Being an alienated parent can feel like a never-ending struggle. The pain of separation from your own child is a unique kind of suffering, one that can leave you feeling stuck and powerless. However, what if the key to breaking free from this cycle lies within your own mindset and choices? In this post, we'll explore how shifting your perspective and taking ownership of your circumstances can transform your life.

Understanding the Pain

Alienation inflicts a deep wound that often manifests as a relentless pain—one that seems impossible to escape. The fear of confronting this pain can lead to unhealthy behaviors, like numbing through alcohol, distractions, or denial. It’s important to recognize that while the pain feels unbearable, your mind is trying to protect you from what it perceives as a threat to your survival, even if that means keeping you in this painful place.

Identifying the Source of Suffering

Often, we hold onto our pain because of the familiarity it provides. Our brains prefer the devil we know over the uncertainty of change. This creates a paradox where we unconsciously value the pain for the predictability it offers, even as we despise it. Understanding this can illuminate why we remain stuck—our subconscious belief that being in pain somehow benefits us by avoiding an unknown future.

The Role of Identity

As alienated parents, we can heavily identify with our roles as victims. This identity can serve as a barrier, preventing us from evolving into the people we truly want to become. Dropping this identity can feel terrifying because it involves the risk of stepping into the unknown and redefining who we are beyond the victimhood.

Moving Towards Change

Growth and healing begin when we start to see ourselves as active agents in our own narratives. Accepting responsibility for our actions and choices, even those that seem indirect, empowers us to make different decisions. This isn’t about blaming yourself but recognizing your power to influence your reality. Consider how your beliefs shape your experiences. For instance, the belief that the family court system is against you can reinforce a feeling of victimhood. By shifting this belief, perhaps towards being part of a solution, you can start creating positive outcomes in your life.

Letting Go of Stagnancy

To move forward, we must embrace the discomfort of growth. This means letting go of the familiar storylines that have defined us. What would it look like to no longer view yourself solely as an alienated parent but as someone striving to create new narratives and relationships?

Nurturing Self-Belief

The journey out of suffering requires us to nurture a belief in what we are capable of becoming. This involves daring to imagine a future where we aren’t defined by our painful past. Recognize that your identity can encompass much more than just the challenges you have faced. You are a complex, evolving person with immense potential for growth and contribution.

Rewriting Your Story

Ultimately, to move from being stuck to thriving, we must be willing to rewrite our stories. This involves challenging long-held beliefs and daring to create an identity that reflects our true desires and values.

Recognize that the pain of alienation, while profoundly difficult, does not have to define the rest of your life. By taking responsibility for our responses to these circumstances and daring to chart a new course, we can find the freedom and fulfillment we so deeply crave.

As you embark on this journey, remember that you are not alone. Many have walked this path before and have found hope and transformation on the other side of suffering. Embrace the challenge of change, and in doing so, you may discover the resilient and dynamic person you truly are.

--- This blog post serves as a companion to the podcast episode, offering insights and reflections to help you, as an alienated parent, break free from suffering and redefine your life's narrative.

Episode Transcript

 You are listening to the beyond the high road podcast with Shelby Milford episode number 112. Stay tuned. Hey guys, so I keep forgetting to do announcements. So just quickly, um, just the reg stuff. I haven't mentioned in a while I haven't extended a thank you to all of those Who have put in a review on Apple.

at this point, I think that's still the only place that you can actually submit a show review. however, on Spotify now, you can make comments, on individual episodes, on, questions you might have, and, or, comments that you have about, like, your, what you liked, what you didn't like, requests, even, and I love those. I love the engagement and encourage that. because I do look at them as soon as I get the notification sometimes it takes a little bit for The system like for Spotify or for Apple to pushed out the notifications through. So thank you for those, and I encourage those, and I do get to those as soon as I get the notification from Spotify. And then on Apple, if you do listen on Apple, or you have any Apple products, I would love love love if you would write a review just a few couple words would be amazing we have so many listeners now like compared to the amount of reviews that we have There's so like Over a thousand, at least of you.

I haven't even checked in a while, but there's well over a thousand listeners, regular weekly listeners. And there are 38 reviews. Thank you to all 38 of you for writing reviews. Some of those people have written two times. So 30 ish, of you that have written those reviews, taken your precious time out of your day to write those.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart. And I really, really, if you guys are enjoying this or maybe not thoroughly enjoying it always, but you feel like it's working for you and you know, that the show has been helpful for you, please, please, please, I would love if you would, um, help another alienated parent out.

And help me, of course, help me out too by, letting them all know, letting the world know that we're here, um, going through what

the other parents who are maybe just finding out that they're going through this mess and didn't have a name for it. Um,

the more word that we get out, the more parents that we can help. So that's what I would ask of you. And, you know, in return, I, um, promise as I have from the beginning to keep getting better and better and more, um, engaging content and making the show.

making improvements to the show as much as I can. So there's that also I am live in the Facebook group every Friday noon ish. I think I've got it set for 1215 right now. that actually just happened cause I did it by accident and then I just kept it because, because, so, 1215 noon on Fridays.

In the private Facebook group. Okay.

Today before I even began. I really wanted to name this episode. I've learned or lessons I've learned from Tony Robbins because it seems like everything I want to talk about today keeps circling back to, a couple of videos, like old videos.

One of them actually from not too too long ago within this last year ish. And then another one from years ago. But I think that everything I'm going to talk about today is really kind of Tony Robbins, which I kind of have gotten away from, like, he was really, really influential in the beginning of my healing.

And then, , I then followed some different teachers for a while and he's always sort of been, etched into the foundation of, my core beliefs, when it came to healing, but really what we're going to be talking about is what it takes for you to move from the pain of alienation, and move from the pain of really healing.

Pretty much any trauma. and I'm going to answer the question right off the bat and tell you that, and this is borrowed from Tony Robbins too, maybe not the exact quote, but what it takes to move you from any of the pain or trauma that you feel like you're stuck in is you valuing something, anything.

more than you value the pain that you're in. And I know that sounds kind of crazy at first to think about because most people are like, what do you mean? Of course I don't value the pain I'm in. I don't like where I'm at. Of course I want to move from it. I've been trying to get out of it and I can't, I just feel stuck.

And if you're stuck in any place, but especially pain, you feel like you just can't, Get any traction. It's because actually you're gaining. a benefit. somewhere in you like your primitive brain believes that it's better for you to be in this spot than anywhere else.

Right. Kind of like the devil that you know, we, um, we as humans

we crave familiarity or consistency,

certainty. And so even though, the pain feels unbearable and like Awful. It also your brain, your habit brain, is Absolutely fine with staying in this pain, because it knows in this pain at least that you're not going to die.

Because that's what it always boils down to in the end. Even though the words, I'm going to die aren't often on your mind, especially these, this day and age. Um, that's really what any fear boils down to, right? The fear of dying. And really it's the fear of our story ending.

Um, that episode I did about a year ago, um, I'll have to link it below, but that might be a good 1 for you to pair with this 1 is, um,

I think that episode was the fear to freedom, um, social anxiety. I think, um, that would be a good 1 to pair with this 1, but. Um,

but so often we sit in the pain of alienation of. Whatever, whoever has wronged us in the past of our childhood of whatever, um, you're allowing to define you today. We sit in that pain because in that pain, y'all, if I'm going to say this, and I know I've said it and a lot of other ways, um, Throughout these episodes, but just know that I know that if somebody were to say this to me, like to my face back just a few years ago, I would have been really upset.

And maybe there would have been a casualty because I would not have been happy for somebody to say that victimhood. awful situation of alienation this predicament of being victimized to my advantage in any way, or that I was like holding onto it for the benefit of me, right?

I would have been So pissed off. So I get it. I understand. But looking back it was absolutely true that I was holding onto my pain because it felt much safer to hold on to the pain of what was happening As a way to explain away why my life was in the state it was back then,

so it's so much easier when we're in a place of pain and suffering and feel stuck in that place to say, I'm here because of them. what they did to me  that's why I haven't advanced professionally. 

That's why my kid's not home with me.   Why I haven't, bought a house for myself at whatever age that's why I'm driving this rinky dink car that always needs, servicing  or whatever you're saying. If you're looking at your life.

And you're not happy with the results of it currently, and you often have to, or want to, escape the current circumstances of your life because you're not proud of your current results.

you're not proud of the results that are currently there, like your current results. It's much easier to assign blame to those outside of you, right, to anything else to explain it away, right, why we're here. So, you know, um,  conversely, you know that you're living the life that is worthy of you and the life that you're meant to lead. If you do not have the desire or urge to escape your life,  right.

To escape the circumstances of your life and like tolerate your life. , what I mean here is like, if you, notice that you want to go stick your head in the sands during uncomfortable moments or like when you have to face. the quote unquote consequences of your actions in your life today, that would have been me when it came to going to court, to , ever having to confront, the current state of my life, right?

Instead, I wanted to go blow off steam. I wanted to go decompress. And what that usually meant was going and having a toddy or 10. anytime I felt the oncoming Of discomfort inside of me, anxiety or anger, or really any emotion. What that ended up creating for me was this cycle of

I was not able to regulate my emotions anymore. Um, in fact, I don't know that I ever really learned how to, before, you know, the recent years I needed to dull the emotions with some sort of numbing agent, and usually it was alcohol, but if not, it was my daughter, , or some other outside agent. Not by utilizing the skills that I possess inside me to manage my mind and therefore my emotions, So, I just kept repeating the same actions and the same behaviors, the same habits, and I kept producing the same results over and over and over again. Or, um, wasn't producing any results because things were staying stagnant.

Right? Right, which is therefore a result of creating the same thing over and over. Right. Um, but because I didn't want to look at what was going on, take ownership of the decisions that I had made that got me, um, to the courthouse. Or got me to, shitty relationship number 20, right? I didn't want to take responsibility. It was much easier for me to be like, well, I'm like this because they did this. I'm like this because they didn't do this or because whatever. And I was a victim. Like, I was.

On many occasions treated in ways that I would not want anybody and even my worst enemy to be treated like so I was legit just like I know that you guys are in a lot of the positions I was in as a direct result of people's behavior. So, Ugly behavior, Absolutely. But I also believe today that those situations, those people, those, achy circumstances, Of my life, we're always going to happen that way. And that in fact, they happened for me.

They were my prescription. They were my, curriculum, They were always going to happen. That was just, part of my journey. So instead of looking at them as the deterrence or the roadblocks in my life. Instead, they were actually there to, enrich who I'm becoming. Right. But back then I didn't see it that way. And that was really the whole problem. So I wanted to continue to avoid my life because then I didn't have to sit with my poor decisions about why I got, you know, into the last shitty relationship or why I was in court to begin with. For custody, how my decisions to, go to a bar or whatever, maybe, yeah, maybe all the other parents did that. But, um, I also knew that at that point, it wasn't a complete, it wasn't a shocker that my ex was going to use whatever he could.

To incriminate me, and so it was my decision knowing that he would try to do whatever he could and I still did it in spite of that thinking, well, he can't do that to me that was. A decision that I could have lived with back then. I did live with the decision, but I didn't address it back then.

I kept blaming and blaming and blaming and all of that blame. All it did was waste my time, my energy, my money, my. potential for emotional development. And instead it just put me like in a freeze frame. For a really long time, because here's the thing about it.

That's, this is the kicker is once you do it once, whatever action that you do. And sometimes that means non action. Like you decide to stay in denial, Once you do that in one situation. Then it's easier to do it the next time and then it's easier to do it again and again and each time that you choose to do it, it gets reinforced by your habit brain habit brain gets the message that we're getting a benefit from this. Even if that benefit is just that you stay comfortable and, uh, you know, ignorance is bliss, like, not dead, Not hurt. Habit brain goes chink. That's a win for us. We're still alive. So it's going to reinforce that to the point that it makes that your default way to avoid two knots.

Take the responsibility. Oh, yeah. Let's just defer that off. Let's just push that to let's divert attention and keep on our merry way. Stick our head in the sand, put our heads down and just keep on going and avoid avoid avoid. And what that ends up doing is creating this whole fortress of denial and stagnancy.

you're not growing at all. And if we're not growing. Then you're actually defying

your own humanness, right? You're, you're, you're resisting the whole earth, mother nature's, whatever you want to say, the universe is, need to constantly evolve, We're constantly, all of us, even physically, without even thinking about it, our systems are changing and cells are turning over. . Your hair is growing. Some hair is falling out. Things are changing on you. at a cellular level, constant, And when you decide to, nope, I'm not going to do anything about that. I'm just going to pretend like it's not here. I'm going to go take some outside numbing agent, whether that's alcohol, like I did, or whether that's a person or an activity or you're scrolling. Anything to avoid the current circumstances of your life so that you can avoid the discomfort you feel.

you're choosing to resist, and stay stagnant when everything else is evolving. turning over. it ends up being, this

negative force within you, yet you'll keep wanting to blame other people for your stuckness. Well, at least I did. , I was stuck and I felt like I, it was a fact that I was stuck. I, there was nothing I could do because first I was my identity. like when I became a mom. The second that I really, when I became pregnant. But , when I had my daughter, I. grew into this new role as a mom and I was a mom and that's what defined me and I didn't even think about it, most of us don't. Well, you become parents and it's like, oh, I have this new role.

I can put this on. This is who I am. I'm a, I'm a dad now. I'm a parent now, and I'm going to live my life accordingly. And so  you don't really have to do much in order to take that role on,  right? It's just a sort of a fact of life, almost like it's just instinctually what's in you to then.

Embody whatever a parent is in your mind, what that looks like, what was modeled to you, but that is just something that we kind of all take on. It's not like for me, I wasn't like I had to step out on a limb to make that part of my identity. It really literally kind of can't say it by happenstance, it was, a cause effect situation.

I, I'd sex and then got pregnant and had a baby. And so all of a sudden I'm a mom. And so in a way you could almost say that like my daughter, something outside of me, well, she started inside of me, but something other than me sort of made that decision for me, right?  I didn't have to go far to come to that conclusion that I'm a mom. 

Right. Same thing with being a daughter or a sister. It's just sort of like the, the biology of you, and of your family. and then after shit started going down,  I was a mom who had been wronged.  That was my identity. Like I really carried that with me. Like  I'm a mom in turmoil.  I'm a mom who has been abused and has been forced into a very unfortunate situation.  And I'm a mom who is in constant stress response and is fighting for her life and her daughter's life and her daughter's happiness and growth, I was in a constant freak out,  And I was that way because other people kind of decided that for me. That wasn't anything that, again, I did not have to step out on a limb or  do any sort of, , risky self discovery there,  It just came on me. I was, at the effect of the circumstances. that were presented to me.

And then, you know, after some time of going to court and doing all the things, I was this mom who had been wronged, but really wanted to be more, but I felt like I couldn't be more because I was stuck because of all the things that happened. So I saw that there was possibility out there for me. Like there was another way. I didn't have to continue defining myself as this damsel in distress, if you will, or like this mother in distress, there was another way, but I couldn't.

I felt like there was too much in between the current version of me and the place I wanted to be. The place I wanted to be up there just seemed like a pipe dream. Like, how could I even try to get there because look what I'm drowning in right now. The circumstances of my life and the results that were in my life at that time.

I was not fully ready. Even though I wanted to be up there. I was not ready to take responsibility for all of this because taking responsibility of all of this and the results of my life back then meant that I had to confront. The fact that I might be responsible, yes, even for the alienation in the way that no, I did not obviously ask for it, and nor was it my fault.

These people are obviously acting not nicely. Let's just I still was the one that chose it and I still continued to feed into it and maybe made some poor decisions back then. Who could have known? I don't believe that I, um, now I don't fault myself for those decisions most of the time, but I also know that I was not taking responsibility of my life.

And that's really where I fault myself is because I, um, I chose to numb as opposed to Look at the uncomfortable stuff,

 So I see the comments a lot on my, tick tock videos and stuff. I can't even tell you how many times I've seen this one type of comment, hold on, let me turn this cause the sun's coming in. Um, this one type of comment and it is. That family court is abusing us parents some form of that.

And I'm not saying that, there isn't truth to that. But what I think is that this is not serving whoever is writing it, whoever's choosing to believe it. That's just one of many. But,. We as humans, We are so easily influenced all of us.

It's not a matter of being like weak minded we are all so easily influenced. I mean, you see it like on social media, right? Like you, um, depending on what you see and what you hear and what you choose, we can, we're so easily swayed.

And so it's so important to really question the beliefs that you're choosing, to go with right about explaining your life away. Before when I was believing that I was a victim to my life and that. If these things wouldn't have happened, all of them, um, individually and as a whole, if those wouldn't have happened, then I would have had a better life.

If I just wouldn't have done ABC, then things would be better and my daughter would be home with me. I would still have my house and my money and what have you. I can believe those things. And that was kind of the point of what I was trying to say earlier.

And it would be really, it is easy. It would be so easy to just assign blame elsewhere and look at my life, the state of my life right now is, it's in shambles and it's all because of them. Your brain is going to want to accept that as the answer for why you're in pain. It wants to take that and die with that, right?

At least mine did. But believing that kept me in this state of constant pain, suffering, stagnancy. Believing that caused me to feel and stay negative, feel on guard, and think stories, make up stories in my mind about how the world works, for me at least, out there. Right. That breaks didn't come to people like me and that, money making money would always be a struggle having relationships would always be a struggle that I couldn't

I would never have the ability to choose somebody you know, like healthy for me and, you know, uh, like a true matching of the souls because I was damaged as a kid. And that's never true. Actually the most full lives in the, most fulfilling relationships, like the most, um, really actually, like you think about it, like a meeting of the souls.

Like if you were to meet your soulmate or maybe you already have, but really, truly the only way that I see to have a deep, deep connection with somebody is for you to have been in the suffering and a deeper place that required your grit and your tenacity in order to climb out of that dark, deep, whatever place, right?

In order to any sort of deep connection with anybody or create any sort of really meaningful experience, you have had to have had some suffering in your life. And so I would actually venture to say that those who have Suffered the most and been through the most pain actually create the most meaning from their lives.

And this may be a little far fetched for some of you, maybe not so much for others, but I believe that before we're even born into this world our souls, each of our souls, like for me, my soul, chose each and every one of the outcomes that have happened so far in my life.

Like I chose the life of struggle and of feeling insignificant. Because, um, and this goes back to Tony Robbins. Tony Robbins talks about our six basic needs are certainty, uncertainty, . significance, feeling significant . connection, The need to grow and the need to contribute service work, right?

Those are our six basic needs. And for me, I believe that I chose this struggle of, Wanting to. Feel significant and not having that fulfilled today. My number one driver, is actually growth, but I changed that over the years for a long time.

I felt a. lacking of significance since I was a little kid. So I believe that I chose this, like my soul chose the difficult route on purpose so that my soul could grow and move through this. This is like the area that I was going to struggle with. And I have a feeling that if you're listening to this podcast and you're dealing with something like alienation that attacks that very, , need that we all have to feel , significant, leave a legacy,

feel important to those around us, those that we love. Um, this might be something that you've been struggling with too, and maybe this is your ultimate. Life lesson, one of them anyway, you know, is significance and the struggle with learning how to feel like you belong, belonging without the approval of anybody else, right?

But anyway, so

as a kid, I, that was always where I struggled. Right. I did not feel, significant really. I was kind of, I was the youngest child, but I was also, it was just only two of us, um, forgotten because my brother was the problem child. And so I sort of. fend it for myself, you know, I got a pat on the head.

And then they dealt with the real problems, which was my brother, you know, running away from home, going and being a rocker, doing whatever he was doing. I don't know. so it started from an early age and I always wanted to feel, like, recognized. Um, important, unique, some people will use that for their benefit, go on to do great things with their lives. If that doesn't seem to be like an option, if you have had some trauma in your life then many times what we will do instead of, excelling in one area and feeling significant that way, we can go The darker route and feel significant by being the troublemaker, right, getting in trouble to get the attention, which is exactly what I did.

Right. I was like, Oh, my brother gets attention that way. Maybe that's what I should do. And then maybe they'll give me attention. Like they did him and I did work for a little while. And then I turned 18 and then I was like, Oh, I don't know what to do anymore. Because I taught myself this way of being a troublemaker.

Didn't work out the way I had it planned in my mind. but then all the relationships that I saw out were those that were, I was consistently trying to feeling significant, feeling valued from the other people. Right. And because of that, plus the trauma, who did I seek out?

People that, wanted to maybe extort that, right. Or use that to their advantage. I sought out. Particular kind of person, even though all looked vastly different, my partners, um, not just the way that they looked on the outside, but the way that they behaved and treated me was, they were all very different, but it was that same need that I was trying to meet.

And it was looking for it from somebody else to supply it to me as opposed to learning how to belong and learning to value myself. First. So that's what got me into the whole mess. And then, of course, when we get alienated, what do we struggle with? Again, we struggle with that need to feel significant.

We feel that we're devalued, that we're undermined, that we're not. Um, you know, important. And so it attacks that, for me anyway, it attacked, I, like I said, I feel like it's my theory that we all, that's had been our driving force, probably from childhood, but definitely in the relationship with the person who's alienating our kids from us now, you know, is that need to feel significant and then when that could, because we picked the kind of person that would it.

Not fulfill that for us. Instead, they would try to take that from us. It only injures the very thing that we were after the whole time. Right. So it backfires in our face, at least it did for me. And so I, I really had to learn how to not define myself, identify myself by being a mom, being a mom who was wronged, being a mom who, was eternally stuck after being wronged and wanted to be there, but could only get here because of, you know, the bad credit and the.

the bad decisions and the bad relationships and what have you. There was always an outside reason for why I wasn't where I was supposed to be. And I know that I could still find all the outside reasons if I wanted to, and if I wanted to stick my head in the sand and not take responsibility for my life.

But I have learned and it became very boring to me to constantly Point the finger outwards. I'm this way. My life is this way because of them, because of my family, because of my upbringing, because I was ignored, because of whatever, right? Because I was physically abused, sexually abused, whatever, right? I kept choosing these, these things because I thought that that was all I was worth.

And then I used those things later on, even though I hated those predicaments to explain away my life. And it only just kept me in this constant state of living a pitiful life. You know, and I'm not downing myself or , you. If you feel like you're in that spot right now, I am actually hoping that you, you maybe can identify how this pattern might be going on with you now, or at least was before so that you can work with it now and get yourself unstuck.

If that's where you want to be, right? Because the sticking the head in the sand is a, a temporary band aid that produces a very long term result, negative results. On your life and reinforces that habit. And so then it becomes harder and harder and harder to move from it. the other thing that I was thinking about is that, well, this was actually from a conglomeration of Teachers, over the last however many years , and I think it's proven in neuroscience that we will find what we're tasking our brain to look for Tony Robbins was doing. He did an interview with, uh, Theo Vaughn, back, I don't know this within this year, but I think he's done this a few times where he asked him to, you guys can do this right now, if you're at home and you're not driving, look around you for all the things that are brown. Just do a scan of the room and find everything brown.

Okay. You got them. Then close your eyes. Now tell me all the things that you saw that were red.

It's hard, right? Because you were looking for brown. Was it, is it hard for you to find the red because you're still thinking about the brown, right? And when you're thinking about like what's red, are you going back to the brown things and wondering if you can make those things red, right? Oh, they were kind of red. Now, open your eyes. And look for all the things red.

You could find a lot more red, right? Do you know why? It's because you're looking for it. Because you're looking for the red and that's all you will see is the red will stand out at you., right? You can do this with any color, right? Or you can do this with any kind of object,

They tell you to do this too. If you've like lost an item, , if you picture what the color is, and also whether it's smooth or rough, , the chances of you finding it are much greater. Like you ever have been with, um, like your parents or maybe your own kids.

Um, Like you'll be like, they'll ask you to, um, or maybe your kids did this, right? Like where your parents maybe go get something for them and you couldn't find it. You couldn't find it, something in the fridge. And then they walked right over and then grabbed the thing right in front of your eyes.

But you really legit did not see it, right? You didn't see it because you weren't actually looking for it. your brain wasn't on task for it because it probably was thinking about a million other things or believing that the item was somewhere else, right?

Even when you're looking hard for it. I mean, I can't tell you how many times I used to lose things. I still do, but it's not nearly as bad. I used to lose my phone. My keys all the time. Now I have a car with no keys. Thank God but I used to lose them every day all the time. And even though I knew what I was looking for, it was impossible for me to find them.

Even though many times I would pass the keys over. Many times before I actually like my brain actually registered that those were my keys and I can pick those up because in my head, do you know what I was focused on? I was focused on, I can't find my keys.

I always lose stuff. So that's what my brain was focused on losing stuff, not finding stuff. It wasn't focused on the actual shape and color and size and texture of them. Instead, it was thinking about all the ways that I lose all the shit in my life. Well, guess what? That actually caused me to have those things still missing, right?

And the same thing, like when I asked you to look for all the brown and then have you close your eyes and then look for all the red. It was difficult to find that, right? And probably too, while you were looking for each of the colors, you probably bent the rules a little bit just because you wanted to believe that whatever things that you were on a task to find were that color.

Like when I asked you how many of those things were red. You might have made the thing that was maybe orange ish become red just so that you could be successful in the whole game of finding all the things red So it's crazy what your brain will do to influence you to sway your decisions and sway your beliefs.

About what is true for you and what is not

 

 

going back to those parents that talk about family court is just there to abuse parents. It's just there to make money. If that's what you want to believe, you will find all of the evidence to support that. And, the ways that it's backed up and affected your life, right?

The ways that like, Oh, that was abused too. That attorney probably knew all along that the end result would be whatever it was. It was a setup the whole time. Right. That's how we, start to believe and think. it's way easier to believe that it's them that's causing it than taking responsibility of the common denominator in the situation.

Like this has just been problem after problem.  Yes, I'm not saying that the courts aren't fucked up guys. Please know that I'm not saying that.  There's a lot of reform to be done there. A hundred percent. But I'm saying that also too, if you are looking for the evidence to support that, the family courts are just there to fuck you, then you're gonna find it.

And you know what it's gonna do is produce a result in your life that's not good. Now, if your belief is, I don't like the way the family courts are and I'm going to be part of the change, I'm gonna be part of the solution, I'm going to vote for judges.

I'm going to vote for change. I'm going to, go to the lawmakers, into the state capitals and be part of the change. That is one thing. And that's going to produce a very good result for you, probably a better result for you than thinking that family courts just there to fuck you.

That family courts are there to fuck all parents without money. That family courts are just there to make money off of people. That is not going to give you the kind of result that you ultimately want. And it's actually working against you though, in the moment, it feels much better to be able to say, look, it's them look what they've done, because then you don't have to take, , Inventory and take responsibility for the current state of your life.

 But it produces an undesirable result. I mean, I'd have to say argue every single time  and it keeps you us. Whoever's doing this in a place. And we all do it

I think it's just part of the healing process to go through that resistance and blame and trying to figure out and being able to take responsibility and ownership because you're already being. Persecuted. You're already being judged and accused of being, um, a less than person, parent, member of society.

Right? By this person who's alienating your kids from you. So it makes sense why you would be so protective of yourself and want to place the blame because  you have been wronged.  We've all been wronged.  Our children have been very wronged. We've all been wronged.  that is a legit, it is a valid, valid point.

And also if you let that define you and you are the parent that has been wronged, that is all you will produce in your life. And then you'll sit there twiddling your thumbs and wondering why you're feeling stuck.  This is why.  This is why,  because you're not able to produce any change when the ones outside of you, the ones that are creating the problems to begin with.

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so in order to not acting on default and be swayed by social media, by the negative influences in your life, by your children even, or the circumstances of your life thus far right to not fall into, that negative outlook on life. You must actually move from your brain and your body's desire to.

Not exert the effort and want to stay familiar and you have to be the sway er, the influencer of your mind and your body and your life. You have to intentionally put yourself out there in harm's way, if you will, and Step out on a limb and dare to be the definer of your own life and not rest on your laurels and say my current state, the ugliness of my life right now, um, is because of other people, but instead have the courage to stand up and say, it's really my choices that got me here.

Not to beat yourself up. Please don't do that. Please don't misconstrue what I'm saying here. I mean, be able to stand on that and like, alright, now what? Like, how can I, um, define myself from here? Like, I'm not just a mom who was wronged. But I'm a mom who is out there, getting my hands dirty and active in the trenches of my own life and the lives of others.

I'm promoting change within, our community. And promoting change within myself. I, Strive to keep growing that really is my number one driver over even personal relationships, which actually can get me into trouble now and cause me to isolate some because I really Thrive on the growth Right on evolving myself and helping to evolve others, other parents.

It can actually work against you sometimes too. So you do have to find balance, but, what was the biggest change for me was belonging to my own self, which I believe I did an episode on that a while back, but working on, supplying for yourself that which you have been sort of trained to To look to others to fulfill for you,

and, when I say trained, I just think that socially we've been brought up to, think that way, That others bring us happiness, That others are responsible for bringing us happiness or bringing us whatever it is that we need in our emotional life. And it's actually what others bring to the table is. You know the icing on the cake. Those are the experiences that you guys each together exchange that energy but you have to have it first, you know what i'm saying? So, you stay in the pain , you stay in the pain because the pain is providing you Some sort of benefit and so for me, like I said that pain was providing me An excuse to stay in certainty In stagnancy in the devil that I knew.

, and it also staying in the pain provided me with a feeling of significance in that I felt special set apart because of what had happened to me. Yeah, but that doesn't apply to me because I'm an alienated parent. I didn't fit into the parent or mom group . But I didn't fit with the single people or the people that never had kids.

I was like this exception to all the rules. And even though it was miserable and very lonely, like isolating, right. And I know you guys can all understand that. It also gave me this feeling of. Being set apart and being unique, which I thought in a way I didn't think that's on the, conscious level, but thought it was, you Fulfilling that need to feel significant, So you either make something of your life and like excel in some certain areas, become a doctor, spinal surgeon or whatever, or you the other route and you stand out by being the black sheep, sometimes as alienated parents, I think that if all the other avenues didn't work and we're not excelling at something in a positive way, then we just learn to excel at.

Fucking up in a way at, underachieving, and I know that this is a painful truth. at least it was for me to take on. I found this on my own. And so nobody ever told me this, but like I said, I think if somebody were to tell me this, that I would have definitely resisted it. It would have made me very angry.

To think that I was causing this or staying in this because it was by choice, you know, because I was wanting to feel special or unique from my pain. Because really, honestly, I wanted anything but being in that awful, awful suffering and pain that, we all know so well, as a result of feeling alienated feeling, um, excavated from our own Children's lives.

You know, it's a pain that I wouldn't wish on anybody, but I also, because I couldn't find a way to thrive through it, I chose to single myself out because of it, and that provided me with that significance in an awful way. And it also provided me with that certainty of, at least I know this. There's a lot of predictability in this.

I don't have to risk failure. Um, Like I can just use the other people's choices to do what they did as an excuse for the rest of my life.  And that is why I felt like I was at the bottom of a pit with no exit doors back in the day. that was my, , visual for my life is that I, I, there was no exit doors on this fucking life on earth, but really living in hell place. 

There was no way for me to take responsibility of my life if somebody else was always responsible for it, but at the same time, I didn't want to risk my own, Disappointment in myself if I couldn't make it past the hump, because then what, what would that mean about me? If I dropped that persona, that identity of the battered, abused, Uh, alienated mom and wife. What if I dropped that? Then who the fuck was I? That is really, truly, it gave me this, this sense of certainty and security.

Because at least I was something. Who was I without that? I didn't know. And that was even scarier. You know, like who, if I'm not this mom, um, that devoted her whole life to her child, which by the way, again, I will say as much as I take so much pride in my motherhood, right. And being a mom, even though I'm not doing it actively, like I wanted to be before.

Um, it is a noble position, all the active moms out there, you know, um, that I would take back in a heartbeat, but I will also say that it wasn't, it wasn't a, uh, a feat to take on that role. It wasn't me risking anything to, to step into those shoes. You know, in fact, it was just sort of the evolution of me, right?

Oh, now I'm a mom. This is what I do. It was, there was no risk involved. There was a huge risk in letting go of that as my only definer, right? As my only anchor. Into the world. But that anchor was actually keeping me in a hell that I would never want to be in again. So what is keeping you in the pain of your situation of alienation?

Most likely is some iteration of that, of not wanting to let go of this story, of this identity that you've created for yourself because of what you're willing to see and the story that you're willing to retell to yourself, right. And reinforce for yourself. About why your life is currently the way it is.

And if you continue to retell that story about why your life is currently the way it is because of somebody else, your life will never change. Not by your hand anyway. And I don't want that for you, and I know that you don't want that for you. So in order to create something new, you have to think. And believe something new, dare to believe something new about you and about what you're capable of and about even what your identity is now today.

But I will always like identify myself as mom always because she is my love. She's my heart. She is just part of me. and I will always continue to find ways to exercise that God given right to, to mother her, you know, but also I am so much more, I am a mom who's been through hell and now has paved her way back, , by helping herself and helping others.

All of you out there. I'm a mom who strives to and thrives to learn and suck in all of the data and information and helpful tools and concepts in neuroscience and psychology that I can. In order to reinterpret and then regurgitate to you, to help you and to support you to become your highest version of yourself.

That's really who I am today. I'm a mom. I'm a phoenix rising from the ashes. Um, no, but it's not that I don't even think about it as that I have been wronged anymore. That was just part of, they were my ex. I'm still working on that stepmom, but like, he was just a pawn in my development and I know that for my daughter, I truly believe that have to believe for me, that's my choice is that it's also

Doing the same thing for her. It's just that her road is started much sooner than mine and I really, of course, as a mom, hope that she never has to go through the pain that I ever went through I also have to trust that she too, her soul chose this route for her.

Right. She chose this and it was always meant to happen this way. So that she could get to the, her highest version of herself, right? Knowing that regardless of what happens, she, her soul will always rise above all of this earthly pain that we have. And I know that sounds a little far out for some of you.

but I do think it's important for me, it was important to gain some perspective on life and death. Aside from my little world, right? That there was bigger purpose and meaning to all of this. And I choose to believe that it's because these are the lessons that I chose. This was the pathway, that I chose for myself beforehand.

Knowing that in the end, I'm going to get to exactly where I'm supposed to be. Learning the lessons. That I'm supposed to learn if I'm constantly choosing to dive straight in to the wave and i'm willing to stay open and out of denial if i'm willing to face everything and move towards it if I were let's say if I were somebody that continued to deny deny try to buffer or Numb myself out of the current state Of my life, you know, then I think I would probably perish and like, because I would have been resisting the constant evolution, something bad, probably quote unquote bad would happen to me.

And then I believe that I would have had to come right back to this world again and experience all of the same exact circumstances. In another life until I decided to face it and who knows maybe that's what happened to me before I don't know. I don't really get into the whole other lives things but I truly believe that that's what happens like people that decide to check out early or not to um face the stuff the lessons are there for a reason and so in some way shape or form I truly believe that you will end up facing them whether it's this life or another Okay.

So that's what I have for you. That was a lot of talking. I just said that was like two hours. So I've got a lot of editing to do. You guys have a wonderful, wonderful day. Bye.