let's say, is westernized and is more accommodated to what's, you know, in the literature called democratized kinship if you look up a study by Rexack, she's a brilliant scholar in this area. She talks about there's a family value shift within westernization, with an individualism that moves the center of love being from like, hey, love means I bear with you through all things and endure through all things into love means we talk directly about the areas where there's hurt and then we go through a repair process so that we can heal those wounds and relieve it. Maybe you and I can have a frictionless relationship or as close to that as we can manage. So it's like, and honestly, there's a cultural preferences. It's like, what do we do? Do we like bear with it? Or do we like talk about it directly? Honestly, in some cases, it's one or the other's probably more wise depending on the situation.

41:17But it's helpful to know that it's like, well, hold on, like what I did with my parents was I just buried through it and you might come from a more traditional cultural background. It's weird to think that way because it's like, well, we're at the same culture in the same family. But if you're born before 1980, you don't maybe know what it's like to grow on the internet and the globalization and the cultural shifts that have happened in the past just 20 years are dramatic. I think that, you know, the millennials and the boomers are, they may as well be in different continents sometimes. And that's expressed, I think, within the family conflicts when they talk past each other. You know, for the kids, they're trying to set boundaries and hope that their parents can acknowledge the boundaries. We talk about differentiation. Parents don't even know what that freaking means. You know, they're just like, they hear, I'm pushing you away. Yeah. And what we mean, this is like kids, this is how to say it in parent language. You know, I'm going to talk a lot of parents had speaking to kid language, but you know, kids have to speak in parent language. These are the ways I feel connected to you. And when these are in place, I feel so much closer.

42:21So it's like, please take off your shoes because I want you to come in the house. Instead of, hey, are those shoes on your feet? That's my boundary, which feels to them like you're not letting them in. What you mean is like, if you can just take off your shoes, I want you to come in. Leave with that. It's the same thing. You're just saying it a little different. These are the ways I want to be close to you. And even that can be triggering, I think, for parents who are more hierarchical, so especially parents in Asian communities or where there's like high levels of eldership authority, not even Asian. White America, like there's plenty, but just to the degree that eldership is a high value within the family, any confrontation, any you should do anything different as viewed as a gesture of disrespect to a parent. And so that's where it's like, there's no perfect way to frame all these things. There's no perfect way to say things that a parent's going to respond 100%. There's no perfect way to say things that a kid's going to respond 100%. We have a negotiation of these differing family values, meaning a kid that is growing up in a culture that says, I want to talk directly about the wounds, repair them, not

43:23just bear under them, but, and then have a really, let's say, like, intentional, emotionally honest relationship where we trade compliments and praise and can confront people on the things that are bugging us. That's just, we don't think about that as a cultural worldview, but it is. And I don't know. Like, it's not a common one. And I'm not saying it's better or worse or bad or whatever. I'm just saying that it is something cultural. So it's fine that you want that with your parent. You got to negotiate that though. That's a negotiation of connection. And you're probably going to get some of that and not others. And meaning that you might feel like a, like, I don't know, like, I hear very frequently from adult kids that their parents are narcissistic. And I think there certainly are. There's certainly are narcissistic parents who are abusive and exploitive and they mean to harm their kids. I mean, clearly in the population that's undisputed, that there's certain to those parents out there. And I think that a lot of old, kind of collectivist traditionalist values when contrast against

44:28these modern democratized kinship values that I'm describing can look narcissistic and can look exploitive in the sense there's a power differential that goes one way and not the other. That's that's hierarchy. Right? So like, as a parent, I feel entitled to tell you how to live your life and the choices you need to make. Like I have a say, I have equity in the kinds of decisions you make. And then when you define me, you get the tattoo anyway. You don't go to the school that I tell you to do. You don't listen to me when I tell you not to marry that person. I feel not just like disappointed. I feel offended. Right? That can feel like, oh my gosh, my mom's so controlling. My dad's so controlling. They think they are entitled to me. Like, when they take credit for my success, I hear that over and over and over again. Right? That's a traditionalist value thing. That is common in nearly every culture in the world through all of time. And when you see that, like on an anthropological level, we can take away the toxicity from that. And we can say like, okay, I wonder what's really underneath it for the parent because maybe

45:28the parent is just narcissistically just trying to take credit for my thing and then undermine me. And they just think they're the center of the universe. Maybe. So I'm not trying to dismiss that. If there's little kids with narcissistic parents, like, I want your healing. I'm not trying to guilt you, but I'm just opening up the question mark of like sometimes parents see their own identity through their children because our identity isn't just a self-isolated, expressive thing with my own emotions, tastes, dreams, desires, and world view. Self, what we think about the self is a shared thing. I share that with my family. So when my kid experiences a success, I experience the joy as if it was mine. When they end, it flips the other way. When they go through failure, I internalize it as my own. So it cuts both ways. If it cuts both ways, that's a good sign that's not narcissistic. If it's narcissistic, it usually just cuts one way. If it's success, it's that. If you fail, that's on you, you're a piece of garbage.

46:31But if it cuts both ways, that's a good sign. It's a collectiveist value or a traditional value, which is if you fail, I'm going to give you my input. I'm going to try to fix it. I'm going to try to guide you. I'm going to give you all my suggestions to try to get you up the par, which can feel like a burden in itself. It's like, well, gosh, my mom is so critical. She worries about everything. She's so negative. I hear that over and over and over. And sometimes there's an anthropological dimension to it. I'm not saying it's all that. So don't hear me kids is saying like, listen, it's all just culture. I'm not saying all. I'm saying, but what if this is an ingredient in the soup? And it's not an ingredient I hear talked about anywhere. But when you can see that, you're like, huh, okay, my mom is critical. Let's just say that. And that's not her trying to say, I'm not good enough for her. That's her saying, like, I don't know how to deal with the fear of you not being okay according to my standards. Because okay, for me means you need to be married and you need to pay off your house and you need to do that. And for the kid, there's like, that's actually not my dream. My dream isn't actually to go get married by a 22 and then to own a house

47:33and a golden retriever, like good for those people. But like, maybe that's not my goal. I just want to like, you know, pursue my art. And maybe to mom, that's like a colossal, you know, catastrophe. And so she's hypercritical about it. And we could think I'll like, mom only accepts the version of me that lives up to her standards. But that is a narrative that physicians mom, I think in a way, there's not culturally resonant with her intentions. And I'm not saying intentions or everything. Because listen, there's intentions and there's impact. Those are different. I'm just, it's almost like we're trying to wait into this almost impossible middle territory. Or it's like, I'm not interested in finding excuses for everything or explaining everything away. I'm only interested in the truth. For me, I'm like, I want to see things objectively. If I can see it objectively, then I can set boundaries with it. Because the reality is I could look at mom. Like, let's say I'm pursuing my art. Mom wants to be married with a golden retriever, whatever. And I can say, mom, when you talk about how disappointed you are that I'm not married, and you ask if I'm dating someone,

48:34it really makes a heart for me to connect with you. I want to connect with you. I want to feel warm with you. I want to feel relaxed with you. When you ask those questions, I feel far from you. Notice that's the difference. The mom, I'm setting a boundary. Don't ask about my dating life. Feels different. Mom's going to go, well, I guess my opinion just doesn't even matter anymore. Mom's going to feel really rejected. And passive-aggressive, it's not like the actual comments are going to go away. They're just going to get more implicit and more irritating. So, but when you say mom, I know you want my flushing. I know you want my best. I know you care so much, not just about grandchildren, but about our whole family in my future. And I love this line, I want your trust. When you don't trust me, it pushes me away. So well, I only want what's best for you. I know you want what's best. Now I'm asking for you to trust me. Because that's the truth, even collectivism, individualism aside. Parents are not trusting when their suggestion, micromanage, guidance, that, that, that, that.

49:36There's essentially saying, you need my intervention, or you're going to make a terrible mistake. And they could be right, they could be wrong, whatever. But in this modernized world, if democratized kinship, which prioritizes things like autonomy, making your own personal choices, emotional disclosure, direct communication, what's called low-context communication in anthropology world. I get the stuff several other things. There needs to be a, honestly, like a holding back of those suggestions until you ask permission or, or it's asked for. And that's a really hard pill to swallow, but that's part of the negotiation of these different cultural values. Because that might feel like, obviously, like a, like a huge loss. Like gosh, my, my kid doesn't want my opinion ever. And I would say that, honestly, late, they might want it more often when you send it with the right kind of postage on the mail. And I can show you that, and the program we talk about, how to approach kids with suggestions and advice. I'm not saying like, full stop don't. I'm saying, let's talk about how. And so, and that's honestly informed by a lot of the adult kids in the program.

50:40It's just like, I actually don't mind. But my mom or dad has an opinion about this or that. But if you're going to flat out tell me that, like you don't like my husband and you just, you don't ever want to talk to him again. Where does that lead us? Yes. Where do we go from here? Right. So we got to negotiate something else. Like, and if you feel entitled to that opinion, and you're not willing to come towards me at all, of course there's going to be a boundary between you and me. Yeah. And but at the same time, if the, let's say the daughter in this instance wants to like confront mom on her hatred ever, husband, you're not like I said, my boundary is that you talk to my husband or I'm out. Mom's not, mom's not even know, it's not even then the dictionary for her in a lot of cases. And so we can't, again, it's not like the perfect wording forces them to respond in a certain way. Like, we can't control other people. We cannot control how other people respond. But my point is we can't influence them. So my question is, are you being a good steward of your influence?

51:41Are you navigating your influence with wisdom? And our influence is most persuasive and powerful when it is grounded in our peace. When it's grounded in the peace that passes all understanding. And when it comes from a place of love and truth. I'm going to be objective. I'm not just going to try to fit you into some narrative that makes you toxic. I'm going to be objective and think about this with your background in place, your trauma in place, your culture in place. I'm going to, I'm going to let all the factors be on the table and make a decision. That is wise for me and my family. That's harder for kids, kids, kids. It's almost like we want to stack up all the reasons that justify us setting a boundary. And so we're inclined to be a bit hyperbolic or exaggerated on the intensity of it. Because what I'll just speak my own life. I'm not going to put anything on it on anyone else here. I sometimes told a story about my dad. I had a strange room with my dad the last of three years. I told a story that was aligned with the emotion that I felt.

52:41But often was exaggerating some of the reality. And I was hard for me to hold internally. Because it felt true. But I'm inviting adult kids. It's like I'm not asking you to give up your emotional experience. I'm asking you to just speak truthfully and hold for what you need. My mom is well-intentioned and she can't parent my kids in front of me. Well she means well. Means well or not. This isn't something that's healthy for them or for me. And so it's like do we have the courage and the confidence and the truth in ourselves to be able to say this is this is the side of the negotiation I have to hold for me in my family. Sorry, you can't chastise my kids and call them names. I'm not going to stand for it. And we could talk about trauma histories and her thing and what she means by it all day but at the end of the day it's like, sorry, you can't insult my kids. And so what that doesn't mean we have to write an narrative that painters is a villain.

53:46Do you see the tension I'm trying to hold? Of course. That's both. But last man, I could truly have a conversation with you the last months just because you have so much wisdom, so much knowledge around this topic and so much experience just and even just hearing some of these cases or some of these conversations even with your members and different people that you've had the opportunity of just guiding conversations back toward this process of healing. And I want to end the conversation here in a moment with the idea of like some steps. But before we get there, I'm just something you mentioned today, even during lunch was the idea of just everybody continuing to walk away from their faith in this idea of deconstruction and how there's this possibility that astrangement has a linkage to the eternal, that people and the family dynamics and what they grew up with, it actually is now impacting their view of God. It's negatively infecting it and it's this idea that man, that's why the family matters

54:51so much. And I'd love to hear just some of the research, some of the things that you found in terms of how the family relationship and some of these things, some of these instances, some of these conversations because like you're mentioning, your presentation really impacts somebody's perception and their perception ultimately dictates sometimes the reality. Yeah. And so it's being able to recognize man, this stuff matters because it positively or negatively might impact the relationship that somebody has with God. Speak to that. Well, I mean, I'll tell you just from my own experience first, it was like, I'd apparent that loved me, but I didn't always receive the love through the high expectations in the discipline. I believe they loved me and they meant warmth towards me often and the warmth was blocked by some of the punishments I received growing up that felt in some cases violent and often time very cold and unfeeling.

55:54And I grew up feeling like God had high expectations of me and was not very warm. And if I failed, there was punishments to follow. And that stuck and would not uproot until I dealt with my feelings with my mom and dad. And I'm not speaking ill of them. I love them. They love me. I know that we have a great relationship today. We've healed through that, but it was a huge boundary in my relationship with God. But once I realized the real tension I was feeling was between me and my earthly dad. And then once that was clarifying healed, my relationship with my heavenly father became a lot more clear. And it's not like everything evaporated overnight and then it's like a perfect faith or something. But it didn't have, let's say like a 10,000 pound weight on top of it that wasn't actually about my relationship with God. It was actually about my relationship with my, I mean, think about it because like we

56:55use this word attachment all the time all the time. I think about them like roads. It's like these are the highways and byways that we connect to people on so that it impacts our romantic relationships and impacts our friendships and impacts our relationship with God. We receive connection in love and then we anticipate rejection and abandonment all along the roads of our parents. It's so pervasive and that's not to blame parents for everything. I just think it's, it's just the water we swim in. I think it's self-evident. It's like, so obviously a fish is going to look at God through the water it's swimming in. You know, it's like, and so if you're in murky water, it's hard to find God in the murky water. So it's like, there's so much I think healing that comes not just relationally with the parents in therapy, but also happens within the faith of someone who really heals those moments. Take so much pressure. I think off of someone trying to authentically negotiate their faith because I think that

57:56every adult within our culture has a negotiation of their faith whether that means they hold to their faith or change their faith or change the church or church tradition. I don't know about you. I have lots of friends who have been looking at orthodoxy and looking at the Catholicism for the first time or. You know, and so it's like, okay, I'm evangelical, so I still go to an evangelical church. I'm happy about it, and for others, that's not their negotiation. But that doesn't mean that they're going to leave faith, it might be a different kind of faith expression, different kind of liturgy. So all of that, though, I think is influenced through the parent thing, because let's say for example, you had an addict parent who was really kind of chaotic and unpredictable. And then you go to a charismatic church where things are kind of chaotic and unpredictable. That's going to be a hard thing to navigate as an adult. It's going to be hard to separate those feelings. And it makes sense to me. I have actually lots of friends who have addict parents who find a lot of solace and more liturgical, confessional, not even just Catholic, but even let's say like, high liturgy,

58:58like Lutheran or like, Presbyterianism or something, like just more conservative expressions because the solid consistency feels like safety when they grew up in a world that was chaotic. In vice versa, for people who grew up at very strict, let's say, unfeeling parents, charismatic, you know, more like, I don't know, I love charismatic worship. I'm all about it. Give it to me. Like Bethlehem song, like elevation, like I'm here for it. And so much of it was a response to my childhood that was kind of more rigid and unfeeling. And so the warmth and emotion, like, it was like a safe way. It draws out of me. Right. It's so helpful. I have such a hard time with emotion. And so a setting that allows me to access that and then bring it to God. Oh, it's like a bomb. And I think we can be so cynical over expressions of the church, whether we want to criticize worship music or criticize liturgical, confessional styles of church. What's this?

59:59And I'm like, hold on. I wonder, some of the judges wonder, like, tell me about your parents first before hear your opinion on this because I'm like, I just need to hear it because it's going to influence what feels like home and what feels like refreshment and renewal and what feels like bondage. And the more we can bring that to the surface and deal with it directly instead of letting it just marinate in our subconscious, controlling all of our deconstruction and doubts and fake decisions and then how we moralize and attack other people. We can kind of zoom out and be like, that might be what that person needs, at least for this season. Right. Then it gives us more graciousness. Yes, it does. And it obviously has a significant impact on the way that we view and see God, the way we view and see the world around us. That's this entire idea of attachment. And so that's why there is significance within the family. There's significance in the way that parents respond to. They treat. They see all of the different things to their children because at the end of the day,

1:01:00we need parents. We need attachment caregivers. We need people in our lives that are going to help us create more clarity in the water. Well, and just a practical, yes, take away there. I think it helps to get humans in your life that supply the emotional needs. You feel like God is lacking for you. And what I mean, and I think that's why God gave us the church, is like God's far away. Like tell me about the older men in your life that are close to you. Or the older women in your life that nurture you. God doesn't hear my prayers. Who do you feel in your life hears you? And then so often, not a lot. Or there's a piece of me that I can't share with the people I talk to. And it turns out when you feel seen by the older men or women in your life, by your spouse, it's like those not start to untangle and then you realize, oh, part of my gripe actually wasn't with God. It was just there was an emotional need I genuinely had that was genuinely going on met. And God often reaches out and soothes us through the people in our life.

1:02:07And the touch of God so much of his craves is in the physical hands and feet of the people. And not just talking about churches in the church service because some people have, I don't know, it's a hard relationship with the actual Sunday gathering with this or that, like the church background. Like I'm saying, I'm talking about, you know, birth in your small group. That's like the old guy that, you know, you could ask to go fishing and probably go because he has the time. You're the busy one. Are you open to being a little bit more vulnerable with that older guy that he's gentle wouldn't hurt a fly? Like you know that he's safe. Like we have trust issues with church, but then I'm like, okay, but tell me about your trust issues with birth. You know, like let's zero in on the individuals for me, like in my deconstruction story, I was like right at the beginning of my counseling program. I was really struggling with faith in God and church and just having all the, I mean, I could go into the long story, but the thing that soothed me was I went to a Bible study that meant it like 615 in the morning and it was all dudes over 70 at this really Calvinistic

1:03:13church that it was like the most opposite thing because that kind of grew up in Charismatic church, right? So I went to like the most like the polar opposite of it, which I was like the most like, you know, kind of more conservative, kind of baffity like like Calvinistic church, whatever. And I honestly just wanted to go to argue. I just felt I was mad and I wanted to go to debate and just like, honestly just let off some steam. So I went to this like these poor old men, these like 70 year olds, like six of them. They've probably been at that website for 20 years. It's probably like their friend group that they enjoy Tuesday morning and here I am. Young guy is just coming to ruining everything. And I just like sat down and I'd argue and then try to debate them and I was just, they were so gentle and kind and would meet me and the intellectual struggles that I have, but didn't feel the pressure to try to convince me and just, and then they just had the wisdom that I was like, what's going on in your life, young guy? Tell me about what's going on with your parents. Tell me what's going on in your marriage. Tell me what's going on in your career. And they just loved me and I went for a year.

1:04:14And I'm so thankful to God that I'm not Calvinist because that would have been a bummer if I went to this place and then they turned me into a Calvinist. I didn't. Okay, that's good. I'm just joking. I'm just being funny. They didn't convince me of all the right things to believe but they convinced me to something actually more important underneath which was like, I can receive and enjoy love through the arms of these men in the church and so much of my anger that I felt towards God and the church as an organization was soothed and healed just through the actual physical hands of the real human beings that was the church in my life of these like four or five old men that didn't have all the answers and didn't have all the theological like this or that to solve all my questions but did have love and were willing just to take a really rowdy, you know, hot, you like it anger, you know, young guy and just be patient with them. Their patience and kindness just won me over and we had plenty of theological talks

1:05:15and we didn't end up agreeing on any of that but man, I just wouldn't be here without those men. That's what I needed in my deconstruction was just that love. Show up, show you that amount of love. I remember hearing a pastor, one chair story of a man who came down from his congregation one day after church and he was really wrestling with this idea because his wife was going through deconstruction and he was pretty embarrassed by it and the pastor began to ask him the question, you know, tell me about your home life, telling about what's going on and this man, this husband was mentioning that maybe he wasn't always the best example within the home. There was a lot of anger. There were a lot of fights. There were a lot of disagreements and so he did struggle but this bride, she was completely kind of beginning to question everything about faith because of the way that the home was drifting and so he came to this pastor with tears in his eyes and the pastor was just

1:06:16referencing this idea and asking more and more questions and all of a sudden kind of hit this husband like right between eyes when he was referencing this idea that he took it to God and he was frustrated but then his wife came in the house one night and she looked at her husband and they started to disagree about something again. The husband kind of sarcastically said, so what's it going to take? Jesus is going to have to come back now for you to believe and God again. He's going to have to show up right in front of you physically and she looked at him and goes, I think so. Then the light bulb went off as he's telling the story to the pastor, you know, Jesus may not show up in my home today but he sent me, go back to that front door. We all need people in our lives that will be a reflection of Jesus and I think to go back to this idea of a strange man and the family dynamic and parent child relationship Louis Gieglier wrote a book and he once said this, that God is not the reflection of

1:07:17your earthly father. He is the perfection of your earthly father and if we can get a right view of God, it has the power to change everything. I want to ask you, because you have such a wealth of wisdom we talked about, I have wording to them. We talked about forgiveness and I think that's a big step in this healing journey and this change is like what does forgiveness actually mean? Does it mean just like letting go of it? Does it mean just moving on from it and acting like it didn't happen? Letting them off the hook or does it mean something else? Does it mean something deeper? You and I both know that forgiveness takes one, reconciliation repair may take two, but forgiveness is different because we can forgive only when we have the understanding too that we too have been forgiven. So Matthias, speak to this idea of forgiveness and maybe the differentiation between forgiveness and even trust. Yeah, that's it. You just said it's reconciliation and there needs to be trust. I mean, I think about God, like God forgave everyone, Romans 5, does he give relationship

1:08:21to everyone? No. Reaccess relationship to faith. What's faith? It's trust. You know, it's trust repentance, but relationship is available through Jesus to all, not through our own effort, through the effort on the cross, but there needs to be a response of faith and trust. And I think that that's what Jesus taught. I mean, even in the verses, I hear this all the time, I mean, even in a strange one.com, like I'll be like, well, I talked to kids, it's like one of my parents said, Jesus says, forgive me, time seven. So even though it's my fifth time in rehab, even though I've asked for money over and over again, and I've gambled it away, even though I've cheated on your mom five times, you need to forgive me because it didn't Jesus say seven times seven, and it's almost like kind of held over their head, like, well, you have to let me in. I'm like, hold on, do you remember what Jesus said, like right after that, like Matthew 18, right? And there's a story that Jesus tells, a man wrote a big debt and then he went to the

1:09:25king and then the king forgave him his debt and then that man goes and then he grabs his neighbor and is like, hey, pay me which you owe me. And then the king is like, hey, guy, didn't I just forgive your big debt and then you're going and grabbing him and, you know, and demanding payment, what are you doing? And then you know what happens next? The king does the king forgive the servant and say, yeah, you're right. All right. Well, just try better next time, but no, it actually says in the text that he delivered him over to the torturers until he paid back what he owed the king. Isn't that weird that Jesus tells a story of a king who doesn't forgive the second time? Does that ever hit you? It's weird, right? It's a seven times seven. Here's a story of a king who forgives the first time and then holds someone accountable the second time and the same breath. So we have to be careful before we actually use that as some sort of like leverage into

1:10:27infinite trust. Paul says, love always trusts, yeah, but if you read Timothy, he talks about the copper maker who betrays him and he says, don't even associate with that man. He's not done well by us. We don't talk to him. And then second Timothy three where talks about, here's all the things like, hey, people who are like adulterous and sinful, don't even eat with people like that. People who are committed to their son, there is a theme throughout all scripture, old and new testament. When you give sin position in your life, when you are worshiping idols, God doesn't want communion with people who worship idols. If there's idols in your life, that's a boundary between you and God. And God is not just going to like smooth past that, you know, I forgive you. That's fine. He sympathizes with our weaknesses. You know, he's a good father who can see that we're stumbling and draws near us. And when we will fully worship idols in our life, hold sin, unrepentant, it's a boundary,

1:11:28it's a limitation in relationship. And so if we're going to imitate Christ, I just don't see a way around it. I use the story sometimes when I preach or or teach out of the Bible on this topic, like I'm, because it's so much of what I do as a therapist is secular. But when I preach on it, I talk about David and King Saul. King Saul hurled the spear at David, what does David do? He runs to Samuel. Why is older prophet? It's going to help him figure out what to do. And then King Saul, the story is interesting, he comes and then pursues. He sends men after Saul and then all these men actually have these prophetic experiences where they fall on the ground and start worshiping their prophesying, which is a funny, it's a weird story, you know, and then Saul himself actually comes and he falls on his face and it says he stripped naked and started prophesying on the ground in front of Samuel. Now you think, okay, wow. We have like a come to Jesus moment or, you know, yeah, come to Yahweh moment, you know, it is Jesus. But you know, like we have a repentance. So what, reconcile, they go home, right?

1:12:28David goes back to the palace. Nope. Next verse says David flees. The same will stop him. Nope. Goes in. And then what does he do? Does he just like go off into his own thing? He gathers the mighty men so he has community around him. He's not waiting to do this all this stuff on his own. He's estranged from Saul for 10 years. He runs up, over a decade, runs through the wilderness. And on several occasions, Saul's running after him, trying to get him. And there's many opportunities for David to get revenge on Saul. David doesn't. David honors Saul. But honor doesn't look like going back to the palace. Honor doesn't look like making yourself open to being, you know, spirit again. Honor, in David's case, looks like a confrontation. And what he says to Saul, he's like, why are you pursuing me? I haven't done anything against you. And then he says, if God finds fault in me, may God's judgment come against me, and if God finds fault in you, may God's judgment come against you.

1:13:33Complete submission to God. And willing to tell the truth. And that's to his king. If you think about honoring your parents, honoring your elder, is there anything more dramatic than honoring your father-in-law, parent, elder, and king? So if that's righteous in God's regards, that is righteous, a righteous gesture of David towards Samuel was not pride, presumption, getting revenge, vindicating himself, but was confronting and spoke the truth, the objective truth, I've not wronged you. You're doing wrong by me. If I'm wrong, I'm willing to receive God's judgment, aren't you? And then you have Saul repent, actually. Time and time again. It's not very genuine repentance when you actually read it. It's pretty flowery and kind of emotive and doesn't really have any substance, it doesn't lead to action. It doesn't lead to the kind of repentance that creates change to behavior. So David and his wisdom does not go back home.

1:14:34He continues to live. He wrote, estranged, and then Saul, sure enough, gets worked up in his anger, continues again. I mean, we could talk about Jonathan, we could talk about, there's all sorts of richness in that story. But then right after that, when you continue to read through the story, you see the same story about his David and Absalom this time. And David has a blunder, like beyond a blunder, a complete negligence of his duty as a father and a king, where his daughter-in-law gets assaulted by his son. And he doesn't intervene, he doesn't discipline his son. He doesn't get justice for his daughter when his son assaults his daughter. So Absalom takes justice into his own hands, because David didn't. And then David responds harshly and then exiles his son. And his son lives away, Absalom, for I think it's three years in a neighboring city. And then it was only by the persuasion of the people close to David, like inviting back

1:15:37home. And then David's like, okay, bring him home, but he can stay over there, stand over there. And then Absalom is just like craving just to talk to David. He actually sets the lot beside him on fire, just to get some attention. Start setting fires, just to get attention. And then he's like, all right, and comes to the conversation and David just kisses him on the forehead and then they don't speak. Complete avoidance. Trying to sweep it under the rug and just being like, can this just be water under the bridge? Let's just move along. And Absalom boils in resentment, pulls a coup, just like totally subverts the whole kingdom. And this is what David does. It's really interesting. So at the end of the story, David's walking outside of the city walks up the mountain. The same mountain that later, Jesus would be in the Gethsemiti and look up at the same mountain. Pretty cool. There's cool imagery. One gate along the same path at the same mountain that Jesus actually walks along the path of his grandfather's mistakes and sins as he goes to the garden and then decides if he's

1:16:38going to be obedient or not. Anyway, that's a whole nother sermon. But so David's walking along and Absalom's seaged the temple. He's creating havoc. And then David sends the Ark of the coming back. Now the Ark of the Covenant, I mean, in large parts, kind of like this talisman, it's like, well, hey, that means God's on your side. And then so the people are like, hold on, why do you want to send it back? And then David just says, if God wants me back in the palace, He'll put me there. If not, who am I? This kingship isn't mine. This elder ship I have doesn't belong to me. This position I have doesn't belong to me. Everything I have comes from him. I hand it back over to God completely. And then he goes in the jacquire that comes and starts like kicking and screaming and insulting David, kicking dust in his hair and all the guards, like, King David, you wanted to kill this guy? He's insulting the king, like, you know, and then he says, no, like even if there's a piece of what he's saying, that's true, I would not refuse the Lord's rebuke.

1:17:40Perhaps God sent him to rebuke me. And the thing what I love about David is that he's not the perfect parent, far from and at the end, he realized and he repented. That's really the difference between him and Saul is not, it's not like we have a good parent and a bad parent, good, bad, bad dad. We have two dads who are sinful and made huge blunders, sinful choices in one repented. And David just said, I receive this rebuke and then the entire war, the only thing he keeps saying over and over is just bring absolute to me. Don't get him. I don't want my revenge. I don't want things to be vindicated. I don't want, just bring my son to me, just bring me absolute, bring me absolute. And I just think about, I could just imagine, I've avoided this for so long, absolute, I should have talked to you, I should have, I should, I wish I could have talked to you

1:18:41and now I can't because he avoided it, because he avoided it. And then he doesn't get to ever reconnect with his son anymore and some. But at the end, his heart realized this isn't just about protecting the family. This isn't just about reputation. This isn't just about what's right and me getting respect. This isn't about me being right, me not knowing and well, I mean, I'm the king after all. It's like, just bring me my boy, I'll receive whatever rebuke the Lord gives. And I talk to the parents and my clinical practice who are Christians. And I'm like, is that your heart? Have you truly laid all of it down? You have all your intentions and all your sacrifices and all the ways you feel like you're right. I'm not going to dispute any of it, I don't know. But what I've seen David is a heart that says, even if there's a shred of truth in this rebuke, I'll take it.

1:19:42And then a heart that above all else says, just bring me my boy. And a heart that repents of the avoidance of skimming past it. Try not to talk about it, trying to just let water be under the bridge when you should have dealt directly and should have repented. And the kids, the kids confronting on the kids too, the only resentment boil up and boil up and then turn into revenge. I mean, you might not try to literally come for your parents' life, but you come for their reputation and you come for their image and you come with a narrative and you come with words that are daggers, even if not to them in your own heart and to your friends, and how you speak about them to others, that you attack. You go on the attack with your words, even if it's in your own heart. What does it look like to be King David and reference to Saul, which is not my job to attack you? But it is God's.

1:20:42And the sense of like, God will get justice. My job is to take this anger and to give it to him who will vindicate me. That's the promise of the cross is that that sin will be dealt with either in the sense that Jesus forgives it when they come under, when they're adopted into the family of Christ and it's washed away through the blood of Jesus or it's held to account on judgment day. All sin is paid for and anyone who comes to the cross experiences the healing that was purchased on the cross. Because if Jesus is going to take accountability for the sin, he takes accountability for the healing. And when we submit our wounds to him, he is the finisher of our faith, the steward, the shepherd who works out our salvation in all its fear and all its trembling. Thies, man, you're a psychologist and then the counseling space because that was the, I was preaching right there. Yeah, that was my preacher came out, sorry. Whether you are anointed, purely just listening to you, delve into that story, all the examples

1:21:50and just hearing the way that God is using you and the lives of countless people and in the lives of countless families. Like you mentioned, that idea of, man, I'll take whatever rebuke is necessary. I just think of the person of Jesus who didn't have to take any of it at the end of the day. Even when we go to him and we're angry and we're frustrated and we raise a fist to heaven because it's like, why are you allowing this to happen? He receives it, but he says, just give me my son, just give me my daughter, just present them to me. Like that's the person, that's the love of Jesus and could we just have that same love in our own families with our own children, taking responsibility or rebuke whatever it is, but just saying, just present my child, just give that child back to me. Man, I want to close this way because I love really the motto behind astrangement.com. Your goal is into fix people.

1:22:52It's not to just like repair things because sometimes restoration, sometimes it should not have reconciled with King Saul. That's right. Like that isn't supposed to happen, sometimes not even available or possible because it takes two. That's right. But you came up with this theme of peace, peace with what's possible, peace with what's possible. And I want you to close out just to an audience member, whether it's a parent, whether it's a child, but there's a strangeman involved, whether it's a sibling, I don't know, there's a lot of hurt in a relationship and it's been removed maybe from their life. I'd love to you to just give one more word of hope, encouragement and motivation to that person out there today that might give them peace with what's possible. Yeah. That if we place our peace on our desired hope being fulfilled in the sense of like our kids going to come back, they're going to talk to us, our relationship's going to get repaired.

1:23:53Our peace is determined on that. Then I think that we're placing our hope in earthly things and I think that God's asked us to put our treasure in heaven, which is to peace that surpasses all understanding, which is grounded in him. His finished work, not ours, I think about the book of Hebrews chapter three and four, where it says that our rest is in him. It's not in our finished work, it's in his finished work on the cross. And that doesn't mean that we won't experience grief, like I contrast those things, like it's not like we get to this place where we're all just positive and warm feelings. And I don't even care that my kid won't talk to me. I'm just so like trusting in faithful, like I don't know, like I don't know if you've met anyone that's gotten there. I haven't like, there's grief. I mean, that's different from the exhaustion of the room in nation and the regret in the self punishment and then the half resentment and anger, half abandonment and just screeching longing of our heart that will not trust in the hands that hold the whole world.

1:24:58And my invitation to parenting kids is not just just just got enough and all the bad feelings go away. It's actually, um, trust God with what you do not understand and then start the grief. He's plenty on its own and we have a comforter and the grief got draws near those who mourn. He's with us. They will be comforted. Not those who burn with anxious slash rageful slash avoidant pain. We can give that to him. We don't have to carry that. That's not our birth, right? He will be with you when you mourn. Being is acceptance. You can't mourn something you don't accept. Acceptance doesn't mean like, well, I'm never going to see him again or they'll never change. Acceptance means, for right now, this is reality. My definition of grief is responding authentically to reality. The reality?

1:25:58I don't know when they're going to call, if they'll call. The reality? I don't know if they're going to change and acknowledge what they did, if ever. What do I authentically feel right now? Let me bring that to him in the Psalms. You see that over and over. That's grief. So the comfort comes to those who grief. That's the encouragement. With eyes, my friend, you are a gift to the church. You're blessing. I have just been soaking up and I'm going to go back and listen to this entire conversation again and take pages of notes. Thank you for this new, but I hope and pray to God, a blossoming friendship, and I look forward to what God has in store. My friend, work in our audience. Members, they'll go to find out more about you, obviously, and mention the Strangeman.com. Share a little bit more about that and then just social media outlets where they can connect with you. Yeah. So, Strangeman.com is the program that I run with both parents and adult kids. Again, not from the same family.

1:26:59This isn't something that you have to have your kid do with you or you have to have your parent do with you. You can just do it on your own or with your spouse. It's a monthly thing, but we have calls where we all get together. I work with people on those calls and just kind of a community where you feel like you're not alone. I just feel like the biggest thing that actually in this transformative part of the whole process is like, gosh, I just feel like I can't talk about this with anybody. In the moment I do, everyone starts thinking either you're a bad parent, like you abused them, or you're a bad kid, like you abandoned your family, so it's just like a weird thing to bring up. The community is just so transformational. That's the piece I think that comes in, like we're talking about the church in the felt hands and the eyes of people around you. That's what I wanted to make. Beyond just like a book or like a program, like in the sense of just information, I thought the community was the most powerful part of it. A Strangement.com, that's where you find that community. There's a full program, I think, around all the things I was talking about, like how to word things, how to talk, how to engage those repair conversations, how to write a letter to your kid that won't talk to you so that they might engage in a conversation. I gave you templates for that, that adult kids wrote, so all that good stuff.

1:28:02And on social media, Matthias J. Barker, I'm on Instagram and TikTok, and I make videos all the time. I'm doing lives pretty often. If you go on YouTube, there's hours of me, talking about all this stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Matthias again, man. Thank you for being here. Thanks for making the trek out here to Snowy Lynchburg in this very moment. So grateful for you. So grateful for what God's doing in and through your life and leadership. This is just the beginning. I believe the best is yet to come for you, my friend. Thank you so much for being here. We love and appreciate you. Oh, grateful. Thank you, sir. Made all of our audience. I hope and pray that today's conversation has been impactful for you as it has been for me. I know it will be for countless families. We're grateful for your time, grateful for your willingness to do the hard work. One thing I'll say is that when crisis at the center of all of this, it may not always be easy, but it will always be possible because of what he's done. You're not defined by your scars. You're defined by his. I hope and pray that you would recognize that you can find peace with what's possible.

1:29:07Thank you so much for joining us, my friend. We love and appreciate you, and we love being a part of your life, see you next week. The historical Jesus podcast is the sweeping saga of the life and times of Galilean Jesus of Nazareth, as well as the faith, religion, and church founded to honor and disseminate his acts and teachings. Join me, Mark Vinet, on this fascinating journey through time, exploring the many great works of Christian theology, literature, architecture, music, and art inspired by the words and deeds of Jesus Christ. Scripture and brain science agree, meditating on God's Word transforms us and reduces stress in our lives. I'm Jody Niznik, host of So Much More Creating Space for God, a Scripture meditation podcast, and each week I give you space to hear God's Word.

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