It Didn’t Start With You: Breaking Generational Patterns and Healing the Past (Episode #79)

There's something about you that I can't help but smile. When you smile and laugh. When you laugh, something's around.

Welcome to the human intimacy podcast. Dr. Kevin Skinner. Marianne Michaelis, finishing up the summer months. Maryanne, what's going on in your world?

Well, Dr. Skinner, today I am joining you from Lovely. I don't know if I'm going to say this right. I think it's Tigard, Washington, Tigard, Oregon, if I'm saying that right. So I'm here. It's lovely this morning. I got to walk along the Willamette river with my dog and just beautiful, beautiful time of year to be here.

All right, so to our listeners, if you have not yet push the like button or on YouTube, if you haven't given us the thumbs up, whatever it is, please like it. Please put a thumbs up or whatever it is. Please do that for us. We really want to help as many people as possible, and the purpose of this podcast is to do so. And so you can help us by spreading the word. That's my $0.02 on how to promote our, our podcast. Marianne, do you have any three, do you want. Do you have three cents you want to use to promote it?

We're really glad you're here and we really hope this will be helpful. I think just adding on, just. I know, Dr. Skinner, you know, I always want to be really careful. We're both therapists and we work with people, people all the time trying to help them with where they are. And our purpose of this podcast is to provide help. But we're not necessarily your therapists to our listeners. I mean, we might be, hopefully we are, but. Yeah, but what we're sharing, I, I know we want to just make sure it's taken generally. And we hope that if you have questions or concerns or something that comes up, we hope that you'll take that to your therapist and work through it.

Yeah, well said. Well said. So educational purposes and cannot replace therapy and should not replace therapy. But with that being said, today's topic comes from something that in graduate school I learned about family history and genograms. I don't know if you learned about genograms when you were in school, but a genogram is looking at generations of time and looking at patterns in generations. And we had to do an assignment where we looked at, I think three generations up or four generations up and find out as much information about our families, from medical health to mental health to addictions across the board. That's what we had to do as information as we could get about our family. And it was very insightful for me, just looking at family patterns. And today what we're going to talk about is generations of good and bad. And we're going to be using a resource from Mark Wolin, W O L Wolf Y N n his book. It didn't start with you. Marianne, your initial thoughts?

You know, I also learned about this in grad school. And what I remember is, first of all going like, yeah, will I really actually use this with my clients? Like, how useful will this be? And I wasn't quite sure. And then somebody, one of our classmates came up to the board and did her own personal genogram. And then she explained it to us. And I just remember going, wow, I can't believe she's sharing all of this with us. And I can't believe her history. And boy, does it make me understand her so much better. I remember learning about this book from you, Dr. Skinner. It didn't start with you. And I bought it and it took me about a year and a half before as I was working through my stack of books, it took me about a year and a half to get to it. And it is one of my probably top five favorite books because it is so insightful. It. It's got some really phenomenal writing exercises and really insightful exercises. One thing that he says at the beginning that really resounded with me as I opened it up, he said, he talks about his own story, Mark Wallen. And he says, you know, if looking at. And doing work in your own family relationships, you know, if chewing on a mouthful of thumbtacks feels. Feels more. If you.

More pleasant.

Yes, more pleasant. I gotcha. I understand. But this is really important work. And what I found when I sit down with my clients and we start to look at family patterns, oh, wow. I'm working with a client who has some abandonment. And when they say, oh, I just went up a couple generations and looked at abandonment patterns, it's everywhere. Holy cow. This is a culture I grew up in. And I'm carrying stuff for my grandmother and carrying stuff for my aunts and from my mom. And it makes so much sense when we see it. And I know we're going to get into like, the nerdy science part of it, which I'm super, super excited about.

For me, it really begins by looking at myself and looking at my own history and my own story. Because if I, as I look at generations, if I really want to understand myself, and this is true of all of us, what's Our story, right? We didn't grow up in a vacuum. We grew up in an environment. And that family environment has had influence on how I think and how I feel, how I act, and sometimes intentionally ways I don't act. And to me, Marianne, that's the part that if you are afraid to look in your past, you probably need to do a self evaluation and say, what am I so afraid of? If you're afraid to look at generations of time, why? Because it's from that you're going to get the most insight into who you are and the challenges that you may be dealing with and the strengths that you might have from your grandparents and great grandparents and great, great grandparents. Because as I look back, I can go generations of time, Marianne. I literally can go generations of time. I have journals from ancestors who are eight generations ahead of me, and I can tell you some of their struggles and challenges because they wrote. I love reading their history because it helps me understand more about me.

One of the things that was so fascinating for me to learn about was epigenetics. And I'd kind of heard about the term epigenetics here and there, but I didn't really exactly know what it meant. What we're talking about when we're talking about epigenetics is basically our genes, our DNA. We have programming that our body has set up because of previous generations. It says, hey, that's dangerous. Hey, don't go there. And it's not conscious, but we can get into certain environments where it's like a light switch that, you know, a breaker box that click. Okay, we hit this threshold. And now this is what happens. And so many times we question and go, what's going on with me? What? I don't understand this. And if we look at it from this broader place of maybe it's not just me, but maybe it is from this bigger culture, it things start to make sense. I want to just take a side note for just a second. I have clients who are adopted. I have clients who don't know or have their family history or who are estranged from their parents or their parents have passed away, or there's just some lines that are cut off. And I know that this can be really difficult. This is really hard.

So you talk about the concept of epigenetics. And one of the interesting things, as we look at our history, our own personal stories, we may or may not know the full story, but what we do know, and this is the fascinating thing, there are cellular memories that we pass down from generation to generation. And those cellular memories, they're real. So I often think about individuals who have heightened anxiety, and they don't know where it comes from. It literally may have been passed down from generation to generation. And they don't even know it because they might be feeling feelings that aren't even theirs. And that's one of the fascinating things about Mark Woolen's book, is he talks about some of the research, how we are passing down these cellular memories of language, of emotions that may have not been thought about before. So to me, that is a fascinating concept. But because sometimes when you have clients come to you and they're like, I don't know why I feel this way. I'm just anxious. Well, the reality is, is when they start looking at their history, maybe they start to see, well, Grandma was anxious, and great Grandma was anxious, Grandpa was anxious. You start to see the pattern of anxiety that is passed down from generation to generation.

A really beautiful illustration of this is some research that is cited in this book. I've read it some other places as well. And it talks about mice. And they do some experiments on mice because they breed rapidly so they can mark and track the generations. In one of the experiments, they exposed mice to the smell of Japanese cherry blossoms. When they smelled them, they'd have like, a little bit of a electric shock or some. Some type of a stimulus that was unpleasant that they experienced. And they associated it every time they smelled the smell. And what they found was that the. The olfactory. So the smell sensors in these mice's brains or their bodies changed, their sperm changed. And what they found is three generations down. So even three generations down, they found this Vigoro factory. They found a. A, like an anxiety or a fear response to this smell. We don't always know what our drivers are because it may be coming back, as you said, a couple of generations before us.

And so now you're talking about cellular memories that they have found that are passed down for two to three, up to four generations, that we can actually pass these cellular memories down. And I think that's really important for all of us to understand. So when you start looking at family history and you start looking at addictive behaviors, drugs or alcohol or abuse or abandonment, neglect, divorce, anxiety, depression, you start looking at these types of issues. How then do they influence the generations that are coming up? So I think accurately we can say that generational transmission of these cellular memories are passed down, and that may be a part of what we experience and what we feel. And we might not even fully understand it to Me. That's fascinating. But it also begs the question, what do I do with it?

Yeah.

All right. What do I do with this information? And that's the part that I hope we can really address as we go through this podcast.

You know, many years ago, I was doing some family history, just looking at some family stories, and what I found was I have in my family line some people who did some really hard things. When I discovered that was right at the time of my betrayal, like when I was just starting my recovery work and I was able to say, hey, wow, I come from people who've done hard things. And so that was something that really fortified me as I was doing my work. And then I want to twist this just a little bit as well. It's interesting as I've done just my own 12 step work, my own healing recovery work. One of the things that I've looked at is that I get stuck on sometimes is stoicism. About a year ago, I remember being with my parents and my dad and my uncle telling a story about my grandpa who was up on a roof doing I don't know what, and he had like a heart attack and he just kept working. And another story where he cut his hand and he just said, oh, it's no big deal, and he wrapped a rag around it and he just kept working. And they were laughing at how crazy that was.

Right.

There is this cultural tradition in my family of this stoicism.

Just be strong, move on, get back to work and just keep it on. Plugging along.

Yeah, and. And there's a part of me that says, yeah, that's good. That's what we're supposed to do. I can't be weak because that's the culture that's been passed down. One of the things that's been so helpful for me in my recovery is realizing it's okay for me to be weak, it's okay for me to be vulnerable. I need to ask for help. I need to give myself a break when I need it. And I need to listen to my body. Listening to my body is the opposite of stoicism. And so becoming more aware of even just the stories that I'm carrying, even though I may not always a cognitive connection to them. The more I can learn about these, these patterns, these generational patterns, the more I can start to say, hey, is that helpful? Is that serving me? What does that do for me here?

Yeah. And what's interesting there, Mark Woolen, in his book, he talks about his own experience. And I love the story of he goes over to do some mindfulness retreats, and he's there for months. He's there. I mean, he's in this community for months. And he goes to visit the gurus. One of my favorite stories is he waits in line all day long to talk to the guru. And because he's been meditating, he's been doing everything, and he's really excited to talk to him. He says, what else do I need? And the guru looks at him and says, go home and fix things with your family. And he's so frustrated. He's like, I've been. I don't need them. I have distanced myself from them. I no longer need them in my life. So he's like, I'm gonna go talk to the next guru. So he stands in line, like, all day long, gets up to there to that guru, and the guru looks at him and says, go home. And the story that follows after that is so incredible, because when he goes home, he's learned how to listen to his own body. That first experience with his mom, he talks about how repulsed he is and how he wants to move away from her, and he just doesn't want to be close. Instead of doing that, he just asked her to hold him. And after that, days and weeks of awareness, of meaningful conversations with his mom comes about because he was willing to lean into that pain. And for me, Marianne, that's what we would say is doing the work that's maybe holding us back from being free from the weight of our past or generations past. Because sometimes I really do believe we are carrying cellular stress and anxiety and fears and worries and depression and addiction that are generationally long.

You know, if I remember, Mark Wolin starts out the book talking about how he lost his sight in his 40s.

Yeah.

That's kind of what began his whole quest, because he suddenly had no vision. He couldn't see, and so he was doing anything he could to find his.

Solutions to his health.

Yeah.

And the irony of it is, is that that whole process is eyesight healed. And. And to me, that that's not only fascinating, but it speaks very symbolically of what happens when we heal our wounds. Some people say, well, okay, but how do you heal those wounds? How do you heal generations of trauma? And to me, that's actually the beautiful part of what we do in therapy, but also what individuals can learn to do on their own by doing some of their own family history. Let me give you an example. I had an experience where I was looking at my family history, because when I'M doing the genogram. I'm looking at different family traits. And I'm going to tell you, my family, we don't have great hearts. Meaning we're more prone for strokes, we're more prone for heart attacks, we're more prone for high blood pressure, high cholesterol. That's just the reality. I have a great uncle who died at age 50. Routine issue, had heart problems. My dad's had heart issues. I mean, I look across the board and I'm like, I can't afford to have high blood pressure and cholesterol. I can't, because it is a ticking time bomb in me because of my family experiences and our history. And so I was reading this article about how Japanese smokers live longer than American smokers. And what does that have to do with anything? Well, here's what the reasoning was. And I'm like, why do they live longer? The curious mind, right? And so I started reading the article and said, well, the Japanese people, they walk more. They, they have less certain fats in their foods and they generally eat more fish. They were walking way more, significantly more than the American smokers. And that was the number one lead indicator of why they were living longer. I'm like, okay. And then it talked about all the benefits of walking. So I started walking 10,000 steps every day. And I did it for 10 years. It totally changed. I listened to audiobooks. I just did so many things because it was that one thing that I knew that I could do to control my blood pressure, cholesterol, and help me stay healthy. And so that's really what I've tried to focus on Now. I tore my meniscus. And that's when my 10 year streak ended because I had to have surgery. And there was a lot of pain associated with that torn meniscus. But what I Learned during those 10 years, Marianne, is I can influence an outcome. I can change what I'm at highest risk for as much as possible. I have a possibility of reducing my risk by doing something. And that simple thing, while it's not simple, is something I can control.

Take that generationally, then you've learned this and you can say, there are certain things that I need to do to take care of my heart. And hey, kids, you've got my DNA.

That's right.

And so your kids got to witness for 10 years. This is important to my dad. My dad has done this because he wants to live longer and live healthier. And whether it was verbal or non verbal, your kids saw that. That was modeled for them. And so they've seen this modeling of a parent working to change some of their. The genetic outcomes that have been passed down to them.

And that's ultimately the goal. What's interesting is I think I could actually do a whole series. I could write a book on what I Learned while walking 10,000 steps a day for 10. Right. I literally walk the circumference of the earth. And all of the things that I've learned because of that surprises me how influential that's been on my life.

That's fascinating. I want. Can I back up? Because I know I'm hearing you talk about, like, the genogram, and I'd like to discuss a little bit more about what that is for our listeners and our viewers. So when you're doing a genogram, if you're familiar with genealogy, you basically start out with, you know, here's me, here's my siblings, you know, maybe here's my mom and dad. They're together. And then they got married and they. Or they got together, whatever that looked like. And then here's my siblings, here's my older sister, here's me, here's my younger siblings. This is a girl. This is, you know, me. You know, so you do the sexes. You also include anybody who's died. You include any tragedies. And you're just really. First of all, like, basic first steps is you're just sketching out who, like all of the people.

What are their names?

Yeah. So mom's side, who are mom's parents, who are mom's siblings, who are her grandparents, Dad's side, who were their siblings, who were their. Their parents, their grandparents. So we're looking at these three generations. So me, my parents, my grandparents, and all the siblings involved. And after that, so we can look at, like, physical health characteristics. So Grandpa had a hard heart. He died early. Great Grandpa had a heart, you know. So when did they die? We're looking at, are they alive, are they dead? Physical health problems they've had, abuse, mental illness, tragedies. We may be looking at, you know, the house burned down when Grandma and Grandpa first got married together.

It's interesting you say that that actually happened to my grandma and Grandpa Skinner. Right? It actually did. And. And forever after that, you know what, Marianne? My grandma. Because people brought blankets to them and brought their things to help them through it. My grandma was a quilter, and she took. Anytime she heard of a situation, she would take blankets, she would make the blankets, and she would just take it and just give it to him. And, and so yes, we look and.

Say, okay, what are the tragedies? Were there deaths of children? Were there miscarriages? Were there suicides? Did somebody rob a bank? Did somebody, you know, just whatever it was. And so we're, we're looking at those things. We're looking at addictions, betrayals, abandonments. And then we start looking at relationships. So we usually draw a line. We can draw a really straight, thick line for a really good relationship. And then we can draw like a wiggly line if it's kind of not so great or like a really broken line. And as we start to look at, oh well, this sister got along with this sister or she hated her mother in law, they had a horrible relationship. As we start looking at these patterns, suddenly there's this whole new understanding that shows up.

The insight and awareness is phenomenal. Like what I learned about myself just looking at family. So I'll give you another example. So my grandma and grandpa on my mom's side starting a family during the Depression. And so from a financial perspective, right? I mean, my grandpa told a story where they would go into town and take their crops and, and change them for vouchers so they could go stand in another line for clothes. And if their size didn't fit, they didn't get those clothes, they didn't have them. So my grandpa would go stand in line to sell the potatoes, get the vouchers. My grandma would go stand another line to get overalls. That's one of his stories. So give him the voucher so he could go get if the right size was still there for the overalls. And so my grandpa, interestingly enough, if he had a nail and it was bent, he would reuse that nail, he would straighten it out and reuse it and he would have had the money to go buy more nails. But because of the depression that was then was passed down from generation to generation in my family. And so my mom has been more careful financially because of the energy of experiencing the depression with my grandpa and grandma. And again, those are just things that are passed down from generation to generation. Even today, the way my mom talks about finances, the way my dad talks about finances are not the same.

So this is our cultures, our culture that we come from that influences us. One of the tools that I think can be helpful that I usually, and I don't know what your resources are where you send people. Dr. Skinner, but one tool that I just know off the back of my hand which I found really helpful is familysearch Dot. I think it's dot org what I really appreciate about familysearch dot org is it allows people to put in memories. And so many years ago, I was sitting down reading through some memories. Somebody had uploaded some handwritten letters from one of. I think it was my great great grandpa. And he. And the letter he was writing was to his sister. It was in pencil. And he was saying, hey, I'm writing this from the hospital. We, I think they came by buggy or something. And it been about a four or five hour drive to get there. And he said, my wife just had a hysterectomy and I don't know how to tell her that she'll never have kids. I'm waiting for her to wake up. And as I read these different stories, I've struggled with infertility issues. As I've read these stories, I went, holy cow, holy cow. This didn't start with me. This great great grandmother had a lot of these same issues that I'm having. And boy, did it just validate. Okay, like this is where this came from. And I could see her story. I read her story then about the children that she fostered or that she brought in. And I understood more of the grief. It helped me understand my grandfather, what his childhood was like, seeing what his mom had gone through. It just changed my own understanding of me and what I was experiencing with that.

And again, we're talking about such a wide variety of possibilities, everything from medical to mental health to not being able to have children, having a hysterectomy to financial burdens. And that's the beautiful insight when you're willing to do that kind of work, you're going to find things and discover things about yourself and maybe the way you think and the feel and realize, oh, that's us. That's not just me, that is us. Sometimes generationally long. And to me, that is beautiful.

Yeah.

And so in my book, Treating Sexual Addiction, I actually put a genogram of an example where people could actually walk through it. I encourage all my clients to go through and do your own evaluation because when you do that kind of evaluation, your insight's going to go. Not only is it going to go up, but you're going to understand so much more about yourself. So much more about yourself.

Yeah. Before we wrap this up, I just want to also point out I've done some groups and taken some groups through this book. It didn't start with you. And I remember one client coming and saying, like, oh, my goodness, Marianne, this is just poking the bear. I also want to acknowledge that timing is really important when we are looking and doing our own internal work. When I started working through this book for myself, it took me a while because I couldn't go through the exercise. It's not just an easy read. It's a whew. I gotta get ready to do some work here. He asks. One of the exercises that I really love and that I use with my clients is saying, I want you just to notice the energy, like the life energy. Think about your parents and think about, you know, is it 25% open? Like the energy you feel coming towards them and going back and forth. Is it less than that? Is it more than that? And it can open up some deep wounding and also recognizing. Reading about it as a mother, I remember reading it and going like, oh, I screwed up my kids. I did everything wrong. So there. There's a lot of work that we do. It took me about a year and a half because I take sections and I do the work. And then I'd need to let things rearrange and heal a little bit and reorganize as I did the work. So this isn't just like a weekend read, at least I hope.

Yeah. Because the more you put into it, the more insight and awareness you're going to receive. And I have had clients say I had to put it down for a while because there was just a lot of emotions and there was a lot of other stuff going on in my life. So, yeah, this is not a rush. This is a personal opportunity to understand yourself, your family, generations of time, and to do it with open eyes. Not like I have to protect, not like I have to defend. Because every family's got muck and gunk and gick and whatever terms you want to use, that's what we've got. Okay? Welcome to the earth. All of us have it. All of us have our stories. And it's learning from each other and learning from. Especially the people who we share these memories with, sometimes cellular and genetic memories that are generations old. I think that. Marianne, as we get ready to close up, there's a couple things that I really want to emphasize. One is the answer to the question, what do I do? If I have a history of addiction, if I have a history of trauma, what do I do with it? Okay, now I've got the information. What do I do about it? And that is why I shared my story with you. Because if you have potential for heart risk, okay, your diet, exercise, eating, ironically, those are the same things that help combat depression. They can help Combat anxiety, they help combat sleep problems. They are so beneficial. So the basics actually can help reduce the amount of trauma that we have. Then we go get more insight. We could do therapy. We learn to calm our body. So, like, mindful meditations in the research is one of the more effective things that we can do to relax a body. So the thing is, is if you've got a history of addiction, probably good to know things that I probably should avoid, things that I can do to actually combat that, healthy habits, and that's what we can do to help ourselves.

Dr. Skinner, what I love is, I think it was in our last podcast, maybe it was two before, where we talked about the number one predictor of relapse with addiction. It's stress. And so what I just heard you talking about was the things that we do to manage our stress. So if we're coming from a history or a background where there's addiction or even there's addiction in our family right now, what do we teach our kids? What tools do we give them? And I think that this also comes to the emotional regulation. If I can see in my family history, there's a history of addiction, and these are the patterns. What that tells me is that this is what I do when I sit down with my clients. We look and say, oh, well, if there was abuse going on, if there was addiction going on, probably didn't have really good coping tools, probably didn't have emotional regulation tools. And so it makes sense that you're where you're at now. And now we can start helping you figure out what are the coping tools. Instead of turning to addiction, instead of turning to rage, instead of turning to abuse, now we learn the tools to that are healthy to use, and you get to pass those down. And so I think it's really important, once again, kind of poking the bear. Ooh, how did I get to this place? But I also just want to add, I think this work is beautiful. If we can really come to it from a place of curiosity and compassion and recognizing most of us are usually doing the best that we can with the tools that we have. And it can be really easy to judge and look and say, why didn't they? But if we can come from just curiosity and compassion towards those who went before us and towards ourselves as well, I think it's essential in this work.

Yeah. And what's even more exciting is that with that awareness, I can intentionally do something right. Because sometimes when I do this with clients, they start to see, oh, they did this, they did this. Now you're the chain breaker. You're the one who's creating a new pathway, a new opportunity for the generations to come. And if you do the work, you can actually create healthier cellular memories that are going to be passed down from generation to generation. Maybe it's of hope or overcoming addictive behaviors. Maybe you are the chain breaker of who's said trauma is. We're going to resolve this. So we are not living in this fear filled, anxiety filled, addictive field world. We're living a world intentionally. And you are the chain breaker. And that's what I. That's what I tell my clients. Look, we all have our stuff, but every one of us has the opportunity to choose to be healthier.

I love that because you're talking about putting it on the table and seeing it and being very intentional and deliberate. I can change this.

Which you can. That's the fascinating thing we know, in fact, how you change cellular memories and how we change how things are manifest in our bodies. It is absolutely fascinating. Like recently, maybe even 20 years ago, researchers discovered that you can turn your genetics up or down based upon life experiences. So you can have them expressed or not expressed. So they found that people who are shy, they can actually turn up or down the shyness gene based upon what they're exposed to and what they're doing, which is fascinating to me. So we can change just by what we expose ourselves to. One more example of that. If you listen to something that makes you laugh, it actually helps shift you into a different emotional mood. And it can actually start to change some of the genetics. They're being turned up or down.

We are just so fascinating. Like as human beings, when we look at where we are in the world and where we came from and what we're passing down and how our bodies work, just. I hadn't heard that before, Dr. Skinner. Yeah. What you just shared, I hadn't heard before. And that's fascinating.

It blows my mind. What we're capable of. And that goes along with neuroplasticity, how we change the pathways in the brain. But again, looking from the inside out. The way we feel today doesn't have to be the way we feel next month or a year from now or three years from now. We can shift, we can alter. And the way we do that is healthy habits. I often say healthy habits equals healthy people. All right, Marianne, final thoughts today.

I'd love to invite you to choose something that you've heard today. Whether it's sitting down and doing a genogram, whether it's reaching out to family members just to hear stories, or whether it's looking and saying, what's one healthy habit that I want to bring into my life or a habit that I want to stop or change because it's important not just for my life, but also for the next generations that come after me. I'd love for you to look at what do I want to change? What do I want to do differently? How do I want to live my life? From a place of curiosity and compassion, from those who came before me.

And the exciting part is we don't have to pass down what was unhealthy from maybe our generations above, we can express our appreciation for the lives that they did live. Because never is it really about bashing the generations. It's understanding the generations. And that's one other caution I have for people, is like, look, when you look, maybe you're afraid because maybe it's ugly, but that's okay, too. The more awareness I have, the more insight I have, I can say, look, these are the challenges that we have and these are the strengths that we have.

And you know, Dr. Cedar, I think my one last thought that I want to share, as you were saying that I remember a client who I'd done this work with, and I'll never forget her comment. She said, when I did this work, working through, it didn't start with you looking at this larger generational trauma work. She said, when I did that first, then when I came to working on my own personal recovery, on my own history of abuse, I had much more compassion for myself because I understood a little bit more about what story or. And so then my experiences looked different for me. It was a different lens. And so I just want to share that as we wrap. Once again, it's, it does come. It's hard to have compassion for ourselves when we don't understand our stories.

Yeah, there's always a story. What's yours, what's mine. To our listeners, we want to express our gratitude for your time. We always appreciate you downloading and listening to our podcast. And with that being said, Marianne, I want to just let everybody know that the Reclaim podcast, Healing from Pornography, and really, it's, it's just getting ready to be launched. It's launched. You can actually listen to the first episodes. So if you know somebody who's struggling with pornography or who has struggled with pornography would like to get more insight. It's gonna be a 12 week session where it's just, here's some basic things to help people who are struggling with pornography. And it's literally just 12 weeks. You get to take an assessment, you get to learn. So you can go to humanintimacy.com reclaim and you can get access to the podcast. And I've got a little bit more information about the assessments that people can take there. So I invite you to listen to the podcast, that podcast as well. They're short, they're about 15 to 20 minute episodes where it's just really helping people who've been struggling with pornography.

Can I just ask Dr. Skinner, so if I were a mom and I have some kids, some adolescents who were struggling with pornography, would that be helpful for me?

Yeah. So that podcast is helping them understand more emotional awareness. What am I doing? Why am I doing it? How involved have I been? So there's a short assessment there that people can take and it's just designed to help increase the awareness. Teenagers generally aren't interested in stuff like that. But the audio, like Just Understanding would be helpful. But again, everybody who wants to just understand it, that's really my goal, is to increase people's awareness of what it's doing, how it's influencing their thoughts, their emotions. And then I have a really more helping them gain insight into why they're doing what they're doing. And then we're going to talk about emotional regulation of how do I deal with stress in alternative ways. And so it's really just a basic, let's get started in this process of healing.

And I can't say enough about that, just because we live in a world where pornography is so ubiquitous. It's, it's so many places and we struggle so much to talk about it. We don't know how to talk about it. And so, so grateful that this is a resource that we're providing. So thank you, Dr. Skinner.

And soon we'll have a Reclaim for Betrayed Partners. And that, that's really to help them healing with the. From the PTSD symptoms. So, anyway, that's up and coming. Marianne and I will be doing that one together. So to our listeners, stay tuned and we'll be with you. But grateful that you're with us this week, have a good, fantastic, outstanding, or extraordinarily great week and we'll be back with you guys next week.

All right, thank you.

Bye bye.