Goo Goo Ga Ga Does The Mama & Dada (Season 2)

Happy New Year everybody and we are back with the Stuck Stops Here.

Welcome to Season 2 Episode 1.

Tammy,

What's this one called?

Goo Goo Gaga goes the Mama and the Dada.

Oh boy,

You're in for a treat.

Oh yeah,

And not candy.

I'm feeling an unsealed fate.

What is real lies in wait.

Tick tock it's not too late.

I've lived inside your shadows,

Your shadows of hate.

Tammy Atman here with my wonderful producer.

I'm LW No Lie.

Thank you Tammy.

So welcome to 2020.

This is not Baba Wawa.

We are not life coaches.

We are not life therapists or licensed therapists.

We are not.

What we are doing is chit-chatting about healing from family dysfunction.

And for those of you who joined us on Season 1 and are back,

Muchos gracias.

Yes,

Thank you for listening.

We have over a thousand downloads and I for one am very grateful.

Me too.

So Goo Goo Gaga goes the Mama and the Dada.

When kids have to act like parents,

It affects them for life as they grow up to become compulsive caretakers.

A la me.

So emotionally immature parents create an atmosphere of emotional abuse and neglect.

So when any one of your parents is,

Or both of them as in my case,

Are distant and toxically self-absorbed,

Generally the most sensitive and perceptive child takes on the family role of attending to their problems and needs.

A la me.

You were the oldest child,

Yes?

I was the oldest child,

Yes.

I am the youngest child in my family,

But I also felt like I became a perpetual caretaker.

But you're the only daughter.

In a sense,

Yes.

Not anymore.

It's a long story.

Yeah,

More candy.

That's a story for another day.

I thought I was.

We all got a story and we all need to tell it.

Yes,

And I have an amazing sister and two amazing brothers.

So we'll talk about that.

Podcast 73.

Yeah.

Okay.

So you were the oldest child.

I was the oldest child.

And you were forced to be your mother's mother.

Absolutely.

I was never a kid.

And what did that do to your childhood?

There wasn't one.

So,

You know,

My mother with her physical hearing impairment and being divorced when I was just three and my brother was one.

And,

You know,

Struggling financially,

She was very overwhelmed and justifiably so.

I don't fault her for that.

But she didn't protect you from that.

Not at all.

She kind of dumped it on you.

Yes,

I instantly became the mature one and knew that I had to pay attention to what was going on in order to feel like she was safe and I was safe.

And,

You know,

She couldn't talk on the phone.

So,

You know,

I was and there was no father around.

So,

You know,

I would call and,

You know,

Make appointments for her if I had to call for any reason.

So she only had you to lean on for that is correct.

I was her crutch.

Yes.

Wow.

Question is,

Did she appreciate it?

I think she was one of those unaware people that had no idea she was doing that.

So it was just expected.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It wasn't like she sat down,

Okay,

You know,

This is what we're going to do,

You know,

Because,

You know,

This is what's going on.

It was just organically and unpleasantly involved that way.

I mean,

There's this picture of of me and and I'm probably reading into this,

But it does stick in my mind.

There's a picture of me giving my brother a bottle in the kitchen when I was three or four years old.

And I just find that picture so telling.

Well,

It's funny because the oldest sometimes,

You know,

Becomes the adult when a when a new baby comes along.

I remember when my second daughter was born,

My oldest was only two years and four months old.

But I thought she was the big one.

I was like,

Oh,

You should know better.

You're you're the big one now.

But she was only two years and four months old.

That's really small.

Oh,

For sure.

She was just if she didn't know she was a baby.

Can you imagine being raised by people that were two years,

Four months old forever?

Hence the goo goo ga ga goes the mama and the da da.

So the you know,

And when you know these immature parents and this,

You know,

Dad's out there,

Too.

You know,

My stepdad and my biological dad were both licking their own childhood wounds.

It's very lonely and you become afraid and uncomfortable asking for attention.

So therefore,

Anything that's naturally you.

That you want to be with,

Whether I want to be a math person,

A music person or a or a athlete didn't.

None of that mattered because it was relevant.

You know,

What was important and what was a priority is.

Making sure that I did not add to my mother's stress.

Right.

You're carrying around sort of the guilt of her misfortune in a way.

So how could you even think about asking for what you want?

And could you be so selfish?

That's kind of you feel guilty.

If you ask for attention and obligated to make sure that I paid attention to everybody else.

Right.

You're just starving to be noticed.

And this is you know,

This led to psychological and spiritual exhaustion exhaustion because I was living a false life for decades.

And what happens in these,

You know,

Emotionally immature households like mine is.

You are defined by the family role that you played.

Who you are,

You know,

Underneath all that,

You know,

Baggage is hidden because you have no idea how to see it.

Look forward,

Explore it,

Nurture it because you're too busy doing it for everybody else.

Everyone should have called you mom.

Yeah,

A motherfucker.

I would answer to that too.

You still answer to that.

Not when my husband says it.

So who you become.

Is formed by the relationship you have to yourself and you have no relationship to yourself.

Or a terrible one.

Everything outside of you will be a reflection of that.

And I found out the hard way on that dark day in 2014 that what I needed to do was change the relationship I had with myself.

And looking back over the past five years,

Six years.

Changing the relationship that I had with myself changed the way I looked at my life and the way I interacted with those around me,

Whether you were close to me or a stranger.

So you're saying that growing up,

Your relationship with yourself was nonexistent or messed up?

It was a combination of nonexistent,

You know,

Shame,

Guilt,

Confusion.

So had you had a healthier childhood with less toxic parents,

That probably wouldn't have happened.

You would have found yourself.

I would have found out who I was,

What I liked.

You wouldn't have made the mistakes that you made and taken the road.

You would have made other mistakes,

But for the right reasons.

You wouldn't have taken the roads you took.

And there were times,

Yeah,

I definitely would have chosen a different path.

However,

You know,

My kids are the greatest thing ever.

So,

You know,

I take enormous comfort in that.

That's great.

The youngest is the more sensitive one.

And she's very quick to feel guilty.

She was hardwired that way because I was very anti-guilt.

But I could see in the wrong household,

You know,

That guilt would become the forefront of everything she did.

Had she not had a household that,

You know,

Sort of kept that at bay.

Wow.

That's really interesting.

Yeah.

And my oldest had my tendency to,

You know,

Freak out.

And she has worked on it to try to tame that.

And she's getting,

You know,

She's doing better than ever.

That's great.

Neither one of them,

It was never debilitating,

But it was a character trait.

But it never took over their lives and consumed their lives the way some of these organic traits took over my life.

Right.

Well,

Because you didn't have the right nurturing environment to help you get over those traits or not have them become what they became.

Or manage them.

You know,

That's all about having a non-toxic childhood is learning how to manage your emotions.

You know,

We talked about the amygdala.

That was totally in charge.

And it's not how,

It's not a good way to live.

It's chaos.

So Dr.

Joni Sweb,

She has a couple of books,

And she coined the term childhood emotional neglect.

And she's fantastic.

I have a link to her book,

Both on my website,

In my book,

And I will also have one in the notes.

Fantastic.

And I quote her,

If I were to boil emotional immaturity down to one primary ingredient,

It would be this,

An inability or refusal to take responsibility for your own feelings.

When you think about it,

Maturity is mostly about responsibility.

Children are not capable of being responsible for much.

And that makes sense.

Their brains are not fully developed.

After all,

Research on the human brain has shown that it does not fully develop until age 25.

Right.

So if you think about the child brain,

You know,

On her,

Based on her definition,

Having that kind of,

You know,

Emotional responsibility of immature parents,

It's pretty physically damaging.

Yeah.

I mean,

A kid is not ready for that.

Absolutely.

And I was not ready for it.

And people like me who grew up with,

You know,

Emotionally immature parents are often exhausted all the time.

And they don't know why.

Wow.

It's so draining.

It really is.

You know,

It's really interesting.

Did you have that aha moment when you gave birth to your children?

Like when you were like,

Oh,

I get it now.

Or I see what it means to be a mother.

Something we never knew.

Right.

I mean,

I remember growing up,

I was fairly selfish,

I think,

And self-centered as I think children should be in a way.

And I remember once I had children,

I was like,

Oh,

I get it now.

I see like the responsibility factor that I didn't see before,

How I have to care for other people.

For you,

I mean,

I see that it started much younger because you were caring for your parents.

But it's that kind of that realization when you become an adult where you say,

Now I know what it means to be responsible for other people or for children.

You had to have that too early in life.

Absolutely.

I actually,

One of the weird things that I do remember is never crying.

Ever.

As a kid.

I don't remember.

Why?

Were you shamed out of it?

I know.

I think I numbed myself,

You know,

And I talk about dissociation in my book and we'll do,

You know,

Podcast 84.

We'll be on dissociation.

And that's,

You know,

That's a total disconnection from what you're feeling and what your needs are.

You know,

Some people become,

You know,

Overly emotional and clingy.

You know,

It's all about attachment style,

Which we talked about,

I think,

In season one.

Yeah.

But we'll talk about it again in more detail.

So I was the opposite.

I cried all the time.

I was so emotionally,

I was empathetic,

Like overly.

Compassion fatigue.

Oh,

My God.

Yeah.

Everything made me cry.

Still does.

You know,

Actually,

You sound like my parents just then.

So some of examples of the emotional immaturity that my parents would demonstrate,

They would switch quickly and often back and forth from being cold and explosive and unpredictable.

Now,

Are you saying this was your mother and stepfather separately and your father separately?

Or are we talking about your mother and father before they got divorced?

All three of them are like that all the time.

Got it.

Got it.

Okay.

And still are.

So we're talking about all three of them.

All three of them.

Wow.

Okay.

Yes.

And I remember the,

You know,

The few times I would actually try to communicate with my mother,

She was always awkward in responding.

And I didn't notice that because she didn't know what to do.

And she didn't know that she didn't know.

And so now I was okay.

I'm still left to my to figure this out on my own.

All three of them have always lived in their own little world,

Truly disconnected from everybody,

Including themselves.

And they still do.

And it's very obvious to me.

You know,

On this healing journey,

You can tell when people just live in a state of fear or hyper reaction or unhealthy stoic ness or perpetual childlike responses to things.

That's in your own little world because there's no rational assessment as to what's going on.

And I was like that.

So everything is externally based.

You know,

I've seen,

You know,

All three of them are often pretty rude to waitstaff with no clue how they're coming across.

No clue.

You know,

And,

You know,

My visiting my my dad,

As I said,

On that wonderful family holiday.

And,

You know,

My kids had the golf cart and it started raining and he called and,

You know,

Where are you,

You know,

Freaking out because the golf cart might get wet.

You know,

That's that a whole,

You know,

Tiny little world.

And I could give more examples of that.

But the other the other.

But I want to get into the other things so that people that are listening can sort of think about if their parents are behaving immaturely,

They can at least have a label to it because they recognize it more to.

Exactly.

So,

You know,

Denying anger or not expressing anger the right way at the right time and then having outbursts about something totally unrelated.

That's passive aggressive.

So they'll be mad about something else.

And then they'll yell at you about something else.

And,

You know,

All of my,

You know,

Parents do that with each other,

Throwing a tantrum for the sake of getting attention or just to show you how mad they are.

It's childlike.

Yeah.

You know,

You know,

If you had,

You know,

Two siblings arguing over,

You know,

Clothes or toys or whatever,

And,

You know,

They see things later on,

One of them goes and breaks a toy just to get back at them.

It's kind of like that.

And that's what a lot of emotionally immature parents will do.

And as I stated,

Putting their own feelings and needs ahead of the children.

All three of my parents have done that.

My biological father does that less so now.

So I give him credit for that.

Why do you think that is?

Is just because he's getting older and slower or do you have any realization or anything?

He seems to have moments of clarity.

He does not change his behavior,

But he has moments of clarity.

And it will come out,

You know,

His guilt and shame and what he did will come out.

And he tries to make sure everything is good when we come visit.

And he tries,

But then it comes out in other ways.

But I accept his limitations and I'm grateful that he tries.

It's all I can do.

That's all you can do.

That's all I can do.

And this more directly is about my mother is they were.

They like to control and manipulate me as a way to make themselves feel better,

Like a bully.

Now,

You told a story in your book about a haircut that you got.

And that's you just made me think of that.

It was a harrowing story about about a haircut.

Do you want to tell that story?

I am happy to tell this story.

What bothers me is I I don't know the reason why she did this.

So I was in sixth grade.

And for some reason,

She cut my had my hair cut short.

She controlled my life.

I just was a store mat.

I did whatever she wanted.

And it was just really awful.

And I ended up getting bullied at school because of this awful haircut.

And it was pretty,

You know,

Pretty terrible.

And that was when the first thoughts of suicide started to creep into my head.

Wow.

That I didn't want.

Sixth grade.

Sixth grade.

Or wanting to disappear.

And then as I got seventh grade,

Eighth grade,

Ninth grade,

Then disappear became thoughts of death.

So.

Wow.

And it was always,

You know,

Terrible thoughts.

It was scary thoughts.

But I asked her why she gave me that haircut.

And she said it was the style.

And.

I don't believe her.

But the only reason why narcissistic mothers want to make their daughters ugly is because they're getting attractive.

Of course.

I don't think I was.

And that's where the confusion for me lies is I don't understand.

Does she remember it?

Have you brought it up ever?

Yeah.

She thinks it's funny.

So you had what do you have long hair?

Yeah.

And she just took you somewhere and said,

Cut it short.

Yeah.

And the hairdresser was in on it like they had the hairdresser,

I think,

Had the same style.

I remember correctly.

But it wasn't the right style for you.

Was the worst thing.

Wow.

So she made a terrible mistake.

And now she thinks it's funny.

She never admitted.

She never said,

You know what,

I shouldn't have done that or I'm sorry,

I did that or anything like that.

You know,

I have chosen to not engage in rehashing the past with her because it doesn't do anything for me.

Right.

It doesn't help me.

Just keeps me stuck at being angry.

And that's I want to be unstuck.

Right.

I just have to accept that it happened.

And like,

You know,

Both my kids have long hair and I can't imagine what it would do to them if I were to cut it short.

Like and to the point where they looked ridiculous.

Wow.

My kids are both in their 20s and they want me to go with them to the hairstylist to just be there when they get their hair cut.

Just to make sure.

Just they need my input just to be there.

And I'm glad to do it.

Why not?

I understand.

Hair is important.

Especially teenage girls.

So emotional immaturity leads to parentification.

I'm going to get into particularly emotional parentification.

So when you are parentified,

You distrust your own world and the world around you.

And that is a big destructive consequence.

And parentified means means you are the parent.

Yes.

Parentified child is the parent to your parents.

Correct.

Gregory Jurgovic wrote a book,

Lost Childhood.

The plight of the parentified child.

I have that link in my notes and they talks about emotional parentification and there's this physical too.

But I only want to talk about what I experienced.

I had food,

Clothing and shelter.

And,

You know,

I did have dinner on the table,

Although starting in first grade,

I did make my own lunch every day.

Did you?

Yes.

But that was it.

At least,

You know,

She washed my clothes.

So anyway,

Emotional parentification.

You you I have the impossible role of meeting the emotional and psychological needs of my mother and my stepdad enabled it.

You know,

Once he was on the scene and when you are denied a childhood and get connecting to your true self,

You are set up for dysfunctional behavior patterns forever.

And being an innocent child,

That's exploitation.

It's it's a parentification is a form of emotional and psychological abuse because parentified children have to suppress their own needs.

And this comes at the expense of having normal identity development and lack of a healthy emotional bond with your mother.

And therefore,

You have a unhealthy relationship with your mother,

An unhealthy relationship with yourself.

And that's not going to get fixed with unhealthy relationships with your significant others and your friends.

Yeah.

And you believe that being self-reliant is safer than trusting others.

So you never ask for help.

I did not have anyone reliable to turn to.

And I was busy making sure everyone else's emotional needs were met and I was not seen.

Desperate for attention and desperate for someone to show me that they care.

Did you have anyone in your family or friends or anybody that was able to help?

Not until I got into therapy at 16.

So I had nothing.

Wow.

And I had no one.

And it was terrible.

So you were on your own with these questions and these thoughts and and knowing that something was wrong.

Yes.

I knew something was wrong.

You just didn't know.

I thought something was wrong with me.

Right.

And that's,

You know,

Everything that we talk about,

Toxic childhood,

Toxic parents.

The the anger and the rage and the hatred instead of these godlike parents turns inward because there's no.

Why would the people who gave birth to you that are supposed to take care of you treat you this way?

Right.

It doesn't make sense.

Doesn't make sense.

So to rationalize it,

You turn inward.

And that compulsive caretaking,

You know,

Is connected to codependency,

Which we have mentioned.

We will devote a whole podcast on that.

But that's peak compulsive caretaking,

Compulsive people pleasing.

And that goes through life.

And that,

Again,

When you when it restricts identity development,

You live life externally based and in hyper reactive mode.

And there are studies out there saying destructive parent parentification in a family carries over through generations.

You know,

Mothers who were overburdened for any reason as a child or abandoned.

Ends up not being able to understand their own children's developmental needs and limitations,

Which leads to a parenting style that lacks warmth and sensitivity.

And it goes on and on and on until someone says this has to stop.

And that stops here.

That's right.

We'll be right back.

Who will I ever be?

TikTok.

Am I in too deep?

TikTok.

I dare to dream.

TikTok.

It's time to break free.

And we're back.

Yes,

We are.

I missed you.

Parentified children can become very angry people.

I think I was kind of angry.

You were.

You were.

Oh,

I was pissed off all the time.

I had love hate relationship with myself.

I had a love hate relation.

Actually,

I hate hate relationship with myself.

I love hate relationship with the parent.

So I never knew why I was angry,

But I was easily angered.

And easily slighted all the time.

And it would be both change.

Sometimes it was explosive anger where I was yelling and on sometimes it was passive anger where I was just seething.

Was it was it like a diss were you disappointed in people or or triggered by people?

I was triggered by everything because I was always scanning my life on a day to day basis,

Minute by minute for threats and looking for ways to protect myself.

Because when you're in constant pain,

That's what you do.

You know,

It's almost like if you know,

If you had a cut on the bottom of your foot,

You know,

You can't put pressure on it.

This is just going to hurt.

Right.

If you have a cut inside your soul,

Everything puts pressure on it.

And that's exactly how I lived.

Wow.

That's a song right there.

They're inside your soul.

We have to get started on that.

And,

You know,

All of a sudden it's well,

They didn't invite me here and they didn't call me this.

And if they really care,

Your expectations of people were unrealistic.

They're both unreal and unrealistic and untrusting.

So it's like this double edged sword.

I didn't trust anybody,

But I held high expectations for me and for them.

And,

You know,

If they let me down,

See,

I'm right not to trust people.

So were your parents and stepfather like that,

Too?

Yes.

They had high expectations for me,

But not for themselves.

That's where the irony is.

Wow.

Whereas I had them for myself and for other people.

But anything that makes you feel like you're not important,

You're going to get angry at,

Even if whatever it is that you're experiencing is unintentional.

And that's where that chronic misery and exhaustion came from for me.

And when I started my healing journey and reading,

One of the things I keep saying is what was my role in why I'm at this such a low point?

The very second I stopped blaming other people was when I started to heal and things started to make sense.

Because when you are,

You know,

You get wrapped up in your story,

You get wrapped up in what was done to you.

And a lot of it is most of it's terrible.

You know,

When you read these books and these mothers putting their kids on on diets or,

Well,

Well,

You got an A,

How come you didn't get an A plus?

And,

You know,

There's one where the mother,

You know,

Slept with her,

You know,

As an adult,

Slept with her adult daughter's boyfriend.

I mean,

It just goes on and on.

Terrible things.

So terrible things happen.

You think you're a terrible person and then you think the world's terrible.

So by holding on to those stories keeps us stuck and holding on to,

Well,

This is why I'm that way keeps you stuck.

So instead of blaming,

You decided to take responsibility for your feelings or for your what do you mean when you say that?

Great question.

Thank you.

Once I figured out why I go back to that Lisa A.

Romanov video of what narcissistic mother was.

And I realized that it was the problem was her,

Not me.

That the next step was,

Well,

What can I do to fix this?

Because I can't fix her.

I cannot change what happened.

That's a great realization there.

Right.

And it's up.

You know,

You can be given a lot of crappy ingredients.

But maybe if you mix them up right,

You can make something better.

Well,

You it sounds like you took control of your feelings,

Of your life,

And you sort of started to kind of put everything in its place and where it came from and where it belongs.

I took control of what was on the inside instead of trying to control what was on the outside.

And when you see a lot of people acting crazy the way I used to angry or or lost in their own little world or,

You know,

Hyper neat or hyper competitive or,

You know,

You know,

Addictions of all kinds,

Whether it's substance abuse or other kinds of addictions.

They're that's that they're self soothing their pain and their control.

They're trying to control what's outside of them rather than what's inside,

Which is much harder to do because you can't control goes on outside of you think you can.

And that's that whole denial.

Right.

All you can do is control what's going on inside of you.

Yeah.

And when you heal from the inside out.

Things get better.

Slowly,

Because there's a grieving process you know usually behind most anger and rage is grief.

Grief that you were denied a childhood that you deserved,

And a lot of us,

You know,

Have experienced that,

Especially when you sort of reach my point,

And you've made a lot of inauthentic decisions,

Or,

You know,

Not authentically based life choices,

You know,

Particularly in that I say that with my career,

You know I have a whole,

You know,

You know,

Artsy side that was really who I was.

And,

You know,

It got neglected,

It got neglected and I didn't even know it existed.

So,

And that's,

You know,

When that,

You know,

That was that cut.

That was the cut in the soul.

That was the part of my soul that kept bleeding because I wasn't living.

I wasn't connected to my true self.

And I know when you hear the world divine self,

You know people,

Your true self your inner child everyone's like Oh hippie dippie do kumbaya.

I get it,

I get it,

You know,

Roll your eyes.

But the fact is,

It is a true real thing.

Your inner child is who you're supposed to be your true self your divine self.

Is who you are underneath all those baggage,

All that baggage all those walls,

All those lies because you are raised with people who lie to themselves,

And to you,

Because that's what they know.

So once I realized,

And I went back in my family history and realized how all this shame,

Blame,

Greed,

Doubt,

Anger,

Rage,

Defense mechanisms,

Toxic self sentence went through over 100 years.

And like it doesn't have to be this way.

I don't have to be this way.

I can take control over what's going on,

And how I react to people who don't want to fix themselves.

And so how long was the grieving process for you once you realized on I would say,

You know,

Intensely it was,

You know,

On and off for a couple years.

And there's still moments of it,

You know,

I buy it's a,

It's a looks like yoga,

It's a practice,

It's not something that.

All right,

We're done.

You know,

You never done right well people suffer from childhood scars for for their whole lives.

Yeah,

They had 18 years to teach you how not to be.

18 years to teach you what not to do.

It's not going to unravel all that quickly and then that's why some people probably stop going to therapy.

I know my dad stopped going to therapy because it's too painful.

It's too painful to face.

Yeah.

And that's where that healing process gets ugly.

It's true they say that in therapy they said it's gonna get ugly.

Be prepared.

But then it gets better,

Better than you ever thought,

Because,

You know,

Being able to put all that,

You know,

Get that boulder off my shoulder,

I should say boulders,

Because there was more than one.

It's,

It's very freeing and then when you see people acting like the way I used to.

I feel sorry for them.

And I'm like,

Oh my god,

You're going to live another 4050 years like that.

That's a long time.

Yeah.

And now you recognize it now you say it's it's is like the color their eyes.

Yeah,

It's,

You know,

And I,

I and sometimes I have to make myself turn it off,

Because it's just so easy for me to see because you know I was in it,

I was there for them clarity.

Yeah.

Wow.

So,

Just a little tidbit here.

If you were raised by emotionally immature parents.

It did affect you.

And you are likely living with those effects today.

It is not a lifetime sentence.

You can,

You know,

Pull yourself out of that cloud of confusion,

And the glass is going to fall.

You can pull yourself out of confusion and neglect,

Make yourself better.

Listen to the stock stops here.

That's your priority.

If you start paying attention to situations that trigger you,

You will begin to develop more awareness,

More understanding and be able to connect and respond to emotions emotions don't go away.

You just stop living from your amygdala,

And from fear and protection,

And you move it to your prefrontal cortex.

I'm going to talk about that podcast 93,

Where it's rational based thinking.

So you can say okay that's this is this is the one that says okay,

That's not what's really happening.

So the emotions there,

But then it's what you do with it right or you could ask yourself is this real.

That's right.

Is it real what I'm thinking right now.

You know,

Learning how to regulate self regulate your own emotional skills reparent yourself and being accountable for your own behavior,

Which I have done with a lot of work.

I'm not saying that I'm thinking I'm saying that these things were necessary to get to a better place,

Right.

That's how we got to this place right here,

Where we're doing this podcast and we're trying to help people see and understand that their lives can improve,

It can get better.

And then you see that your path to healing and connecting to your true self has to take into account the way your trauma changed your story.

Once you do that,

You then can add resiliency to your story.

And then after that,

Become comes honesty and authenticity and peace.

I don't say happiness because I think that's a dirty word.

Yeah,

But peace and contentment contentment Yeah,

It's funny we we did a yoga class.

And I think it was two years there yoga class and they asked us to think of a word they said think of a word that you know you want to be your word for the,

For the year maybe even.

And I thought,

I'm pretty content content was a very good word.

Content was,

You know,

I used to think that content was just,

You know,

Boring,

And like a not happy enough word,

But content is a really good word content is not an exciting word,

And I think sometimes when you were raised with any kind of trauma.

You become,

You know,

One of the side effects,

As was with me can be addiction to destinations and excitement.

You know when that could tie into gambling,

You know I'm not a gambler,

But that's a that's a possibility destination is you know,

You know,

Approval seeking you know give me the,

Where's the trophy,

Where's the bonus where's the promotion.

Will my children,

You know,

Excel so that I can brag about that and prove that I'm worthy,

You know,

It can trans,

You know,

It can,

It can pollute a lot of areas.

But it doesn't last.

It does not last a jolt you know you get like a little caffeine jolt,

Like a little jolt of excitement but it does not last,

I think all those non substance abuse addictions work the same way as a drug addiction does.

It's a quick fix.

I'm not saying it's,

You know,

More serious at all.

Again,

I always like to say,

I say this every time I mean no disrespect to the severity of drug addiction and substance abuse so that's not my goal.

I'm not equated to people to take some of their reaction to their trauma seriously,

And if it's working out four hours a day in an effort to look perfect so that you feel better.

That's an addiction.

I'm not saying it's great,

But anything that's used to perpetually self soothe that is externally based will always be just a quick fix.

Yeah,

And nothing more.

Yeah.

And where's the contentment in that there is no contentment because that's where it's just a quick fix content is,

You know,

I do the best I can.

I did an unreasonable request from my boss,

And it was impossible for me to do it.

And I said,

You know,

I have these other projects to do.

I can't do it.

I'm physically unable,

Because it would affect other things that I was working on.

I mean I would have freaked out and tried to accomplish it,

Two years ago because I was super woman.

I was just gonna ask you how that would have been tried to do that because I'm the best.

And I'm going to prove that I'm the best,

Which is the opposite I actually think I was,

I thought it was the worst,

But if I accomplish it I go from worst to best for the for a moment.

Are you tired,

I'm just tired of repeating what I used to do,

Nevermind living it right.

So,

So you so you told your boss that you can do it.

Yeah.

That was an honest,

Authentic answer.

Absolutely,

Because I was setting both myself up in this project for failure.

I also learned that at times you have to say no to things.

I also used to try to do everything for everybody.

And I realized that there were times that I actually was okay,

It's okay to say no boundaries,

No is a great word podcast 68 boundaries.

Awesome.

So how are we going to close this episode one of season two the stuck stops here Tammy.

So,

What I would love.

Anyone have any questions or topics you would like covered.

Definitely,

Email me.

Yeah.

I would,

I obviously as you know I keep talking about podcasts I'm covered to podcast 99 but yeah we love doing this,

I can rearrange the order.

I think a lot about,

You know,

The,

You know the lyrics and the music,

Which is,

You know,

One part of every podcast and our website so every song has,

You know,

Similar theme in terms of,

You know,

It sucked but we can make it better.

You know,

Again,

Trying to attack your attack your brain in a positive way.

So you can read a book,

You can listen to a podcast,

You can listen to music.

Do what makes you feel good.

Right.

Any,

Anything that you can do to make yourself think differently.

And that's what makes you think a little bit rather than running in circles,

You know,

Being reacting to those things around you.

That's where yoga comes in meditation comes in music journaling every book,

I have read.

And I've read a lot every video I have watched and I've watched a lot every article I have read,

And I have read a lot.

I'll talk about journaling and writing things down.

And that is a huge thing to start doing and ever all the books that I have on my website,

Come with like PDFs to download and write and exercises that you can do all developed by professionals.

There is content on the internet,

There is.

That's why I tried to,

You know,

Be the gateway to all that content because it's overwhelming,

Which is actually scary that there's so much devoted to this topic of childhood,

Emotional abuse and the glass is so much you're not alone out there,

You are not alone.

Whenever I used to find.

I was in a predicament and I didn't understand what was happening psychologically I would go to the bookstore.

Now I go to the internet but I used to go to the bookstore and find things to read from the psychology section to give me clarity,

And to help me find figure out what's going on,

Because we know you know somewhere innately we know something's wrong.

We just can't figure out what it is and how to fix it.

And most of the time we think something's wrong with us.

Yeah,

Which is not the not true.

Right false.

Right.

And I actually started writing a second book.

Wow,

That's super exciting.

Yeah.

I don't know when it'll be ready.

Does it have a title.

It's a rough title.

The rough title.

I'm gonna keep it on title for the most part.

Okay,

For now,

Just because there's three there's three titles I'm tossing around.

Nice,

But different from the first one.

Wow.

Excellent.

So if you want to read the first book,

The stuck stops here,

Go to our website the stuck stops here.

Com.

It follow us on Instagram,

Twitter,

Twitter,

And the books on Amazon,

Easy books on Amazon,

And you can download on Kindle.

Yeah,

It's a good read.

And so next next week we have found family we're interviewing Lizzie from the found family podcast I was on her podcast,

January 1.

She is terrific she had a mother similar to mine and her stories are very similar and I can't wait to have her on and have you guys.

Hear what she has to say.

Fantastic.

Until next time.

Get on stuck.

All right,

See ya.

Tick tock.

Who will I ever be.

Tick tock.

Am I into the tick tock.

I dare to dream.

Tick tock.

It's time to break free.

Tick tock.

Who will I ever be.

Tick tock.

Am I into the tick tock.

I dare to dream.

Tick tock.

It's time to break free.