Q&A: How does The Club help families? {EP 118}

For today's Q&A, because the day that this episode is airing, we are in the middle of welcoming new members into The Club. We opened The Club doors on Tuesday, February 28th. And the doors will remain open until Monday, March 6th- Monday, March 6th. I wanted to do a kind of frequently asked questions about The Club. I know that joining The Club can feel like this huge commitment and very vulnerable. And I want to give you just as much information about The Club so that you can make the best decision for you and your family about whether The Club is something that you want to check out. So let's start with just what even is The Club? How I describe The Club is that it's an online, virtual membership community. And it's for parents of kids with vulnerable nervous systems and big, baffling behaviors. A lot of the families in The Club have kids who have been adopted, and definitely most of the families have kids who've experienced some kind of trauma or toxic stress. Which could be something like abuse, or neglect, or adoption loss, but also includes other kind of hard childhood experiences like divorce or medical trauma. Some of the families come to The Club with the recognition that they themselves, the parents, have vulnerable nervous systems, many due to their own childhood trauma, and they can see how this has had an impact on their parenting and they're looking for just practical yet compassionate support parenting their children after they themselves have experienced trauma. Some families in The Club have kids with neurodivergence or other nervous system vulnerabilities like a neuroimmune disorder. What is super cool about The Club is the diversity in our backgrounds, while still all sharing this one really intense and unique, common experience of parenting kids with vulnerable nervous systems and really baffling behaviors. Behaviors that aren't just baffling to us, but at times, they're enraging us, right? They're pulling out our watchdog brains, or they’re behaviors that seem to invite us to collapse into our own possum brains with things like compassion fatigue, and blocked care, burnout. One of the things parents in The Club talk about a lot is how they're experiencing kind of like finally being seen, and not only by me and my team, but by each other. Like it's their first experience being in community with parents like them. Parents who are parenting children, like they are also parenting. That this can be such a lonely, isolating, confusing journey. The  parents in The Club feel so different than the other parents in their immediate community and the kinds of struggles that the parents in The Club are having feel so different than kind of your just average, typical parenting family difficulty. So in The Club, that sense of isolation or that sense of my family is very different really just fades away. There's this like, instant experience of oh, everybody here gets it. What's happening in my family isn't weird. This is the kind of stuff that's happening for all the families. 

So that kind of brings me to how does The Club actually help, right? Because The Club isn't therapy, and The Club doesn't see or work with your children. Right? The Club is a community for parents. So how does that actually help? Well, definitely The Club offers a lot of very practical support. Like we have an enormous on demand video library, There's well over 50 videos that can be watched at anytime, 24 hours a day. Topics like lying and manipulation. I mean, there's a lot there's so many topics, you'd have to go to the website to check them out. We asked to have like bigger what we call mini courses. So they're longer than just one video but they're these mini courses that are grouped together. So for example, there's like a mini course on changing behavior. And that brings you through everything you need to know about the owl, watchdog, and possum brain. How to grow the owl brain. How to calm the watchdog brain. How to calm the possum brain. We have a mini course on attachment. A mini course on, like, strengthening the foundation of the brain. There's just so many topics. And the video library is searchable by keyword. Every video has a handout and the transcript that can be downloaded. 

If you've been listening to this podcast for any length of time, you know that one of my passions, one of the things I'm really focused on is taking the neuroscience and making it make sense and be relevant for you in your like regular everyday life. Like taking this complex information, and making it matter for you whose life is at times feeling pretty overwhelming. So I, of course, continue to do that in The Club. And with all the master classes, that's a very big theme, right? Taking the neuroscience, making it applicable, and useful for you. And then we have a really active forum so that members can process their own unique situation. And sometimes that means taking the information from what's been learned in the video library and bringing it to the forum and trying to figure out like, oh, how does this relate in my situation? Or we tried this and this is not working? And so- so what do we do here instead? Or how can we tweak this a little bit? And you know, a lot of the conversations in the forum are- there’s no way we can make masterclasses about everybody’s, you know, very unique struggles. And so that's so much about what's happening in the forum is, there's a lot of discussion, a lot of folks coming in and saying this is what's happening, can you help, can you give ideas? And me or my team responds to essentially every single post. As well as just the richness of the community like, these are rock star parents who've been in the trenches for a long, long, long time. And sometimes they have like the inner resources themselves to show up and help each other. That's one of my favorite things about The Club is to-I'm gonna probably say that a lot. This is one of my favorite things about The Club. Something I really enjoy about The Club that's really impactful to me, is watching parents move in and out of that different roles. Like, sometimes they're asking for help, sometimes they're giving help. And watching how beneficial both roles are, like how empowering it can feel. How much confidence building it can feel to be the one who's offering support, as well as just the offering of connection and co-regulation. Receiving support, education, connection, co-regulation is, of course, really important. And we're doing a ton of that in The Club. People are getting those things. But there's actually also something really important about giving those things to each other as well. And we don't have expectations of that in The Club. Like our expectation is, we give what we can and receive what we need, always, at all times and every day. And at every meeting we're giving what we can and receiving what we need.

As I'm sure you can relate to a, lot of our members don't just need more information. Okay? They need help applying that information. And to their very unique and very baffling situation. And they, of course, need help staying regulated enough to be able to actually use those tools. Which that, then, brings me to the next question is like what's unique about The Club, why The Club there's other parenting communities that you could go to. There's a wonderful parenting communities you could go to. In The Club, we don't just talk about parenting tools. The Club has been very thoughtfully and, I would even say, strategically designed to help strengthen your owl brain. So when I created The Club, I had the benefit of taking, you know, over 15 years of clinical practice, like what I saw be helpful to parents, hundreds- 1000s of parents over the course of my clinical career as a therapist. As well as all of my really in depth education about the relational neurosis sciences, and how I have moved from learning about the relational neurosciences into teaching the relational neurosciences. So I really immerse myself in this science, while also having, you know, this- these decades of experience working in the room, in the trenches with parents and really feeling and seeing what helps them. So I could take all that information, and think what pieces of that could I use very deliberately and very strategically, when creating The Club. Now The Club is, of course, not therapy, and I'm not a therapist in The Club. I'm not giving therapy in The Club in any way. But there's so many aspects of what makes therapy work that aren't unique to therapy. So I took those pieces, and very strategically, very, very deliberately created the structure of The Club. If we use The Club language, again, I'd say The Club is designed to strengthen your owl brain. That's- that's the part of the nervous system that has strong boundaries, and can stay regulated even when things are really, really hard. So again, in my work as an outpatient therapist, I saw clients in this typical once a week, one hour at a time pattern. And what I found was parents were getting a ton of co-regulation from me that allowed them to stay more regulated with their kids, and have like, in the weeks in between our appointments. Like their time that they spent with me was allowing them to be more understanding and compassionate not just towards their child's behaviors, but towards theirs. And then that allowed them to be just so, so, so much more curious, and compassionate with themselves. And that's translated into decreasing and healing compassion fatigue, decreasing burnout. These caregivers were feeling better and less baffled, more able to handle these really bizarre behaviors. And it wasn't dependent upon their children's behaviors actually getting better. Which, of course, happened much of the time as well. But because we can't control anybody else's behavior, it's always the best idea not to make how we feel dependent upon somebody else's behavior. So I took all of those experiences of- of how I was supporting parents in that the experience as an outpatient therapist, and thought, okay, well, how can I create an experience for folks that's not therapy, but offers some of those really important experiences? But actually offers them even more. Like one of the things that always was so stressful to me about therapy is that the calendar dictated when we got that next, kind of, dose of co-regulation, right? Like, when Wednesday at 2pm approach, that's when my clients got to touch in for what their needs met- need was. And in The Club, The Club is designed in a way where folks can come and get their needs met, get their co-regulation that they need, get- get their connection, get being seen, when they need it. They don't have to wait. Now, it's of course, asynchronous, meaning The Club is a forum so people can show up and ask a question in the forum or post something on the forum. And they're not necessarily getting instant feedback, though a lot of times if it's during daytime hours, they actually are getting pretty instant feedback. But also what we know is it actually doesn't even need to be instant. Because the way that Club members start to internalize one another, even before they are responded to in the forum, they feel more connected, they feel some co-regulation simply by having gone to the forum. And in a way it seems kind of magical, and I guess it is, but also it's super cool as I understand the science behind it. So we've- we've again created these experiences in The Club and this very deliberate, strategic way based on what I understand about how regulatory circuits grow and strengthen. Because parents with stronger regulatory circuits can handle the chaos, can handle the baffling out of control behavior. One much more effectively, and they can help their children more effectively. But two, they feel better, they're less stressed out, they're less burned out, they're not collapsing into compassion fatigue. 

So when I created The Club, I took everything I knew about relational neuroscience, both from like my- my learning head brain knowledge of studying the science, but also from my practical real life in the room like working with humans experience. And I created our Club manifesto, which really is the bedrock of how all of us grow, and heal, and change inside The Club. You can read all about The Club manifesto over on The Club's website, which is RobynGobbel.com/TheClub. If you're going to read the manifesto, and you might be like, okay, well, this sounds nice in theory. But what I would love to- it's just impossible to convey really is that yeah, it sounds nice in theory, but it's way more than just nice in theory. There is something that happens when folks show up in a space, when they know that everybody else in that space feels the same way about humans. They all believe humans are always doing the very best that they can. That we all are overflowing with infinite worth. That we can set compassionate boundaries, when needed. We all believe this about ourselves and each other. And when you're surrounded by people, when you look in people's eyes, and know that they believe that everyone is unflo- overflowing with infinite worth. And that includes you. That changes you. I said, again, that was very deliberate, very strategic. And then I created the structure of The Club, the forum, the live events, the way I give education, the way Club members support each other with education. And we have these connecting co-regulate sessions, which are exactly that. Members just show up for the very explicit purpose of connecting and giving and receiving co-regulation. All of these pieces of The Club have been designed with this exquisite intentionality to help parents really internalize the co-regulation of The Club, so that they can then offer the co-regulation to their child. 

Okay, so what specific things does The Club offer? Well, every month, we have two connect and co-regulate sessions. And these are sessions where Club members come into a Zoom Room, and then we go into smaller breakout sessions- or smaller breakout rooms. So there's three, four, maybe five Club members in each breakout room. And it is- there's no agenda except to be with one another, and to help everybody feel really seen and heard. To offer the experience being seen and heard to one another. That's it. So we do that twice a month. Every other month, we have a masterclass on a new topic. And then later in that month, we have a session that's called putting it into practice. So we take the lesson, the topic from the masterclass, and that usually happens at the beginning of the month. And then the putting in the practice happens later in the month when we've had time to really sort of play with the material and try to practice it, like do it in real life. And so the putting into practice sessions are where I say we kind of come together to look at real life. Like look at, okay, well that was a great theory that we learned in the masterclass and- and I tried it in my real life and here's what's happening. And so help me with that. So that's every other month, a masterclass on a new topic, and then a putting it into practice session later in that month, specifically about what that topic is. And then on the opposite month, so every other month, we have a session that's called ask anything group coaching. And that's where we all come together and members can do exactly that. Ask anything. And I answer their questions. And we answer each other's questions because other Club members have really brilliant ideas, as well. And then we have just started a new kind of offering called a member Hot Seat. And so every other month, one member gets to hop on a video call with me. And other members get to watch and benefit from that one Club member, you know, having that perspective, kind of, in depth explore situation that's arising with themselves or with their child. So those are very rich. In February, we had for the first time ever, a group for the siblings of dysregulated kids. And we did that sort of as an experiment. It was something our Club members were asking for, and I just wasn't sure how it was gonna go or what they really needed. And so it was an experiment in February and it went so wonderfully. I mean, so wonderfully. Afterwards, I connected with one of my coaches in the- in The Club, Laura, and we just kept saying over and over to each other like I can't believe that this is what we do for work. Like this is how we help people. We are so lucky and so privileged to- anyway, that's a little tangent. So yes, this group for the siblings of dysregulated kids, because it's as our journey as parents is so lonely and isolating, and so are our kids' journeys if their sibling is the dysregulated child in your home. So we are currently in brainstorming mode to get those onto the calendar’s regular Club experiences. So monthly meetings for the siblings of kids who are really dysregulated. We have a forum that's accessible 24 hours a day. It works like a regular internet forum does, you can ask questions and then get answers. We have a separate forum for Club members who identify as professionals- professionals working in the field. We have an on demand video library that I've already mentioned, and actually have a separate on demand video library that's specific for The Club members who also identify as professionals, and there's some bonus professional videos in there. Like my training on bringing movement, and music, and bodywork, into the therapy room with kids with, you know, really dysregulated nervous systems. That's a training in the professional bonus library. There’s a training on polyvagal theory. So there's a couple just bonus trainings for professionals as well. There's no CE's. Although in the on demand video library, the regular on demand video library, you can get a certificate of completion. So if you're an earning hours for anything, any parent education hours for something, there's a certificate of completion that you can- that you can earn. All the topics for everything that's in the on demand library, is you can read it all over on RobynGobbel.com/TheClub. Both the professional video library and the regular on demand video library, the different topics of all the videos are listed on library. So you go check that out. My guess is there's probably a lot that would really apply to you and really, really interest you. 

One question I get with some frequency is just some reassurance about how easy it is to end your membership and The Club. The Club is a monthly recurring membership. So when you sign up, it becomes something that is automatically renewed every month. And you may have had, like I have had, some tricky experiences with that kind of setup in the past. And with it being hard to quit, or you forget to quit those kinds of things, you know, when you're done using the resource. One of the things I'm really proud of in The Club is that we make it really, really easy for you to leave when you're ready to leave. You actually get an email every month that says, hey, your membership’s about to renew, so that you're warned about it. And if you're ready to step away from The Club and don't want your membership to renew, it's like giving you a reminder about it every month. So it's actually really easy to choose when you want to leave The Club. We also just have a pinned post in the forum that gives you instructions on how, you know, the steps you have to take, the clicks you have to make, which are actually very simple. It's like just a couple clips clicks. It's very, very easy. But we do have a pinned post, so that you don't even have to spend any time trying to figure out, like, what do I do when I'm ready to end my time here. Listen, I know that your life is stressful. The Club isn't intended to ever contribute more stress to your life. And that includes making it just really easy for you to end your time with us when you have gotten what you need. And you're ready to end your time. 

So where does The Club actually happen? So The Club happens inside what's called the Robyn Gobbel Clubhouse. It's hosted by the MightyNetwork platform. And you get to it like right through your browser or also through an app. There's an app for both iPhone and Android users. You can log right into The Club, get right into the forum, get right into the video library. So it's really easy to access from whatever device you're on. And there's no using other apps like Facebook or anything like that. It all happens in one app that you have login information. 

Something else that's really cool about The Club is as a bonus, The Club has its own Private podcast feed. And what that means is all the things that are recorded in The Club. So all the masterclasses, all the putting into practices, all the Ask anythings, all of the audio recordings from those experiences get put into this private podcast feed. Which means you can access the audios, now not the videos, of course, that’s not how podcasts work. You can access the audios right in your regular podcast app. And you know how easy it is to listen to a podcast you're listening to one right now. They just like run in the background on your phone, you can do other things on your phone while you're listening. It just makes it so much easier to access. Sometimes video, can you know videos don't really run in the background on your phone. It's just not quite as con- sometimes listening to a podcast is just more convenient. So that's one bonus feature of The Club, this private podcast feed. 

Lots of folks want to know how much direct interaction they get with me? And the answer is a lot. I- if I had to guess I'm probably respond- I used to say 80%, to 80% of what happens in the forum. But I bet you that is actually higher. I respond to almost everything in the forum, the folks who are active in the forum in The Club- some people just listen, and observe, and watch the videos, and read the forum. And they're not quite as active. But folks who are active are folks that I'm really getting to know. I'm getting to know these members and them personally and, you know, about their family. So you in many ways can have almost as much direct interaction with me as you want. Now, it all happens in the forum, I didn't do any like personal or private interaction with folks in The Club. But as much as you want to post in the forum is basically as much interaction as you're gonna get with me. And then of course, there's all these live meetings that I run every month. So you get a lot of direct interaction with me. And I also have two coaches in The Club, who are folks I've known a really, really long time who have highly trained with me, and also our coaches and my Being With program. So we have, there's two other professional voices that you get to benefit from in The Club as well.

The Club is for your whole family. So when you join, you have the option of requesting a separate login account for your spouse or a parenting partner. And we're pretty flexible with what you- who you identify as your parenting partner. So there is somebody in your life who regularly supports you and parenting your children and you'd really like for them to have access to The Club as well. That person joins The Club, gets their own login at no additional charge. You absolutely can join The Club as a professional. The Club is a membership for parents. So all the services in The Club are for parents. They are not directly for professionals. But a lot of professionals in this field are doing both. They're parenting kids with big, baffling behaviors and working with these families as well. So we have a separate forum, we have a separate video library for parents who are also professionals. 

All right, I think that's everything except I wanted to end with just one last little reflection that folks do occasionally ask me, which is why do I do this? Why- why do I do The Club? And I think that if you were in The Club, the question- the answer to that question would be really, really obvious. I think my Club members know the answer to that. And the answer is because I adore them. I adore The Club. I- I adore the people in The Club. I end every live meeting with The Club with a thought that's just like, I cannot believe that this is- that I get to do this. I can't believe I've figured out a way to connect these amazing people with each other, to be with people all over the world, to be invited into these people's lives and to like really witness their true, authentic vulnerable selves. Like to be invited into that and to be trusted to help and support them is beyond really what I have words for. It's something I think about and notice and pay attention to every single day, and my team feels the same way. So why do I do The Club? I love the people in The Club. The club is the- my favorite thing that I do professionally. Now if you're a Being With student, know that I'd love y’all as well. But serving professionals is just different. And I love serving directly right to parents, and The Club is letting me do that in a way that is impacting folks in a way I never imagined. So I do The Club because I love it. Because it matters, because it's making a difference in people's lives. And because it's not just making a difference in the lives of the families in The Club. Like I see how these people are impacting other people, right? The- the teachers of their kids- but the somebody in The Club once talked about how what they've learned in The Club has impacted the way that they show up at work. You know, so the- the impact that it's having is so substantial. It- but even if that wasn't true, just the impact that it's having on the people in The Club. Like what it matters to them, how different they're feeling. It is absolutely at this point in my life, my life's work. I'm in love with what is happening in The Club. And I'm gonna keep doing that, as long as that remains true. 

So if you're listening to this Q&A, and it is sometime between September 28th and March 6th 2023, The Club is open for new members right now. If you're listening to this episode at a different time, just check out RobynGobbel.com/TheClub. It'll tell you if The Club is open now. And if it's not, when it will be open again. I have a couple ideas for how we are going to handle opening The Club for new members in 2023. And I think it's going to look a little bit different than it has in the past. Which my current ideas I'm not ready to like say any of this with certainty yet, but my current plan is that The Club will open for new members with more frequency than it has in the past. Opening The Club for new members is a huge undertaking for my team. And so we try to balance that though, what that means for my team, and what we have to do to kind of welcome you with wide open arms, and what that means for Club members because opening for new members kind of disrupts I guess, in a way like, you know, regular life in The Club. So there's a balance between opening it regularly enough that it's helping people who need help, while also opening it only so often that it doesn't disrupt, kind of, what makes The Club so magical and important for people. So there's- there's kind of a balance in that. And I have some ideas about how we might approach it a little differently in 2023. And ultimately, maybe open The Club up with a little more frequency than we have in the past. So check it out, check out RobynGobbel.com/TheClub. We might be open right now. But if we're not, just put your name on the waiting list, and we'll let you know when we are open. If you have any specific questions about The Club, my team is ready and- and waiting to be able to answer your questions. We really make it a priority to make sure that you join The Club with like eyes wide open. We want you to have all your questions answered. There's no mystery. So just reach out, you get my emails, you can just hit reply to one of them. Or you can go to RobynGobbel.com and you can look for how to send my team an email over there. We would love to have you. We think what's happening in The Club is so special. The parents in The Club just how they are- have created The Club. It's really beyond it's- it's gone beyond my wildest imaginations, and really just love to share it with as many people as possible. RobynGobbel.com/TheClub. And if The Club isn't what is next in your family's journey or doesn't feel like what your family needs. Then I will just see you back here on the podcast next week. And we'll keep chugging along with this podcast. I can't wait. All right. Bye bye, now.