Mistaking A Painful Narrative for True Connection As An Alienated Parent

verus connection creating thoughts so this came up for a few reasons one is because last Friday in the Facebook group during what the live event um we were talking about memories Facebook memories that come up on you know your feed as soon as I got on the live one of the more endearing Facebook memories came up for me and it was of my daughter um the one that I was mentioning to you guys a couple weeks ago for Easter and she was just so cute with her little crown on her head and I just said it out loud it was like in the moment and then we got into a conversation about even though we really love those memories we end up feeling like at the effect of whatever pops up on your then we were

talking about you know on your iPhone or on your iPad for me especially on the weekends I'll be sitting you know here having my morning coffee or whatever watching whatever's on TV and I will look down and my iPad memories come up and it will be like my daughter's name over the years or certain you know time periods right and one of the members was like yeah those were the unsolicited memories that I wish sometimes wouldn't pop up so that's what really got me started thinking about this topic over the weekend then of course I remembered that just actually right before the recording that I do have an episode somewhat about this and that was the Bittersweet Memories episode way early

on um where I talked about how we have these amazing memories but unfortunately because of all that's happened since those memories sometimes we feel like they're tainted we can't enjoy those anymore because so much has happened so then it just ends up being if only I would have done whatever why couldn't it just be blah blah blah right and so then we're back on that trail again and I was sharing the day there was a period of time there where I completely avoided Facebook altogether for that purpose just because of the memories that were popping up now I love those memories today but there was a time period And I think we all go through this stage of our grief where we don't want to see

anything we don't want to have the reminders right because inside we're telling ourselves that we can't handle it that we're too frail but it's just too much that it only causes us to feel sadness and what have you so there's that so that's what kind of got me started on this little Pathway to today then I also heard another fellow coach talking um fellow coach who specializes in grief not in our kind of grief different I mean grief is grief right but different situations altogether she actually gave me the words for even a step further if you remember back in the the guilt episode that I did not long ago maybe a couple months ago I think it might have been called Beyond blame the

difference between guil and Jame or something like that I shared with you guys my thoughts on why we hold on to the guilt and the regret that we might have about how it all went down we hold on to that many of us hold on to the guilt and the regret as a way to keep ties with our children we think if we don't guilt ourselves or sort of rake ourselves over the coals about whatever has happened and how it went down we're doing them dirty right we're just not doing them Justice we're being disloyal and I think that the more that I observe parents Like Us online and the online spaces and the social media Tik Tok particularly parents that I talk to on a very regular basis it's never said this

way but I feel like the idea is if I don't hold on to this narrative and the only reason I feel like that this is the undertone of it is because this is exactly how I was um and I think I did actually say it in so many words if I don't hold on to this painful story then what am I left with if I was to answer that then I would be left with nothing I would be I didn't think this but I has been mom and that was a really painful story that was scary scary to me to think that that could be my new reality that I was just this washed up Mom I don't even know how else to put that that's not even a a stereotype but I think we all might share the same sentiment is that if we're not holding

on to the painful tone and narrative that we've been carrying for so long we've lost our entire connection to our children that without that pain we would be left in like the abyss that one string that was attaching us was the pain and that's it and that's just what I want to discuss with you guys today is basically I want to draw the line or make the distinction between the two kinds of thoughts and the two kinds of stories that we might tell to ourselves in hopes of maintaining the sense of connection but sometimes do just the opposite for ourselves so let's get to it in case this podcast is new for you just a very quick overview when we feel an emotion it's

not because of anything that actually happens outside of us or anything that somebody else does it's because of the story that we have about it it's because of how we're thinking about it up in our head at any given moment we will probably have 10 or 15 fragments M ments of thoughts that are sort of bouncing around up there floating around in your brain and so we can be thinking a part of a thought or a thought that's causing us to feel pain in the moment we can be thinking a thought that causes us to feel connected in the moment those things can happen at the same time simultaneously but are Never Ever One and the same do you know what I'm saying like there's pain and then there's

connection two separate things just like there's happy and there's sad and there's whatever and whatever and Pain by the way isn't the opposite of connection just wanted to make those distinctions so you do not have to be feeling pain in order to feel connection and vice versa but so many of us conflate mix the two up we feel like this Duty and think that if we don't carry a specific story that's painful to us if we don't continue to tell that then we're not being loyal to our kids we're not being true to them we're not being real parents because what kind of parent would continue on and make this painful awful story be a story of Happiness be a story of Triumph starting

a new a catalyst to a bigger better more improved life for yourself I think we feel obligated to do this to identify ourselves as yeah I may not have my kids but that doesn't mean that I'm not a parent because if we don't feel feel the pain then clearly we must be a shitty parent and we must have deserve something so the pain is like our qualifier our identifier of being a good parent if we don't have our kids to parents on the day-to-day basis like we used to then what are we left with right we have to carry this story the story is like our duty if we want to remain in parent status in Mom or Dad's status so we end up repeating this painful story to ourselves over and over and over

after so long it becomes a a habit a pattern this is what your body is so used to and as you know our brain wants to be as efficient as possible it doesn't want to have to put out any extra energy to be anything other than what we've already been like just living to status quo oh okay if we're miserable Melancholy tortured victim ized people parents then that's how we need to remain it becomes The New Normal I really hate that term without it then who the [ __ ] are we how are we even supposed to reckon with being like an out of work parent and so the memories cause us pain the idea of Hope causes us suffering so we end up just holding on to the pain because then at least we

have something to take with us and say okay see I don't have my kids right now anoun but do you see what I've been through listen I am not saying there's anything wrong with you holding that story there is not a damn thing wrong with you holding that story I understand it a th% and if you're cool with holding that story then please continue on it's not bad or good or right or wrong none of that and if it's causing you to feel exhausted if it's causing you to feel stuck like you cannot see a way out then it might be good to notice where it's coming up for you decide one by one do I want to continue telling the story is this serving the greater good of me and my child and my stuckness is this

working for me or not so I'm going to give you some examples first I'm going to start with the pain causing thoughts and then I'm going to give you some examples of connection causing thoughts thoughts that cause pain I don't know who to be without my kids home I know that I've thought this on many occasions they should be home with me this shouldn't have happened I'm not saying that it should have happened and I'm not saying that you shouldn't feel pain about this I'm just want to make the distinction that these stocks are pain causing and they're not connection causing I don't know who I am if I don't carry the story of pain with me I will never be the same until or unless my

kids are back home with me this is one that I hear and see multiple times a day life will never be right until the kids are back with me say that to yourself right now I'll never be the same until or unless my kids are at home with me what does it cause you to feel for me it would be loss lack like I got robbed like incomplete a part of me left the day that my child did how does that one feel a huge part of me left in the day that my child did that feels empty right or that something's missing again it's just good to know that these thoughts all of these thoughts that I just mentioned are causing different kinds of pain right ask yourself first why am I repeating

the story if you're not really sure why you're telling it figure it out ask yourself why am I telling the story oh because I want to do them Justice and I want people to understand and learn about parental alienation well that's a whole different ball game have you ever noticed that like when you go to try to tell somebody what has happened to you what has happened with you with your kiddo you get all kinds of jumbled up and you're like instantly dropped right back into a huge trauma response dates get all weird and then you start over explaining and things get all complicated and then you walk away from the conversation feeling super creepy and W it's likely because you're lacking

clarity about your objective going into the conversation like what are you trying to accomplish during this conversation what message am I trying to convey to the person that's in front of me or the people that are in front of me and so depending on what you're goal is there your story what comes out is going to look different if you are determined to let people know about alienation you're going to have one way and one emotion as you're explaining because your objective is to educate people about what's going on then you're not stuck at the effect of the nervousness and fear of what people are thinking about you and are they judging you because they think that you're a bad

parent or do you have objective and a higher purpose because when you know that it's going to be a much smoother delivery I just went off on a little sidebar there but it is very helpful to when you're getting ready to tell whatever story and this goes for really anything it doesn't just have to be about your situation of alienation but especially with our situations of alienation because we get so in the weeds in our head and then we lose sight of what the ultimate goal is and if you have that goal coming into the conversation on the Forefront of your mind and you generate that emotion ahead of time this is why the work that I did that got me here and the work that I

offer my clients it's invaluable it is such an amazing lifelong tool that you can use because when you learn how to generate thoughts that cause the emotion that you want to feel then you can get anything done you want like literally anything done you want you can deliver the most impossible message to the most impossible group of people right and not care whether they are judging you or not and most of the time when you're caring about whether the judging you that's when they're doing the judging because you're not confident and you're not delivering the message properly right but when you are clear on your objective when you're clear of what you want that

message to be and the emotion that you want to feel while delivering it well then it's a whole different ball game okay now that's really gone off on a little bit of the tangent and let me vear myself right back to feeling connected so if you're repeating those pain causing thoughts to yourself in hopes to find connection you're going to be very disappointed most of the time we do this and we don't even realize that this is what's going on you know we just it is there if you dig deep like the emotional brain's like yeah but this is what's keeping us tied to our kiddo is that if we don't H do this if we're not spinning our Wheels constantly and feeling frantic feeling pain feeling the

suffering going on then what are we doing then we're then we're not even a parent anymore and what what does that where does that leave us right do we does that mean that we don't have any connection how are we ever going to is that going to dwindle away if we're not in constant pain about what has happened this ongoing tragic event of alienation if we're not in constant pain about that then the connection with our children is no longer because what else is there for us if we're not especially if you're not seeing your kids on the day-to-day basis or even at all what else is there for us if we're not holding on to this story we're just going to like disintegrate

into the you know the ether but it's not true it is not true I promise you I'm living proof of that in fact when you're telling those painful stories what you're doing is creating the opposit of connection with those that you want to hold on to so tightly okay so examples of connection causing thoughts closeness pausing thoughts would be no matter where I go no matter what I do you are always with me you are always on my mind that thought so long as in the right tone I guess causes me to feel connected to my child it causes me to trust to know like a deep kind of knowing that no matter what she's there with me and I'm there with her you guys have heard me say it

probably on rep Pat we are interwoven into the fabric of each other there is no way to remove me from her or her from me it's scientifically impossible genetically impossible so um when I remember that then I feel connected to her feel connected with her when I tap into sort of like I was addressing last week when I tap into into the energy that is in the core of me that is connected to all of the other energies in the universe I feel a deep connection to her with her and I trust I truly trust that we will come back together again another thought I think is you taught me how to love more deeply and more fully than I ever have she was my first real true lesson in well when she was with me

motherly love and I know this goes for all of you too of the the willingness to give every part of me uh without question without pause without any sort of hesitation she taught me that she taught me how to love when she was a little infant you know and I I I will always be connected to her with her because of that and then after alienation really took hold and she was over at her dad's she taught me she was the the reason that I learned a whole new kind of a way deeper level of unconditional love the purest kind of love where I can truly uh Delight in her even from afar and don't expect anything coming from her way it's okay it's okay no matter what even if she views hate

that I've only learned that by getting right with Myself by providing for myself that which I used to expect would come from a daughter or from a child you know um I provide that for myself and then I don't expect her to do anything but that's more where we're going with this and so I just keep doing that another thought is I carry your love with me in everything I do sometimes I choose to think that even the little ways that I show up online um for instance even here I don't know that I'm almost positive that she hasn't listened to any of these episodes as of yet and I don't know if she ever really will go this far this is long form content but I do think that like the

social media like Instagram and Tik Tok is a definite definite possibility right and so I do choose to think that each time I post I'm in in a way putting that out there to connect with her I do feel connected with her with that in mind with my intention always to whatever it is that I say whether that's in the privacy of my own home or out there in public right like in this episode and all the episodes um I always choose to represent myself and model for her in the way that I know that 20 years from now that she would might be proud and the way that I know that 20 years from now version of me would be proud for us for her included and so those kinds of

things those thoughts that mindset helps me to feel yeah like purposeful in my connection with her and it feels a lot better than holding on to these old stories that's for me I I know that for you and for me for a long time I didn't want I was not comfortable with letting go of the painful stories and like I said I'm not suggesting that you do it either but I do think it is very helpful to know that the first set of thoughts are going to cause you something different than connection they're going to cause you to feel pain and suffering and that's okay and then you have the second set of thoughts that at least for me thoughts like these typically cause feelings of connection togetherness

purpose greater good right of unconditional love too and understanding a sense of compassion and empowerment the thing is is that with the for me with the first set of thoughts right when I was really indulging in the old Stories the pain the stuckness the the suffering when I sat in those that I never would be the same when she left that a part of me left and I that part of me will never return that she took a chunk out of me even when I was saying it back then I always felt scarcity you know and it felt so final not just for my daughter but that whole idea of like when you lose a pet they take a part of you with them I don't love it and I also don't believe it's

true it's but first off it doesn't happen a part of you does not actually leave you right so literally physically it cannot be true but even in your heart you still have that same amount of love if not more love to give once you've learned how to open up that part of you it's like a muscle right and the more that you use it and the different modalities and ways that you're able to to exercise it the stronger and bigger and more capable it becomes you don't lose the ability to love after loving even after being hurt experiencing pain as a result of loving you don't lose the ability you just get better at it if you choose that could Define you forever if you wanted it to

but actually because you're learning how to do something different maybe uncomfortable you actually are widening your scope of ability does that make sense love ability anyway so we're left with entirely different results from the connection causing thoughts and the pain-causing thoughts we think that we're going after Connection by grasping on to that one last string that's tying us to our children but in fact by thinking these thoughts they cause pain and cause us to feel more distant from them right not connection when we think my kids have not been here for this long it this never should have happened again not wrong they've been erased from my life I have been erased from their life

things will never be the same will never be the same without them all of that causes much lack at least for me like I said close your eyes and you think about it how do you feel when you repeat those thoughts to yourself but to me I'm going to assume that those thoughts will cause you to feel more distant from them than you felt before you said those things you don't have to be Tethered to that story it is not your duty it is not your responsibility you are and always will be an active parent because the work and and the diligence and the humility dedication and devotion it takes it requires to be a parent like you and I are it is an extremely active role that

most parents will never ever know you are an active parent you always will be an active parent even if there are days that you aren't being diligent in your healing the fact that you are going on each day facing and have faced the challenges that you have and you're still going you are more active than most parents out there it's so easy to take the kids to soccer practice put them to bed bathe them and to tell them to be home by 10: on the weekends everybody else is doing that that is Cookie Cutter fitting in what we are doing what you are doing it is magnificently hard it's unbelievably Brave so you are a parent you are more of a parent than many of them out there and not that we should

compare and put ourselves up or down or wherever but I'm just saying if you have been scared that by letting go of this painful story that you will also let go of your role you're mistaken you're confused you are and always will be an amazing devoted parent we cannot control what the alienating parent has done and is doing we can't you know that right the court systems they suck let's be real and also it's my belief and it's my way and I want to help you guys to think thoughts and show up in ways that work to your benefit using all the info and the the tools that we have let's change the narrative let's change the story our story together moving forward if we're

showing up feeling we're not really showing up at all but if we are feeling um lack feeling uh disconnected and isolated apart from alienated the likelihood of us showing up in an effective influential way the chances are low the chances are that when we go to show up to spread the word to talk to people to engage with others that we will show up feeling not enough feeling shame feeling disconnected not heard not seen judged all the things so I it really is important for you guys to be clear on the message not only that you want to convey but the message that you feel in your heart and how do you want to feel moving forward right how can you start thinking thoughts that

match what you want to create for yourself it's entirely possible to do and without denying yourself the right and the reality of experiencing the grief that you do have and hold as a result of being a Target parent of alienation so thoughts that connect thought that distance yourself from them you don't have to hold on to that painful story if you don't want all right you guys have a lovely week thanks so much for listening today if you like what you're hearing and you'd like to hear more please make sure to click subscribe wherever you're listening or watching also for bite-sized clips and tips be sure to find me on Tik Tok or Instagram see you next week