13: How Past Trauma Controls Present Relationships with Vienna Pharaon

Welcome to my podcast called you'd Must Be out of youf Mind. My name is Dr. Don Wood. Everyone has experienced some trauma at times during their life. These traumatic events and experiences create a significant impact on how your mind works on a day to day basis. At the same time creates long term effects on your emotional and physical health. It will interfere with your ability to stay present and in the moment. After years of research, I used my knowledge of neuroscience to create what I call a memory reset. This memory reset reduces and eliminates the impact of the trauma and allows you to experience peace and clarity. My podcast will share many stories of people experiencing similar symptoms to you and how their lives have been positively impacted by our TIP program. I can't wait to share with you how the impossible is possible and why you must be out of your mind. And there it is.

Well, welcome to another podcast of youf Must Be out of youf Mind. And as you know, My name is Dr. Don Wood and I'm your host. And I usually try to bring in some really exciting guests that tie in with what we do with the Inspired Performance Institute. And today I have an amazing guest that I think is going to really relate to everybody that we talk to. Her name is Vienna Farren. And so what we're going to talk about is Vienna is a marriage and family therapist and she has her own business called Mindful Marriage and Family Therapy. Has been doing this for a long time and very, very successful at what she's doing. So welcome Vienna too. You must be out of your mind.

Thanks, Don. I'm happy to be here.

Well, I'm so glad you're here because this has a lot to do with people that we're talking to and what we do. So can you maybe give a quick little description of what you do and how you help people?

Sure, yeah. So as you said, I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist. I work with individuals, couples and families within the context of relationships. And you know, the lens through which I see patterns and relationships is really through understanding the family of origin, the family system or systems in which we grew up. Right. So for example, if you have a divorced, divorced parents, you may have had multiple family systems and learn to operate in each one of those systems a little bit differently. So, yeah, my work is in the exploration of what it was like for us to grow up, how we were affected by that, what we saw and witnessed and observed, what we experienced, and how that comes along with us into our adult lives, into our adult relationships. The work for me is really about Addressing the unhealed, the unresolved stuff, pain from our past. So yeah, I like to do a lot of origin work. Sort of the first time that something very impactful.

Happens in our lives that sets the trajectory for a lot of patterns and maybe dysfunction in our lives and really just working back to understanding where it originated so that we can heal the origin wound. Right. As opposed to just changing the present day behavior.

Beautiful. Well, and that's one of the things that we talk about all the time too is if, if you don't heal that unresolved, you know, whether that's trauma. I wrote my second book I called Emotional Concussions, right? Because I said there's not always a big T trauma. It can be that emotional concussion where maybe an overly critical parent or something like that, that, that hit you when you're a child and then those things show up later on in life, in your relationships.

Even in health. I mean, do you see a lot of that also in the way people they're, the way their health is changed by not getting any of that stuff resolved?

Yeah, I think that, you know, so I use a lot of the, the language that I use is wounds. I talk about that in my book.

And yeah, I say our wounds, they want to be healed, right? And they'll find ways to poke out, right? Whether it's through dysfunctional patterns, whether it's through health, as you're alluding to right now, right. It's like they'll find a way to grab your attention because they don't want to just be tucked away, forgotten, banished, right. They want to be healed, right. They're not there to ruin our lives, they're there to be healed. And yeah, it can manifest, I think in a number of different ways from health to patterns to strong reactions, angry outbursts, you know, the list is really endless there. But when we're having, when we're noticing something in ourselves, like a health issue, which, listen, doesn't always have to be tied to something like this, right. There could be something that's just playing out inside of you physically that, that does need medical attention. But when you, when you notice like, oh, I am super reactive about this thing, I so angry about this other thing. I find myself in the same types of partners over and over again with people who never prioritize me or people who never can commit, right. Like when we find ourselves in these types of loops, right. It's a really good indicator that there is something that's unresolved going on that needs more attention from us, right. That needs us to witness it, that needs us to feel alongside of it. Because we probably skipped over it at some point and just tried to put our heads down, down, grit our teeth, move forward with life, deal with it later, don't worry about it, get on with it, toughen up, you know, whatever narrative it is that maybe was given to you or one that you offered to yourself. And again, I think maybe what both of us are saying is that we have to turn back. You know, you do have to turn your head around and say, yeah, that stuff from the past, it's not just done because we're no longer in the past. Right. It's tugging at me, it's pulling up my shirt, it wants my attention. So, yeah, it can manifest in so many different ways. There's a lot of different indicators that let us know that there's an unresolved wound that's looking for us to see it, hear it, listen to it, be with it, feel alongside of it. And I think that our work is to pay attention to that and then, yeah, dive into, you know, the healing, as there are so many different healing modalities, but to dive into the healing modality that aligns best for you to. To really begin to resolve some of that.

Do you find too, a lot of times the reason people get into those patterns or they get into, you know, you mentioned something interesting, how they end up with the same kind of partners.

Right.

What I sort of explain that is that they're looking for that safety, even though it may be dysfunctional, it's. It's familiar. And so the mind does not like uncertainty. And so even if it may not be a situation that's the best for you, at least, you know, it's a little easier to deal with.

Yeah. Our internal systems really like familiarity. They like status quo. They want to go back to that because it's what we know. And. And so, yeah, we can find ourselves, unfortunately, right. When we're not doing the work to resolve the stuff from the past. Right. Our systems, our internal systems will be drawn towards what is familiar. As you said, it's like it's the illusion of safety. Right. And I think familiarity is really the better word. Right. But it's the illusion of safety. I know this, so I go there, but I keep choosing the same types of people, different person, but somehow I still feel deprioritized in these relationships. Right. Because whether it's a partner who drinks or whether it's a partner who puts work before you, or whether it's a partner who golfs for, you know, I don't know, 20 hours a week.

That's me.

You're like, shoot, you're pointing to me. But. Right, but whatever it is, right. And that might not be an activation for someone. Right. Who doesn't have a prioritization wound, for example. But when you have a. I get into this in the book, I talk about worthiness, prioritization, belonging, safety and trust as five core wounds that can originate in childhood. And so when you notice a complaint that you have in your current day life, oftentimes in your current day relationships, we might likely most of the time be able to find a link to its origin somewhere before this moment with that person. Right. And so when, if you notice that you keep choosing the same types of people or the complaint that you have of different partners sounds very similar to the last. Right. Even if the content itself is not exactly the same, then there's a little bell that's being rung there that says, ooh, you know, like maybe there is a wound. Maybe you didn't feel prioritized in your childhood. Maybe other things were more important to you. Maybe you felt that way. And so instead of us begging, pleading, screaming, crying, trying to get our partner to just prioritize us and make us important, sometimes that work is about going back to really connecting to that origin wound that set it in motion in the first place.

And you find sometimes too people don't even know what it is. They're not even aware of it at times. And until you sit down and you can start reviewing it with them and it's almost like a revelation that they never connected that up to. It could be just an event that happened in their life. We see that all the time.

Yeah, right. I think sometimes there are, you know, cyclical things. There might be ever present things that, that we feel in childhood. Sometimes there's a one off thing that happens that, you know, it doesn't have to. It could be. I remember some, a client of mine, this was connected to a worthiness wound for him. He shared that in fifth grade, a girl that he liked, girl that he had a crush on, had said, oh, I would like you if you were taller and remember him, you know, just sitting there like this is just this, this tiny little sentence, right?

Yeah.

In fifth grade, who cares? Right? And yet here's this moment in history that sets this worthiness wound in motion. Right. I'm only worthy of your attention. Your. It's fifth grade, but like your attention, your love. Right. Whatever love looks like in fifth grade. But you Know I'm only. I'm only worthy of your attention, your presence with me, your love, your desire of me. Right. If I was taller, if I wasn't as short. Right. And that stays, maybe not with everyone, but that stays for some, and it stayed for him. And it's really tied to the way that he navigates dating. Present day. Right. I need to be friends with anybody who could potentially be a partner of mine for a long time before we move into that romantic space. Because if we're friends, then they're more likely to overlook the fact that I'm shorter.

Interesting. Yeah, yeah. Just those little things. Even with the best of intentions, a parent can. Can do something. Yeah. I had a lady, same kind of thing. She said, oh, I never really had any trauma. And then as we started talking, she. I said, any kind of a. An event that you can remember that she was talking about in church. She Sundays, I was six and I was talking and my grandmother took out her hairbrush and hit me on the head and said, stop talking, you're in church. And the waterwork started. And she goes, I lost my voice that day. I just realized that I never stand up for myself.

Yeah.

But she had never connected that.

Yeah. Right. So, you know, oftentimes we can find a moment or that sort of ever present parent who is a workaholic, who will stay up late working on their computer, doing the things that they knew. They're always traveling for work, whatever it is. And again, whether it's intentional, unintentional, meant to do harm, not meant to do harm, a lot of the time is not meant to do harm. It's just the effect that it had. And I think a lot of times when I'm working with people, they're like, my parents did the best that they could. My caretakers did the best that they could. Right. We have this resistance a lot of times to the idea that you might be throwing somebody you love under the bus, that you want to hold them in some type of high regard. What I say about this work is it's not about throwing people under the bus. This isn't about, oh, look at all the ways that you've failed me and look at all the ways in which you destroyed my life. This is about calling the thing the thing. This is about naming what was. We don't have to minimize it or maximize it. We. We can't distort it. We have to be able to name what was so that we can work with it. And so, you know, that's one of the Big resistances that people have is to say, you know, parents, caretakers, they can mean well and they can disappoint. Right. They can mean well and they can hurt, they can mean well and they can let down. Right. That's part of the human experience. And sometimes it's terrible, sometimes it's well intentioned, but it still misses the mark. And our work is to be able to look at our past, to be able to look at these relationships and call the things a thing.

Yep. And a lot of times too, you get a child, you know, especially a five, four year old child that doesn't have enough life experience to interpret this event. So the parent may be thinking that the child is absolutely fine the way they handle the situation, but you've got a five year old trying to figure out what does that mean.

Right.

In a really funny sort of way. I remember my parents, my mom, every saying once in a while ago, it's difficult to make ends meet. And I remember as a child, I never understood what that meant. I thought she was talking about meat, like really meat. And I was like, what do you. What meat meeting? Like, why would you ask me that?

Right.

But because I didn't understand what she meant.

Yeah.

So that can really, you know, start to affect a child if it comes across as a negative experience.

That's right. I mean, I think when we're kids, right, our perspective, our lens through which we see things is really limited. Right. If a parent.

If a parent wants to change us, if a parent wants to prioritize something else, we're not sitting here thinking, oh, my parents is maybe going through a really stressful time in their lives and. Right. We personalize it. It's about us. You don't want to spend time with me because I'm not good enough. You don't want to be around me because I'm not smart enough. You don't want to be around me because I speak too much. Right. It becomes personal. We don't have this wide perspective that sees the complexity of humans. Right. That understands that our parents too were once children at one point, who are also probably walking around this earth with some unhealed wounds potentially. And the way in which they manage that might trickle down into us in a way that is hurtful to us. But exactly like you said, dawn, when we're kiddos, we don't have that perspective. When we're kiddos, we personalize it. We see it as it being a flaw in us. Right. That there's something wrong with me. And then we're having to navigate the reconciliation of that and the repair of that as we get older and move through life and relationships, hopefully in a healthier way.

It's interesting because I wonder how many people you've had like this with. I had this amazing childhood. Right. I thought everybody had my childhood. And we talked a little bit about this before, but my parents never raised their voice, never yet yelled, never hit us. My brother and sister and I can't ever remember them arguing. Now, that's a unique home to grow up in. Like, that was very, very nurturing. So I always felt safe. So my nervous system pretty much stayed regulated. And if I got bumped by a, you know, a friend or a teacher or a coach, as soon as I would come home, I'd come right back into regulation and safety. And, you know, and I often talk to people, you know, I've been on podcasts, and they'll say, what's the best advice you can give to a parent? And I said, make your home safe. It's got to be the place. My wife had none of that. And so she lived with a very violent, angry father. So she was living in fear all the time. And if I said something like, no, I don't like that, she could tear up and start to cry and say, why are you upset with me? And I'd go, I'm not upset at all. Like, and. But she wasn't wrong, and I wasn't wrong. So she could hear this little tiny tension change in my voice. If I was just tired. Right. Or maybe a little frustrated on the drive home, I'm not upset at her. But she hears that, and then her mind immediately activates into, I'm in danger. And then she starts to, you know, start to feel like, what do I have to do to get away from this danger? Even though she's not in danger. And a lot of people don't understand that. They'll just say, well, I'm very emotional. Right. Well, there's a reason why. So for me, I think that that had a big effect on my health over my entire life. It had a major. I've been healthy all my life. You know, even living in Florida 30 years. Never get to the doctor because I don't get sick. And I believe that that came from very early in my life, having my nervous system stay regulated.

Yeah. I mean, I think there's absolute truth to that. And. And being when your body can rest, you know, when your body feels stabilized. Right. There is. There is a health to that. Right. And a lot of times we Think emotional health. Health. Mental health, physical health. Right. All those things. But the interconnectedness of that. All right. Makes. Makes a whole heck of a lot of sense.

Yeah. I'm curious.

Not to. I'm turning the tables here, Dawn. Okay, good. Because I'm curious about. In your relationship with your. With your wife, you know, to have grown up in a family system where, you know, there was no fighting, there was no arguing, you never really saw anyone upset. In many ways, I imagine that that communicates like, this is. This is how we operate. Right. This is how we do things. This is how we stay. We don't really leave from this space. Right. We don't deviate from calm. Kind connection with each other. Sorry. Kind communication with each other. And so, you know, was that then the expectation that was left in you, right, like, that you have to always stay in that space when you're communicating or, you know, moving through conflict with a partner, with your wife? Like, what was it like for you to experience something different other than what you experienced growing up? And then did you take that personally at all? Like, I'm so curious if that felt like, shoot, am I doing something wrong as a partner for you or what? Yeah, like what? That activated within you.

It did. It made me feel like, how can I make her happy?

Yeah, right.

Why is she, you know, and it was really interesting because I talk about her story all the time, and it wasn't that she wasn't grateful, and. And, you know, we had three beautiful children, a beautiful home, a good business, but she never looked like it was like, oh, this is fantastic. I'm loving my life. And I couldn't understand it. So it put this constant drive in me that I've got to maybe make more money, do something better, make her happier. What is it that I'm missing? I didn't realize it was that loop of trauma that was stopping her from enjoying it because she got hurt so many times as a child. She was really protecting herself. And I tell people all the time when people say, oh, I sabotage myself, I said, I don't believe that's possible. The brain is survival based. It's protecting you. So for my wife, it was protecting her because at times her father, right, would be. He was that Jekyll and Hyde. He could be Mr. Nice Guy, Mr. Generous Guy. And then on a snap of a finger, right, a wall gets punched and a door gets slammed. And so she was living with that. When's it coming?

Right?

Even though she was not living in that world at all. I never yelled at My wife never raised my voice, but I felt like she was feeling like I could do it and she was just waiting for it.

Yeah. You know, that's when there's the absence of safety. You're describing the unpredictable. Right. The unpredictable parent, you know, the lack of safety. Certainly a safety wound and potentially even, you know, a worthiness wound. Right. Like, what do I need to do to make you stop? Or how can I be different to get you to be nicer if I'm a little more this or a little bit less that. Right. Like that. Again, that's oftentimes where children can go. Right. How do I make this stop? Because this is, you know, unsafe. This is uncomfortable for me. I don't like it. I don't want it. And again, when we're personalizing it, Right. Sometimes it's tied to if I was different or if our family was different. Maybe you wouldn't behave this way.

Right. And what my wife, I think, had learned as well is she got very emotional, which that actually was more for her protection because her father didn't like that. He didn't like the crying. He. So he actually took it out harder on the boys. And even her sister, who were more defiant, right. They wouldn't show that he was getting to them where she would just immediately break down. So she would then, I think, do the same with me to sort of get that back off even though I wasn't doing anything.

Yeah. What a. What a brilliant coping strategy of hers, huh?

Yeah.

You know, such a. Such a brilliant system, right, to figure out how to. How to self protect a bit. You know, and. Right. Part of healing is, you know, as some partners will say, and it sounds like maybe you didn't say something like this, Don, but you know, one of the common things that you'll hear is, I'm not your father or I'm not your past partner, or I'm not like your ex.

I shouldn't have to pay the price of what they did. And.

Part of this work is not, you're safe with me. Right. That doesn't work. You're safe with me. It's okay. I'm not him. I'd never do that. Don't you see all the evidence? I've never raised my voice, I've never raised my hand. I've never done this. Right. There's probably all the evidence in the world, but this isn't about logic. This isn't about rationale. This isn't about that. And so.

Of course, part of her work, and it sounds like you Guys have done a lot of incredible work over your years together. But for the listener is that the safety does need to be established in the body. That safety needs to be established in this somatic way so that a wall can start to drop ever so slightly to let you into.

Essentially a new ending. Right. To be able to say, I may not actually just be safe in the world with anyone. Right. But I can start to feel what safety is like with you through these experiences where we have a hard conversation about something, but I can stay in my body, I can reconnect with myself. You'll stop when I ask you to stop. You'll. You'll honor my boundaries and then start to build that out more and more and more. So it's a very relational thing. A lot of. A lot of our healing is individual, but I always say, if it's relationships that wound, then relationships are required to help in the healing. And. And so we can take ourselves so far, but at some point, right, if we want to be able to trust some. Someone again, if we want to be able to feel safe with someone again, if we want to feel a sense of worthiness in someone else's life, right, then we're having to do some of this relational work to write a new ending and not let the wound.

Stay in the driver's seat.

Right?

Yeah.

And one of the ways that we're working on it, I was explaining that my daughter had experienced some trauma that was affecting her, not only her health, mental and physical.

Physical health.

The thing that I found from my research is that we're creating these glitches, what I call glitches or error messages, the way the mind is viewing old memory, which is activating our nervous system. So when I would say to my wife, no, I don't like that, and she'd tear up, I thought it was what I said. And I kept saying, well, I've got to say it differently. I've got to change the tone, the cadence, the. All of those things. But it wasn't. That is when I was saying, no, I don't like that. But she heard that little tension. What her mind was doing is basically a Google search. What do I know about these kinds of situations? And a flood of data would come in about her father. That's where the tears were coming from. It wasn't me, but I kept thinking it was me. So the key and what I've dealt with our program tip is we're going to take some of those events and experiences, you know, two or three of them, and we're going to get your mind to reset that high definition traumatic data into a lower format so that the mind stops responding to it. So I've worked with, you know, Boston Marathon bombing survivors, Vegas shooting victims, people.

Veterans who have had post traumatic stress for years. And we can eliminate it because the mind stops calling for an action. What I always say is there, the reason you have an emotion is the emotion is a call for an action. The purpose of fear is to escape a threat. The purpose of anger is to attack a threat. So if you think about something that happened five years ago and your heart's racing, it's because your mind is looking at the information from five years ago and responding to it in real time. We've been doing a lot of work with brain mapping and one of the things that we found is, particularly when people are experiencing post traumatic stress, that the O1O2 area at the back of the brain, the occipital lobes are lit up. And so when I was looking at that, I said, why would those areas be lit up unless they're looking at something. They're looking at memory. And then that sets off the autonomic nervous system. Even though nothing is happening, but it's calling for an action. That's what I found that we could fix. And when you do that, it's life changing because now they can heal in their relationships because they won't constantly be activated by their partners.

Now they can still get activated on a current thing.

Sure, sure.

But at least the old information isn't going to put them into a response.

Beautiful.

Yeah. And so, so it's a very effective way. It's very quick. We can do that, you know, in a very short period of time. We did a brain map study sort of showing how much of the brain can actually change. So I did, from 15 year olds up to 60 year olds with a whole bunch of different things from depression, anxiety, panic attacks. And we got a average of a 46% change in brain plasticity.

Wow.

Which is amazing.

Significant. Yeah.

And the thing that was fascinating is it wasn't just in the limbic area. We actually got a lot of changes in the frontal lobe, which was fascinating. Which shows it's an entire brain that's responding. Right. So that logical, reasonable part of our brain. Right. That knows we're not in danger, but we still respond. It's the, the limbic system that's actually responding because of the, the memory loop, the trauma loop.

Right, right. Yeah. Well, it sounds like you're doing incredible work with people.

Yeah. And I love what you're doing because it's the same thing. It's healing that wound, understanding that. You've got to get back to that. So what kinds of things are you seeing most in. In your type of work?

Yeah, you know, so I. I work with mostly individuals and couples, some families in there, but. But the work is really around understanding how the past is still affecting us today. And. And so very relational. I. I talk about five core wounds in the book. Worthiness, belonging, prioritization, safety, and trust. And certainly, of course, our wounds are not limited to those five. But, you know, as I was sitting down to write this book, I was really finding that most things could really fall under one of those categories. Right. And so in the book, I talk about how, if you notice, oh, I want to feel worthy, I want to feel like a priority. I want to feel like I belong, I want to trust, I want to feel safe. Right. Whatever it is that stands out to you there. And for some of us, you would be like, I have no clue. I have no clue where to start. None of that feels like anything to me. You know, the book really helps guide us in seeing some of the pain from our past that does need to be resolved. And what I would say is that in my work, most of the time, people fall into, you know, one of those categories. Again, I don't like to put people in boxes. I don't think that that's how we operate in this world. But, you know, when I was writing about worthiness, I was like, I want to wonder if every single one of us has some level of a worthiness wound. It's like, I don't know if any of us get out of this life without a little bit of a worthiness wound. And certainly for some of us, it's much bigger than others. But I think every single one of us at some point in life can struggle with feeling worthy, deserving of something. Right? And so, yeah, you know, I dive into those wounds, and then I dive into how that can play out in, you know, the breakdown of boundaries, the breakdown in communication, the breakdown in conflict. And, you know, some of the patterns that we find ourselves in. There is no wonder that we often partner with people who rub up against our wounds a bit. Yeah. I.

Was recently saying to someone, in deep, intimate relationships, our wounds are going to get exacerbated no matter what. But there's a difference between the folks who come in and just poke and prod at our wounds and leave us to pick up the pieces versus those who rub up against our wounds and then participate in the healing. Right. You're a really good example of that because you're someone who realize, oh, there's a wound that's being rubbed up against. But I love you. I care about you. I want to understand this more. I'm invested in this. I want to. I want to see what's going on here. Right. That ladder path. Right. That's the. That's the beauty. We're not going to get out of this life. Right. Without wounds being rubbed up against. I say we can't. You can't avoid your way to healing. Yeah. It doesn't mean that we don't use discernment. That doesn't mean that we don't use judgment. That doesn't mean, hey, throw yourself in the flames and just, you know, take the bullet. Bullets. It means, of course, we pick and choose and we're really careful about with whom we share things and, you know, what we. What we reveal to others. But you can't avoid your way to healing. Right. Your wounds have to be touched in order for us to walk ourselves to different endings, to different outcomes, to a new story that is very different than the one you've probably held your entire life. Right. I'm not safe to. Oh, I can be safe with some people. Right. Like, what a beautiful offering that is. I'm just using your wife as an example. Right. I'm not safe in this world to.

I know that. I'm safe with my partner, Don. I feel safe with him. Right. Or I feel safe with my best friend, or I feel safe with my child, or I feel safe with my therapist. Right. And so it's not to say every, like, the world is safe. We know that that's not true, but it gives a much more nuanced story that is so much more workable. Right. I am not a worthy, deserving human. I don't deserve love to. Oh, I can have love with some important people in my life who really care about me and respect me and honor me. Right. And so that's, you know, that's the value of be allowing our wounds to be touched because it's what allows for a pat. A new path forward. Right. If you're like, I don't ever want to touch the wound, then you can't ever really heal it. All you've done is avoid touching the wound, which maybe is, like, cool. We never get into conflict and we never have a fight and we never have to have a hard conversation. But that's going to limit your depth. That's going to limit your expansion. That's going to limit a lot of things in life if you never touch it.

It's interesting because I had a client, huge, huge, big trauma, like national story trauma, right? And that she had post traumatic stress for five and a half years. Came in to see me, we worked through it. She had tear nightmares every single night. And here's the thing that she thought was the most fascinating. She says, I thought this was my big trauma. She goes, it wasn't. I never knew there were other traumas earlier that were having such an effect. The most healing she got was from healing those. It was just the big one, right? And so, but we don't look at it sometimes, you know, especially if you're high functioning or, you know, people look at, you know, these executive CEOs, these athletes who are world renowned and they think, oh, they've got everything, they don't have any problems. And now you see that's. I'm always so impressed when you see somebody who's famous like that and willing to be vulnerable and come out and say, yeah, I have panic attacks, right? Because people go, how could they have a panic attack? Right?

But they look so put together, right? You have it all together. But it's, yeah, it's, it's so fascinating what you were just saying about your, your client, your former client, right? It's like it, how the system will but like continue to poke it up, right? To be like, hey, pay attention to me, right? There's something more here. And certainly we can have acute events that are the origins of something. They don't always have to be linked to something that has happened in the past. But you know, oftentimes we see that it's just our very brilliant systems way of, you know, hey, hi, hello, pay attention to me, keep looking at me. I'm going to get bigger and bigger and louder and stronger and make you pay attention to me so that we don't miss, you know, what needs to be recognized, acknowledged and healed.

It's one of the things I say to Vienna when people come in. I'll say the first one of the first things I say to them. There's nothing wrong with you and there's nothing wrong with your mind. Your mind works perfectly fine. Just like you were talking about. There's a reason why your mind is creating these emotions and feelings and sensations. It's looking for a solution. We seek homeostasis. Our minds and bodies are trying to become stable, right? What's interfering with it? So it's not A bad thing. So when they come in and say, I have anxiety, I'll say, well, that's a symptom. Why is your mind anxious? Let's get to the root cause, right? Where they become identified with anxiety. I'm saying, well, no, we, we don't want you to identify with anxiety. That's why did your mind create that for a purpose?

And I think that's so helpful for people to not think, you know, there, there's something wrong with me. I'm. My mind is not working. It's failing me. Right. It's like, as you're saying, no, your, your whole system is so brilliant and it's working for you in some ways, but it might be blocking you from some. Right. Like this might be where we need to find a different forward. Because the ways in which you have learned to survive and navigate the world, which were really effective for you maybe decades ago, may not actually be as effective for you today. If you have a goal of being in, you know, connective partnership or being able to have hard conversations with folks or, you know, making space to be loved and to love. You know, it's like, that's the piece is that your system is so smart and there is, there isn't anything wrong with it, but if we don't update the operating system, then we're going to wind up maintaining the, the coping strategies, the protective strategies, the, you know.

We'Re going to keep using those things and they may block us from the things that we actually crave and desire and want in our lives. And that's what needs to be worked on. That's what needs to be processed.

Yeah, I use computer analogies all the time too. I say it's like if you, every time you hit the M key on your computer, your computer shut off, right? Well, people would say, well, don't touch the M key. Stay away from words with M's in them.

Right?

Well, that's not the solution. The solution is the code that got built and is what I use with people with addiction as well. I say the same thing. You're not broken and defeated. Your mind found a resource to stop pain, Right? That doesn't say anything about your character, morals, or willpower. That's human nature. We don't want to be in pain. And so now the resource you're using is not a great resource, but I get why you found it, right? So people are going to find different resources to stop that pain.

Yeah, that's exactly it. Right? Is, you know, we figure out ways to, to cope and to survive. And they've worked for, you know, they do work. It's just, what are they working for? You know, is it working to numb out, to distract you from something? Is it this? Is it that? Right? But now it's, that's the update. And similarly to you, you know, you said the computer analogy is like sort of like the operating system on your phone. You know, you plug it in at night and overnight it's going to give you iOS 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, you know, whatever. And if only we could just push a button and have the new operating system with all the bugs fixed. You know, if it were, if it were that easy. But part of updating that operating system, right, is recognizing, ah, okay, right. This is how I survived, this is how I coped. Here's how hard I worked. And that worked really well with one agenda in mind. But my agenda is changing, right? I want to be able to participate in relationships. I want to feel safe with someone. I want to love and be loved. I want to feel, I want to believe I can trust people. I, I, I want to be trustworthy, whatever it is, right? Like that's the new, that's the change that has to happen. But you know, as we know, it takes work and, you know, some time to reconfigure that and not be afraid.

To do the work. So you're doing some fantastic stuff. Now, you mentioned the book, so this is coming out. It's called the Origins of you.

I love the origins.

So that is exactly what I talk about. So I love that.

Thank you. Yeah, I love that title. To the Origins of you. How breaking family patterns can Liberate the way we Live and love. It comes out February 21, 2023, so, and very excited for people to, to dive into family system work. Right. Again, like I said before, it's not about, oh, let's just blame our families for everything, you know, it's, it's, it's recognizing that that is the first system or systems in which we grew up. They are our families are, you know, the temple template for everything. Until something else comes in and offers a new template. They're the template for what love is how communication is, how we fight or don't fight, how we set boundaries, how we relate to money, religion, education, literally everything, right? They're the template for it. They tell us that this is how, this is how you do life, this is how you move through life. This is how you, what it means to be a little boy or a little girl or this is how we As a family do things, right? There's rules, there's expectations, right? And so we are adapting to fit into a family system and navigate the world that way. And so they're our template, right? They're our first idea of all the things. And, you know, as you were saying, Don, before, you know, you grew up in a family system that. Where things were really good and you're like, this is normal, right? It's like. And so for other folks, right, what we grow up with, it's normal, right? This is. This is what it looks like until you go to your friend's home for dinner a few times and you're like, oh, that mom is nicer. Or, you know, your dad doesn't yell as much, or, you know, whatever it is, sometimes we get that.

New vision of something at some point, but for most of us, right, for a period of time, it's the. It. The container that we are in. And it's communicating to us a lot about people, ourselves, and how to move through the world. And, you know, that's why when I.

Took on writing the Origins of you, you know, I want to give people a pathway to exploring this space without it being, oh, we're going to. We're going to blame them for everything. You know that that's not the focus, right? It's. It's to be able to say, hey, this is how we grew up. And that set the tone for some things in your life, and it probably set the tone for some things in your life that you'd like to change today. So let's explore that together and let's connect some dots and let's talk about a healing practice that we can. We can dive into and, and see. See how we can start to create some change present day, to walk ourselves to a different ending, to reclaim something for ourselves. So, yeah, I'm very excited for people to get to read it.

I love it. I can see why you're so successful, so, so well sought after, right? You've got an amazing approach. And this I always say to people, you know, Tiger woods has a coach, right? Tiger woods can't see the little things that are maybe going wrong in his swing. And just by sitting down with someone like you, Vienna, they can maybe discover some things that they just never knew were missing or creating some of the patterns in their life. Right? It sounds like you're doing fabulous job. I can't believe this time's flown by so fast. We could probably talk for another four hours on this whole.

Yeah, that's right, though. You don't, you don't know what you don't know. Right. And you can't see what you also don't want to see. And I think that there is a gentle way to begin to peel back some of those layers, take off some of those horse blinders and begin to look carefully, safely at some of those things to be able to.

Put it back into focus.

Thank you for having me here.

Well, I really enjoyed it. I'm sure we'll have another follow up at some point as well, especially maybe when the book comes out. Great to promote that because I think that's something that people should definitely read and learn from. So how else can people get in touch with you if they would like to see you or connect with you?

Yeah, one of the best ways is on instagram @mindfulness MFT as in marriage family therapy. My website is new yorkcouplescounseling.com but pretty much in those places you can find everything that's going on with with me and works for workshops, retreats.

Whatever offerings are are happening there. So yeah, hope everyone will follow along.

And you have so many quotes. I saw all these quotes all over. I was like I wanted to get into those but we just didn't time. You got some amazing quotes.

So thank you.

Vienna's quotes as well. They're pretty incredible.

So yeah, you can find those on Instagram or Facebook.

Yeah, yeah, those are. I love those.

So thanks Don.

Thank you so much Vienna for your time. And thank you again for listening to another podcast of you must be out of your mind.