Grief in Parenting Kids with Vulnerable Nervous Systems {EP 129}


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In this episode we tackle the difficult topic of grief. And while we’ve explored grief on the podcast before, it’s something we really can’t talk about enough because, in our culture, grief isn’t talked about enough — especially grief in parenting. Even more so in parenting kids with a history of trauma and toxic stress. 

When we don’t talk about something, when we don’t connect with it or give it relational resonance, we run the risk of it morphing into shame. So, we talk about hard stuff here. 

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Where There is Trauma, There is Grief

A mentor once told me that trauma work is really grief work. 

Underneath all trauma is a need – a really righteous need – that wasn’t met.

And the tapestry of integrating trauma always brings us back to the precipice of the grief.

Facing a Pit of Grief

In my own work, I stood and looked at the pit of grief for a really long time, before I was willing to take any step toward it. My therapist assured me that when my system was ready – when it experienced enough safety – I would be able to face the grief. 

And even as I’ve been able to do the work of grieving, I still struggle to connect with grief – to know how to grieve. 

Unfortunately, no one can tell us how (trust me, I have asked for specific instructions), but I have some thoughts about how we can begin to explore grief on our own paths.

What We Learn about Grief When We are Young

We can start with exploring the cultural (both overt and covert) messages we’ve received about grief in our culture and in our families of origin, etc.

I ask parents these four questions:

  • How does your child know that feelings are ok?
  • How does your child know that it’s ok to have hard or uncomfortable feelings?
  • How does your child know that feeling grief is ok?
  • How does your child know that grief specific to adoption – or to the loss or the trauma that they’ve endured – is ok?

And then, I want you to take those four questions and ask them of yourself: 

  • How did I learn in my own family when I was small that feelings were okay? 
  • And that hard feelings are okay? 
  • And that feeling grief, specifically, is okay? 
  • Or that grief specific to a traumatic loss is okay? 

And now, in your adulthood, how do you show up for yourself in a way that tells you and all of your inner parts, especially your youngest and most vulnerable parts, that all feelings are okay? That hard feelings are okay? That grief is okay? And that grief related to a traumatic loss is okay? 

Can you acknowledge the grief that comes with parenting a child with trauma and toxic stress, a child with big, baffling behaviors and a vulnerable nervous system? 

Can you lean into the truth that although some families may experience what you’d consider to be harder or more worthy of grief, that doesn’t diminish your experience of hard or your righteous grief?

The Role of Self-Compassion

The courage to grieve comes with the courage for being with yourself with self compassion. 

How can you grieve everything you’ve lost, if you can’t have the compassion for yourself, to acknowledge those losses? 

Sometimes you’ll be consumed with grief, and sometimes you’ll be consumed with shame. And sometimes you’ll be able to flex your self-compassion muscle. And sometimes you’ll be able to hold in mindful awareness how exceptionally hard things are for you and your family and your child.

The Grief of Not Being Seen

In our media and in the larger community, families like yours do not get much, if any, representation. Those moments where you encounter parenting advice that doesn’t work for a child with a vulnerable nervous system, can bring up unexpected grief. 

It’s an experience of micro loss when parents of kids with vulnerable nervous systems don’t get to be seen and reflected in the ways that other families get to be seen. 

That’s part of what drives me on this podcast: to create a space where you instantly feel seen, without having to work too hard, or sort through too much to find that moment of being known. 

Resources in mentioned in this podcast:

Robyn’s book: Raising Kids with Big, Baffling Behaviors

Ongoing support, connection, and co-regulation for struggling parents: The Club

Listen on the Podcast

This blog is a short summary of a longer episode on the Parenting after Trauma podcast.
Find the Parenting after Trauma podcast on Apple Podcast, Google, Spotify, or in your favorite podcast app.
Or, you can read the entire transcript of the episode by scrolling down and clicking ‘transcript.’

Robyn

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Q&A: My Child Hates Having their Feelings Validated! {EP 128}


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Why does my child hate having their feelings validated?

In this episode, I talk about the top 5 reasons I see about why kids don’t like their feelings validated:

  1. It feels too vulnerable
  2. It feels intrusive
  3. You’re getting it wrong
  4. You’re on the watchdog or possum pathway
  5. They are too far down the watchdog & possum pathway

This is a Friday Q&A episode, where I answer a listener’s question.

Additional Resources:

Regulated Does Not Mean Calm https://robyngobbel.com/lisadion

Toxic Shame Series https://robyngobbel.com/toxicshame

Has Trauma Informed Become another Behavior Modification Technique? https://robyngobbel.com/traumainformed/

Robyn

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The Mother Load with Meredith Ethington {EP 127}


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Today on the podcast, I am introducing you to my longtime, dear friend, Meredith Ethington. 

Meredith Ethington is an award winning writer, and published author of The Mother Load coming April 18, 2023 and her 2018 debut parenting book, Mom Life: Perfection Pending. She’s also a mom of three kids residing in Salt Lake City, UT. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology. She began writing in 2007 as a way to document life as a new mom, but quickly realized that she had a passion for writing, and has turned it into her career.

The Power of Authenticity and Storytelling

When Meredith began blogging back in 2007, she was struck with how much response she got when her writing touched on her own mental health and the often invisible challenges and unspoken struggles in parenting. Parents reached out to her with gratitude and comments like, “I thought it was just me.”

She knew it was important to use her voice to help other parents feel seen and known.

Mental Health and Parenting

Meredith reflects on the challenges of balancing the emotional demands of parenting while honoring our own emotional vulnerability: 

“When you’re parenting with your own personal struggles and trying to maintain your own sense of self and be centered and be present, it’s really challenging when you’ve got a person in front of you that’s even more vulnerable, and needs you to be the person who can hold space for them.”

Can I show up and be here for my child in this moment, and then also allow my own vulnerability to come to the surface and get the attention that it needs and deserves, in a different moment? 

Of course, it is possible – it is always possible – yet it can be challenging to create space for both when, as Meredith calls it, the mother load is demanding so much of us all the time.

The Invisible Load

The invisible mental load that many parents face is one of the factors that Meredith brings to light as impacting mental health.

“Society’s expectations for parents and the pervasive culture of toxic positivity don’t give space for parents to be open and honest about the struggles of mental health and the mental load.”

Meredith’s new book, The Mother Load, is available the day this podcast airs, April 18, 2023.

Resources in mentioned in this podcast:

Listen on the Podcast

This blog is a short summary of a longer episode on the Parenting after Trauma podcast.
Find the Parenting after Trauma podcast on Apple Podcast, Google, Spotify, or in your favorite podcast app.
Or, you can read the entire transcript of the episode by scrolling down and clicking ‘transcript.’

Robyn

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Q&A: What Does this Look Like with Teens? {EP 126}


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What does this way of parenting look like with teens?

In this episode, I:

  • Reassure you that teens want to be parented with playfulness and connection, too
  • Explore what’s hard about realizing we don’t have control over anyone’s behavior- including our teens
  • Remind you that the behavior you want to see from your teen are all owl brain skills, so keep using regulation, connection, and felt safety to grow their owl brain

This is a Friday Q&A episode, where I answer a listener’s question.

Additional Resources:

Parenting in the Eye of the Storm by Katie Naftzger

Brainstorm by Dan Siegel

How to Talk to Your Teen About Anything by Katie Malinski

Podcast episode with Katie Malinski: https://robyngobbel.com/talktoyourteen/

Robyn

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When You Feel Like a Parenting Failure {EP 125}


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Do You Feel Like a Parenting Failure?

For the mom and dad or grandma or grandpa or caregiver who is worried they are making things worse because of how they are parenting:

You have tried so hard to be the parent you want to be.

You have tried so hard to break cycles. To not parent the way you were parented.

And I’ll bet that sometimes, you end up parenting or behaving in exactly the way you are trying not to.

And maybe sometimes it’s really bad.

Not just chicken nuggets instead of a gourmet meal bad- because that’s not bad.

Not just couldn’t make it to your kid’s holiday party at school bad because also- that’s not bad.

And not even just yelling bad.

But maybe saying things or doing things that really truly are bad. 

Things that if you told me about it, we’d sit together in the truth that there are parts of your inner world that are holding a lot of hurt, and sometimes those parts hurt other people, too. 

And maybe that other person is your child.

What I Want You to Know

If we were together, I wouldn’t lie to you and tell you it’s no big deal.

Or that kids are resilient.

I wouldn’t betray your trust by lying to you. I wouldn’t try to make you or me more comfortable.

But I would show you that I could be with you in this place that hurts.

I’d sit you with you in the truth. 

We would grieve.

We’d grieve that it takes more than one generation to heal from multiple generations of hurt and trauma.

We’d grieve that it’s not fair.

We’d grieve that you are likely doing the work of two, three, maybe four generations.

We’d grieve that this is the most painful place to be. The place of awareness- to be able to see that you want to do something different- but not have enough regulation, enough internalization of safety, to do something different. 

And we’d grieve the truth that I can’t promise you that you will have enough regulation to parent the way you want to while your child is still a child.

That maybe your child will have a lot of work to do too to be able to parent the way that they want to.

Then I’d remind you of something really, really, really important.

Something that is almost impossible for you to see.

You might not even believe me.

But one thing that’s true is that I know a lot about the brain.

I’ve held the enormous privilege of being with kids who are hurting, kids who have had unthinkable things happen.

Also adults who have had unthinkable things happen to them.

What Your Child Wants You to Know

They all have told me, in different ways, how it would have mattered to them if their parent had ever acted in a way that suggested they were AWARE of how they were behaving. That they were aware it was hurting them. That they were doing something to try to do things differently- even if they actually couldn’t do anything different.

They would tell me that it matters. That it would have mattered to them if they had a parent who had known they were hurting them and were trying to stop.

You are Not Alone. You are Seen.

And yes. We would sit and acknowledge that it’s not enough. That you want to do different. And in a lot of circumstances you do. And in some circumstances you simply just can’t.

The hurt and the chaos that still lives in your inner world is sometimes still too much.

And it’s not your fault. 

Just like I’m confident that your child’s innerworld is healing at exactly the pace that is right for them, I’m confident that yours is too.

And I know you’re furious, disappointed, angry, devastated…that it can’t be faster.

You’re so mad that you aren’t in control. That you can’t move faster. If we were together, I’d be with you in that mad.

In that rage. In that fury. In that devastation.

We’d be together. I wouldn’t offer you any platitudes. I’d sit with you in your anguish.

And I would know that my willingness to be with you in your deepest pain is the best we can both do. There is no strategy or technique. If there was, you’d have mastered it by now.

But you are being brave by letting me be with you.

You are being brave by allowing your hurt to arise. And to let my presence touch you. 

You are taking in exactly what you can. I trust you. I know that you wish you could go faster. I wish you could too. We’re not in charge.

You see your children’s hurt.

They are seen and known by you.

Not just in their goodness.

But in their hurt.

Even in the hurt that you cause. 

And that really matters. It matters so much.

I promise you.

I’m not trying to make you feel better. But I do want you to know I see you. I see you in your hurt.

Listen on the Podcast

This blog is a short summary of a longer episode on the Parenting after Trauma podcast.
Find the Parenting after Trauma podcast on Apple Podcast, Google, Spotify, or in your favorite podcast app.
Or, you can read the entire transcript of the episode by scrolling down and clicking ‘transcript.’

Robyn

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Q&A: Should my Child be in Individual or Family Therapy? {EP 124}


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Should my child- who has a history of attachment trauma- be only doing family therapy? Or is it OK for them to do individual therapy?

In this episode, I:

  • Reassure you that this is a nuanced decision with no clear answer
  • Describe when individual therapy might be most appropriate
  • Describe when family therapy might be most appropriate

This is a Friday Q&A episode, where I answer a listener’s question.

Additional Resources:

https://robyngobbel.com/childintherapy

Robyn

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Healing Blocked Care with Melissa Corkum and Lisa Qualls {EP 123}


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Melissa Corkum and Lisa Qualls are the power duo behind The Adoption Connection. They offer support to adoptive families, including a faith-based community Reclaim Compassion. Melissa is both an adoptive mom and an adopted person. Lisa is an adoptive mom, former foster youth, and has lost children to adoption. They are both trained in TBRI and Melissa is a Safe and Sound Protocol provider- she was on the podcast back when I did a series on strengthening the foundation of the brain. Melissa and Lisa have just published an important book together all about helping adoptive parents who are experiencing blocked care. This is their first book together, though Lisa previously published The Connected Parent with Dr. Karyn Purvis. Clearly, these two women are powerhouses in helping parents of kids with vulnerable nervous systems and I’m so thrilled to bring you this conversation about blocked care- what it is, what causes it, and how families can begin to recover. 

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What is Blocked Care

Blocked Care is language identified by Jon Baylin & Dan Hughes which describes the experience whereby: 

Overwhelming stress in a parent’s nervous system can create this subconscious, not on purpose, self-protective mechanism that makes it so that some of the parts of our brain and nervous system that bring us the joy and the compassion into parenting shut down.

This can look like parents who are doing a lot of the actions of parenting (i.e., making therapy appointments, packing lunches, driving kids, etc.), but all the reward of parenting– that reciprocal relationship, the enjoyment, the satisfaction– has left, and it leaves parents feeling a sense of apathy towards parenting, which then cycles into guilt and shame.

The stress in a parent’s nervous system that causes blocked care is not always, but can often be related to big, baffling behaviors.

Especially for Melissa and Lisa’s audience, adoptive and foster families, this can begin with early adverse experiences that a lot of our kids come to us with that are really hard on the nervous system. What’s interesting about blocked care is the parallel experience in the parents. When we’re overwhelmed, or we’ve had adverse experiences, whether in our own lives personally or having to do with relationships with our kids, our nervous system starts to become defensive and protective, which leads to the shutdown of joy, compassion, and reciprocal relationships.

What are the Symptoms

Melissa and Lisa identify 10 signs of blocked care in their book. In our conversation they discussed two signs:

  • Feeling too caught up in coping with your child’s behavior to be curious about the meaning behind it. 
  • Resentment toward one or more of your children or situation as a whole. You may even regret adopting or fostering. 

And there’s no judgment here. This is about your brain and your nervous system trying to protect itself from something that feels very, very confusing. 

An example of this is when adoptive or foster parents make bids for attachment with a child, and it is not received. The parent can become defensive and stop wanting to try to establish those overtures for attachment and connection, because it feels dangerous. So the receiving of it feels dangerous to the child, and eventually, the parent begins to feel the same.

Overcoming Blocked Care

Melissa and Lisa help parents begin healing their nervous systems by looking at three different aspects of their lives: 

  • We look at their internal world. So what’s happening in their nervous system, what’s happening in their mindset; 
  • We look at what’s happening in their external world, their sensory environments; 
  • We look at their relational world to safe people, spiritual relationships, etc. 

“So we really try to look at the whole person, and help parents take a journey through a pathway of healing.”

In their book, each chapter offers simple daily practices that aren’t overwhelming for parents to begin healing their nervous systems. They also encourage parents to prioritize things like sleep and nutrition. 

To hear more about blocked care and how to overcome it, head over to listen to the entire conversation on the podcast or read the transcript.

Listen on the Podcast

This blog is a short summary of a longer episode on the Parenting after Trauma podcast.
Find the Parenting after Trauma podcast on Apple Podcast, Google, Spotify, or in your favorite podcast app.
Or, you can read the entire transcript of the episode by scrolling down and clicking ‘transcript.’ 

Robyn

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What Does Vulnerable Nervous System Mean? {EP 122}


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People often ask whether this podcast, Parenting After Trauma, is relevant for them if their child hasn’t experienced trauma. My answer is a resounding YES. This podcast is for anyone who is in relationship with someone with a vulnerable nervous system and big, baffling behaviors.

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My friend and colleague, Marti Smith, author of The Connected Therapist: Relating Through the Senses says all people have vulnerable nervous systems. I tend to agree with her.

All people have vulnerable nervous systems.

And yet definitely, some of us, and some of our kids, certainly have increased vulnerability.

How Do You Know if You are Parenting a Child with a Vulnerable Nervous System?

Are you listening to his podcast?

Then you probably are.

Does the concept of baffling behaviors make sense to you, without any explanation? 

Then you probably are.

What Do I Mean by Vulnerable Nervous System?

A vulnerable nervous system has a bigger shift in an internal state in response to a stressor than we would anticipate or expect.

If we look at Dr. Bruce Perry’s theory of state dependent functioning, and especially his stress reactivity curve in his book What Happened to You? he describes how different amounts of stress elicit a different stress response. In what he describes as a “neurotypical” stress response, there is a linear relationship between the amount of stress and the shift in the internal state. What this means is that the stress response seems like it makes sense. 

Your child is disappointed when they lose a game because it’s disappointing to lose a game.

Your child is grumpy when they can’t have the snack they want or it’s time to turn off the TV.

That response makes sense.

Sensitized Stress Response System

In folks with vulnerable nervous systems, the shift in internal state seems to be much bigger than anticipated, given the amount of stress. Their stress response system is more sensitized. Small stressors evoke big responses.

They may have a harder time receiving co-regulation or offerings of connection or felt-safety. They settle or return to baseline less quickly. They need more scaffolding or supportive boundaries than their same-age peers.

This doesn’t make these kids bad, manipulative or controlling, though it’s not uncommon for folks with vulnerable nervous systems to have manipulative or controlling behavior as an attempt to bring some regulation to their nervous system.

And this applies to adults too! I know adults with very vulnerable nervous systems.

Some Factors that Contribute to Developing a Vulnerable Nervous System:

  • Trauma 
  • Toxic stress
  • Neurodivergence
  • Sensory differences
  • Giftedness
  • ADHD or autistic neurotype
  • Medical trauma
  • Adoption
  • Caregiver with a vulnerable nervous system or insecure attachment
  • Neuroimmune disorders
  • Racism
  • Ableism
  • Sexism
  • Being chronically unseen and misattuned to

Having a nervous system that isn’t neurotypical doesn’t have to cause trauma or toxic stress but it often does because the world isn’t designed to see and honor the uniqueness of folks with neurodivergence. This is why Marti says all people have vulnerable nervous systems. However, this doesn’t minimize the experiences of folks who have experienced trauma, toxic stress, racism, etc.

Without question, some of us have more sensitivity and vulnerability inherent in our own precious uniqueness. This is not good or bad. It just is. 

You may be here because your child had a history of trauma or toxic stress.

Some of you are here for reasons you might not be able to identify at all. You just know things are harder for your child. And therefore, they are harder for you.

How We Can Support a Child with a Vulnerable Nervous System

In the moment of dysregulation, it doesn’t really matter why your child has a vulnerable nervous system. It just matters that they need help.They need you to see their stress response, their Watchdog or Possum reaction, and respond to exactly where they are on Watchdog or Possum pathway- and it doesn’t matter if they have a history of trauma or not.

Of course, in the bigger picture, it can matter very much why your child has a vulnerable nervous system. 

Examples: If they have a neuroimmune disorder, they need treatment. If they have a sensitive sensory system, they need support and accommodations. If they have ADHD, they need accommodations. If they have a history of trauma they might need trauma treatment. If they have an allergy, they need that identified and then avoided. 

So, it’s not that the why doesn’t matter- but in the middle of an attack Watchdog moment, it really doesn’t. All that matters is bringing safety, connection and co-regulation to their nervous system and yours. 

Listen on the Podcast

This blog is a short summary of a longer episode on the Parenting after Trauma podcast.
Find the Parenting after Trauma podcast on Apple Podcast, Google, Spotify, or in your favorite podcast app.
Or, you can read the entire transcript of the episode by scrolling down and clicking ‘transcript.’

Robyn

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How Toxic Shame Heals {EP 121}


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This is part 3 of a three part series on Toxic Shame. In episode 1, we looked at the neurobiology of toxic shame. In episode 2, we explored what toxic shame looks like, including what kinds of behaviors you might observe. In this episode, we explore how toxic shame heals. 

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Can Toxic Shame Heal? 

With 100% certainty, YES, toxic shame can heal. I wouldn’t do the work that I do if it wasn’t true, that we can bring people relief from the felt sense of toxic shame of believing that there is just something horribly, tragically wrong with them at their core. It is absolutely possible to bring healing and to bring a new “knowing” into the nervous system. 

However….

There is No Intervention to Heal Toxic Shame

There is no tool. There is no technique. There is no specific process in which I can teach you how to help somebody heal from toxic shame. There is no intervention.

But there is a map.

Shame has the opportunity to experience a moment of healing- which is just a moment of connecting with the truth of the now- when it is met with presence, safety, and co-regulation.

Experience NOW, What was Needed in the PAST

Remember, toxic shame is a sensation-based memory from the past that really means I am experiencing something intense and confusing, and I am all alone. No one is helping me make sense of what’s happening or riding this wave with me.

We want memory to experience NOW what it needed in the past.

Safety. Presence. Co-regulation.

This is the crux of why parenting with x-ray vision goggles, with a focus on regulation, connection, and felt safety, works! Because we are staying focused on the story from the past and wanting to meet it with the truth of the now.

The truth being, “You’re safe. You’re precious. I see you. I won’t abandon you.”

Memory reconsolidation theory supports this with science. I did a couple of episodes on memory last year. You can find them here and here.

How Do We Access the Sensation-Based Memory?

If the sensation-based memory from the past needs to experience now what was needed in the past, how do we do that?

Remember from part 2 in this series, we learned that our inner systems create a network of protectors that work very, very hard to keep us from re-experiencing toxic shame? Well, the more we increase felt-safety, the more the nervous system grows in the capacity to maybe eventually allow the toxic shame to risk becoming known. 

So, we focus on growing their felt-safety and growing their connection to us.

And we continue to offer:

Presence, Safety, and Co-regulation.

Ultimately, then, as felt-safety and connection grows, perhaps what could happen is their inner system, in its own wisdom, may one day allow some of that toxic shame to be touched and metaphorically brought to the surface so that it can experience something new. 

Instead of the aloneness they are expecting, they may experience what they hope for:

Presence, Safety, and Co-regulation.

And toxic shame needs that only in a moment. It doesn’t need that all of the time. All it needs is micro-moments of healing. I have a previous podcast about the concept of moments of healing called What Our Kids Really Need (and Us, Too): Moments of Healing.

What that will look like for each child and each family is impossible to say. Parenting in this way (the way we talk about on this podcast, the way we practice in The Club, etc.), strengthens your ability to be with your kids in the muck, and it strengthens your intuition in these moments. 

Our Own Shame Gets Touched

One of the hardest parts is that most of us hold pockets (or more) of shame in our own neurobiology, and our own protective system is hard at work wanting to keep us from touching our shame.

It’s really hard for our kids’ shame to come alive without ours becoming touched.

This brings us back to understanding the neurobiology so we can keep that birds-eye view for ourselves and respond with compassion and curiosity, even when we have behavior that surprises or shocks us. We can begin to separate from and heal our own pockets of shame.

Holding the Truth for Our Kids

We are going to be asking ourselves to hold the truth that our kids are good, and precious, and full of infinite worth. We will be holding a truth that they don’t believe about themselves. And this contradiction has the potential to actually make us seem untrustworthy.

We can be with that.

We can have NO agenda to change our kids’ beliefs about themselves while simultaneously believing our own truth, while simultaneously grieving, while simultaneously validating their reality.

It really is possible.

It’s really, really hard.

Waiting with Certainty

Healing toxic shame is not a timeline we can be in control of.

Loving someone with toxic shame requires a constant recommitment to a leap of faith. A leap of faith that meeting their shame with presence, connection, and co-regulation matters. It matters even if we don’t see how it matters.

One of the ‘tools’ I talk about in my book for parenting kids who spend a lot of time on the possum pathway is waiting with certainty.

Joining them in the depth of their possum pathway. Not being afraid. Being with. Waiting with the certainty that their shame will receive the presence, safety, and co-regulation in exactly the right time and pace that is right for them.

This is painful, and exhausting, and worth it. I have seen toxic shame untangle in my clients.

I have watched it untangle in myself and in the people I love.

It is not easy or fast.

But it is possible.  

And yes, the behavior that emerges from toxic shame is not behavior that invites us to parent in a way that they’ll feel safe, seen, soothed, and secure.

That’s exactly why you’re here. That’s exactly why this podcast exists. To strengthen your x-ray vision. To give you the connection and co-regulation you need to keep seeing underneath the behavior.

Listen on the Podcast

This blog is a short summary of a longer episode on the Parenting after Trauma podcast.
Find the Parenting after Trauma podcast on Apple Podcast, Google, Spotify, or in your favorite podcast app.
Or, you can read the entire transcript of the episode by scrolling down and clicking ‘transcript.’

Robyn

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What Toxic Shame Looks Like {EP 120}


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Last week, we looked at the neurobiology of toxic shame because I believe in all of my cells, that understanding the neurobiological, physiological process of toxic shame is a crucial step in us untangling from toxic shame, whether it be our own, or helping our child with theirs. Toxic shame is a very physiological experience that essentially we mislabel as “there’s something wrong with me”-–but that’s actually not true at all. So seeing that and uncoupling the sensation from the label that there’s something terribly wrong with me, is really important.

So, what behaviors might I see in my child or maybe in myself, that could tell me that this person has that felt-sense of toxic shame? It’s not always obvious! It doesn’t necessarily look like what we would very clearly identify as shame.

One of the ways to help conceptualize and understand these behaviors is through the lens of Internal Family Systems (IFS), or parts work. 

Protector Parts and Protected Parts

IFS identifies protectors called managers and firefighters that are helping us avoid the intensity of pain that is held by exiled parts. Exiled parts, according to IFS, are our deepest most buried parts that hold enormous amounts of pain. They are typically formed due to trauma – unbearable experiences where we were left all alone, trauma experienced in those earliest and most vulnerable days and months and years of our lives, traumatic experiences where we were left all alone.

Sounds a lot like toxic shame right?

Exiled parts often, especially for folks with significant histories of trauma and disorganized attachment, don’t feel like parts. Exiled parts just feel like all of us. They feel like a truth. A painful truth of “badness” that the rest of us is trying really hard to avoid.

Also sounds like toxic shame, yes?

We can think of toxic shame as an exile. It is a part of us- it isn’t who we are and it isn’t who are kids are- but it doesn’t feel like a part. It feels like a totality.

Folks have described the all encompassing experience of toxic shame as both an absolute nothingness as well as absolute chaos.

What Does Toxic Shame Look Like?

It can look and feel like a collapse on the possum pathway or like an attacking raging watchdog on the watchdog pathway. So this can look like utter despair. It can look like dissociation. It can look like a withdrawal from society, almost like a withdrawal from existence. It can also look like raging, out of control physical and verbal aggression.  Folks have described this like a complete disconnect from reality in a way that is an explosion of energy or a complete disconnect from reality in a way that is a complete absence of energy.

From an IFS perspective, Manager Parts have an alert to alarm level of activation and do a pretty good job of keeping us from experiencing our exiles or toxic shame. These behaviors include things like 

  • people pleasing
  • Anxiety
  • Controlling
  • Lying
  • Being overly rigid
  • checked out, etc.

Firefighter Parts engage behaviors that are more intense when Managers are unable to keep us from touching into toxic shame. These can look more like 

  • physical or verbal aggression 
  • substance abuse 
  • self injury
  • sudden dissociation or collapse. 
  • overeating or 
  • numbing out in front of the tv

(For more examples and and more information on IFS, check out previous podcast guest, Ilyse Kennedy’s book, The Tender Parts.)

Behaviors Can Protect Against Re-experiencing Toxic Shame

What these parts are being protective against is the toxic shame–the toxic shame which holds what the person believes is the truth- that they are damaged, broken, worthless, destined to be all alone or even face annihilation.

What happens if you consider your child’s behaviors- or yours- as a way they are protecting themselves from reexperiencing the toxic shame?

Toxic Shame Can Protect Against Experiencing Grief

We can also look at the toxic shame, itself, as being protective.

It’s protecting the person from the grief of what happened that created the toxic shame. To grieve means it can never be changed. To grieve means accepting something terrible happened to me, and I can never change that. I will never be a little baby who got what they needed. For many, that’s too much.

Toxic shame was created out of what we could call toxic aloneness. The person with a history of toxic shame believes there is no option except to suffer all alone. They do not believe it’s possible to grieve- to feel that level of intensity- and to not be all alone–meaning they don’t believe it’s possible to feel something that intense and not come completely undone. 

There is no felt-sense that anything is possible except all aloneness and annihilation.

So the protective system stays solidly in place. 

Now- there really is a path out. There really is healing possible for toxic shame. Promise. And we’ll look at that next week. 

Listen on the Podcast

This blog is a short summary of a longer episode on the Parenting after Trauma podcast.
Find the Parenting after Trauma podcast on Apple Podcast, Google, Spotify, or in your favorite podcast app.
Or, you can read the entire transcript of the episode by scrolling down and clicking ‘transcript.’

Robyn

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