Transcript
Speaker: Hello and welcome to the Family Calm Flow podcast. I'm your host, Julie room Marie, and I'm so glad that you're here with us today.
Speaker: And I'm also so glad, especially if you're curious to answer this question for yourself. Perhaps you're asking he yourself this question for just yourself as an individual, for you and your partner or your spouse, perhaps in a situation of your family of origin or your in-laws, your relationship with your own adult children,
Speaker: etc So what is a family dynamics coach? And subsequently, perhaps why should I hire one? Or is it necessary to hire one?
Speaker: And I feel like it's actually really impossible for me not to answer these questions without going into my own story of how I got into studying family dynamics and family communication And how this type of education and coaching that I received in these subjects of my life helped me to not only find, but maintain and grow into the romantic partnership of my dreams and kind of create the family of my own dreams.
Speaker: This work has also helped me shift some family dynamics from my own family of origin and my extended family. And this work and getting coached in my own family dynamics has helped me feel significantly safer in the world.
Speaker: I think I started struggling with the family dynamics I was born into very early in life. At at least that's how I remember it. I am someone who has always struggled in all of my family relationships um ever since I was a kid. So parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, just all the above.
Speaker: In studying family dynamics, I have learned and better understood how you can be born to a specific member of a family system. and already be attached to a bunch of unspoken contracts that you never actually fully subscribe to and probably have nothing to do with you as an actual human being, but because of the relational dynamics of the family.
Speaker: Now that was true for me, and I'm hoping in sharing my story that all a lot of the listeners can can see themselves and their own story in my story. um I personally was born to the only daughter.
Speaker: in a family system, and I was the firstborn daughter within that new branch of the family tree.
Speaker: There were unspoken rules with a u and roles with an O that were put onto me just from being born into those relationships alone and how the, only daughter that I had been born to related to her siblings, her parents, and even those relationships, you know, amongst each other that had nothing to do with her, um relationships with family members who had even passed on that I had never met before,
Speaker: I will say a lot of these unspod unspoken contracts were from some gobbledygook that just never got sorted out or healed amongst people.
Speaker: Those individuals um who, and some of them I had, I have never met. They had passed even before, before I was born. So going deeper, it really was just a deep ancestral pain that many of my family members carried and it was just passed on and just had never gotten resolved.
Speaker: and And these issues just manifested differently and in every single individual and then also amongst many different types of dynamics within the entire family system as a whole.
Speaker: This is not unique just to me. This goes on in so many families just so many families in in the world. But the family system I was born into...
Speaker: I will say it did have a lot of love in some ways, but it was largely dysfunctional. There was a lot of emotional manipulation.
Speaker: o this is this is hard to talk about um so publicly. Yeah. um Which I knew and i've I've done before, but it just it just hit homes a little it just is hitting home a little bit differently for me today. but Okay, going back, there was a lot of emotional manipulation.
Speaker: Many different forms of abuse, triangulation. pinning family members against one another, different unspoken hierarchies, encouragement of competition amongst family members, and specific family narratives that were incredibly harmful, in my opinion, not only to just me, but to all of us.
Speaker: And it's not up for me to decide for those other individuals. But from my perspective and things i had seen, i very much felt that that was true.
Speaker: um There were a lot of subtle things that went on behind closed doors and a lot of subtle things within these family dynamics that were actually very just out in the open and were really unhealthy of the way we all related to one another or spoke to or about one another.
Speaker: However, I didn't have the language or understanding that the way my family functioned was unhealthy or damaging. And I'm i am sure that there are still some of those individuals today that don't have the language or understanding of that um because it's all they know. And at one point in my life, it was all that I knew.
Speaker: So I thought that the way we were with one another in this family was normal.
Speaker: It was also kind of difficult to understand that it wasn't healthy because I really believe that our culture and society normalizes really unhealthy and dysfunctional family behaviors and dynamics. So because of because these are so normalized, it was easy to explain a lot of my experiences within the family away.
Speaker: But our bodies don't lie. And um I knew deep down as a kiddo that the way my family members related to each other and related to me felt very unsafe.
Speaker: That was always reiterated to me in my desire to understand my family and anyone out there listening who also has come from some dysfunctional or harmful family dynamics that the, I don't know, I think they say the more dysfunctional the family, the least likely you are able to ask questions.
Speaker: So, um I always had this deep desire to understand my family on a deeper level um and to also fix my family as a younger soul.
Speaker: But that required asking questions. It required calling out behaviors or being honest about my families, all of which, again, are were big no-nos in this type of emotionally unsafe family system.
Speaker: And the result of this was that I developed a lot of different coping mechanisms to deal to deal with the harm that was happening and and the the unhealthy dynamics that were just constantly going on.
Speaker: But two of my favorite of these coping mechanisms... I know, right? it's It's kind of funny to say out loud. um But two of my favorites of these coping mechanisms were one, I decided at the age of 11 that I was going to learn about families. I was going to try to understand them more. I was going to make sure that when I went to college, I took classes around families and just it became my life's passion to understand families.
Speaker: And then number two was I became obsessed with finding a romantic partner.
Speaker: And I think deep down, i again, I didn't have the words for this, that subconsciously I thought if I find a romantic partner to love me, it will make all of this pain from my my family system, my family of origin, my extended family go away. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: So essentially,
Speaker: it was find a romantic partner. This is what was going on in my brain. Find a romantic partner, get married, have my own kids, have the perfect family, and everything will be great. Or if I'm going to say it in the terms of which it came from my wounds, and again, I didn't understand that at the time, is I'm going to make sure i feel loved,
Speaker: And I'm going to make sure that the family i have doesn't ever make anyone feel this way.
Speaker: I'm laughing because it doesn't actually work that way. But I'm also laughing because it's just even now as with so much like ah from a bird's eye view, understanding so much more of what I understand, it's so endearing.
Speaker: um This is such a normal and common way to cope with a dysfunctional family. This is a fantasy i would argue most, if not all, of my clients have had.
Speaker: And I understand from so many of my clients and you know my studies, this is a textbook thing, that that this is this is a coping mechanism we get when we come from families like this.
Speaker: I will say that even though I have helped so many of my clients and and buoyed them into healing or helped shift them into unhealthy dynamics, into healthier ones in their families and in their relationships, I will say they have in turn de-shamed so much of my own story because again, this is just incredibly normal and common. We all do this.
Speaker: We're all wired for community and connection. And some would argue, especially with our bloodline and people who we share genes with. But we all just think if we find the perfect partner and create the perfect family and make sure that we don't do to our kids what our families or parents did to us, that all this pain will go away.
Speaker: And while it comes from very wounded thinking, it's all such a beautiful intention with such a lovely goal.
Speaker: Healthy families are exactly what I think this world needs. If all families had healthier dynamics, there would be safe environments for so many people to go to.
Speaker: People would be hurt in ways and run to their homes to the people who may not fully understand them all of the time, but really try to see and hear them. And homes and families where spaces are being created for all the weird parts of being human, where you truly can feel loved,
Speaker: It's a dream we all have, but we usually don't know how to do it. At least I really didn't. It was a beautiful intention, but it was a huge misfire.
Speaker: I unconsciously and so many of my clients as well, um we have all, just to normalize that that this is a human thing, we all do, without not know without the education or support that that we could have, is we all unconsciously do go towards or can be pulled towards the patterns of the unhealthy dynamics that we grew up with or like really just made a lasting impression on us.
Speaker: So for me, I went and I dated and I had a couple of really, you know, right. There's always like some silver lining to some relationship, at least in my my opinion. um But they were all mostly unhealthy. Yeah.
Speaker: But the biggest doozy for me was when I was engaged to be married, actually, in my mid-20s. And one day I just woke up and put the entire engagement and relationship on hold on a huge pause.
Speaker: I asked my ex-fiance, then-fiance, not speak to me for about a month and a half so I could understand why getting married felt so wrong to me.
Speaker: And at first, I really thought it was relationship anxiety. i think I wanted it to be relationship anxiety. But eventually I figured out that i didn't really feel emotionally safe in in that romantic partnership.
Speaker: And there were many, many reasons for that. But a key one being that I thought the dysfunctional parts of our relationship were normal and acceptable.
Speaker: and I participated in ways that perpetuated them.
Speaker: To be honest, because of the dynamics in my own family, I didn't actually know how to have an emotionally safe relationship at all, whether it was a romantic romantic partnership or even if it was a friendship or other different parts of family relationships.
Speaker: So ultimately, that engagement came to an end. And I was left with a million questions for myself.
Speaker: I remember being up late at night or just w racked with anxiety asking myself, how did this happen?
Speaker: Why did this happen? And why did this happen to me? And why was it not really happening to any of my friends?
Speaker: How do people find love? How did people not only find, you know, someone to love and share their life with, but then after that, how do you maintain a healthy relationship for many years?
Speaker: Or was the type of relationship I wanted specifically in my own desires, was it even possible? And if it was, how did I get to it?
Speaker: And so thus began my studies in understanding healthy dynamics within romantic partnerships. I remember going back to certain books from my undergrad and when I was pursuing my master's with fresh eyes and a new perspective ah It is truly fascinating how a few years later you can reread some of the same paragraphs and sentences. And even my own research I did in family communication or research theorists did that I had to write 25-page papers
Speaker: page papers on And you just read these things years later with a fresh set of eyes and a new perspective. And you just understand these concepts in a totally brand new way.
Speaker: Additionally, I received a lot of therapy and a lot of coaching and eventually met my now spouse who Who is just absolutely my soulmate.
Speaker: ah I don't know. There's just no other way to say it. We've we've had some rough times in our relationship and in our marriage.
Speaker: And we'll get into that more hands down. ah But we have honestly the marriage of my dreams. And that has come from a lot of work and a lot of honesty and a lot of creating emotional safety for one another and understanding what emotional safety is.
Speaker: I know that none of that would have been possible without becoming more educated in romantic partnership dynamics and dating patterns or receiving the coaching around love and relationships like I did.
Speaker: Before I continue the story, I actually, what's coming up for me is, um I'd actually really like to take a minute here to be clear about
Speaker: that despite all of my studies, my research, all the therapy and coaching I've gone through myself and continue to go through, um all of this has brought me such amazing gifts, such as the partnership of my dreams, what I just described.
Speaker: But what hit has also brought me is a really... Damn, just like a really tough look in the mirror. there's There's no other way to say that either.
Speaker: I know I spoke earlier about the dysfunctional, harmful, and sometimes even abusive dynamics within my original family system, as well as previous romantic partnerships.
Speaker: But through all this work, it made me realize that i also participated in these types of really unhealthy dynamics that brought harm to others.
Speaker: ah I still sometimes carry some shame from that.
Speaker: It is an ongoing process to understand that I really didn't know better in those younger years and in my younger adulthood.
Speaker: and I will always be dedicated to self-forgiveness and empathy for myself regarding that. But i I can't come and and speak about this and not be honest that I didn't always know how to create emotional safety or detect emotionally unsafe situations or dynamics where I just perpetuated those dynamics and that harm more for other people.
Speaker: i
Speaker: I really am so sorry to all of those people that I have hurt from those wounds and ways of being and relating that I didn't understand at the time.
Speaker: Even though I didn't understand it I understand it still created a lot of hurt and harm for others. And I really, i really do feel bad about that.
Speaker: And I think it's really important that I say that out loud because I think a lot of people do this and sometimes it's so painful to look at. We don't ever want to have any types of you know or Or we think like, oh, i've i've I've done these things too. So maybe I don't deserve healthy family relationships or romantic partnerships. Or i don't know if this ever can get better, these a certain dynamic in my family.
Speaker: But I just want to say... ah Man, I have been through the ringer with this shit and with both, with both the family and relationships and the romantic partnerships. And I promise you, if I can do it, you can do it.
Speaker: A thousand percent.
Speaker: um oh Just feeling chills all over my body and just a deep gratitude.
Speaker: Going on more with my story, fast forward to a few years down the road and my spouse and expand our family by having our first kiddo.
Speaker: And during a pandemic, mind you, it's kind of common knowledge that having a baby can truly change your marriage or be a struggle in a relationship. This is this is things we all know.
Speaker: But what a lot of people don't talk about is that adding a new baby to a family can change an entire family system dynamic. It can change a hundred different different dynamics sometimes within a family system or within even just like a dynamic of four people. Right?
Speaker: It can change a marriage, the identity of the parents where there's a little bit of crisis there, the identity of the parents of the new parents, so new grandparents, which again also can potentially come with some crisis.
Speaker: ah Dynamics of extended families can be shaken, family of origin, boundaries can be a little bit more confusing. And the more and more I've studied this and experienced these shifts myself,
Speaker: the more and more I'm just truly disgusted with how society does not prepare families or people for these major changes that are coming in family systems.
Speaker: It's just preposterous to me. And again, i really hope Family Come Flow can help mitigate that in our culture, even in the smallest way, if it even just hits just 0.1% of people, it's worth it. ah That being said, i have seen in my clients, in myself, and even my friends that a major life change or transition or or something like having a baby can not only change family and relationship dynamics, but can also, o uncomfortably, I'm going to say this out loud and so many people are going to be like pissed, truly. It's it's it's hard to be so honest about these things.
Speaker: But it can also bring to light dynamics that weren't working in the past and it can bring that stuff more to light or, or dynamic dynamics in the past that you've shelved. And you're like, Oh, Oh, Oh, now I have to like actually, actually deal with this. Uh, so if you are not understanding your own family or relationship dynamics,
Speaker: But before doing something really big, like having a baby, you can kind of be in for a rude awakening when you have your first kid or when you have – I'm just giving that and as an example because, again, that's been – this was a major part of my story. But it can be so many other life transitions.
Speaker: But, man, oof. I really thought that I would be the exception to the rule because, right, I'm a family dynamics specialist and i have been working so much and so has my my spouse in turn of understanding the dynamics between he and I and the dynamics of where we came from and in our original families.
Speaker: But, you know... shit if if the world just has a really powerful and humorous way in humbling us, doesn't it? Because the shift in dynamics hit my spouse and i like we were being whacked upside the head despite my areas of expertise, despite our many intentional conversations and preparation for this, and the and the deep dedication to our relationship and and and having a healthy family system.
Speaker: Sometimes you really aren't even aware of some hidden dynamics you're carrying around until a major life change, such as having a baby comes up.
Speaker: Sometimes you really just have to live it ah as like awful as that sounds. It it really is true. ah My coaching certificates and degrees, I'm so grateful for them. And it it allows me to do and understand things in in ways that have been so rewarding.
Speaker: And have certainly helped so many of my clients. But I will say that the depths of my own life experiences through the lens of understanding finally understanding family dynamics is by far where I get the most gold to help myself and to help my clients.
Speaker: Okay, more details to come here. This is just part one of my story so that I can answer this question for you of why why should I hire a family dynamics coach?
Speaker: And yeah, we'll just pause the story here. and continue the next episode. Thank you so much. I'm honored if you made it this far for listening to part one of my story and listening today. and I hope you were able to see yourself in some of it and hopefully it normalized or de-shamed anything for you or brought up some of your own questions or own you know, breakthroughs.
Speaker: So I hope to have you listen to the rest of the story in the next episode. And i just wish you a wonderful day. Take care, everyone.
