Mindset And Trauma - WHAT??? With Jamole Callahan

Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of the Thriving Adoptees Podcast. Today I'm delighted to be joined by Jamal, Jamal Callahan. This guy's the real deal, folks. We're in for, uh, a, a hell of a ride over the next hour. So, um, welcome Jamal, really looking forward to speaking to with you again today, buddy.

Listen, Simon, thank you. It's an honor, man. It's, um, I've been looking forward to it, so I'm just excited to where the conversation is going to go, and, uh, hopefully the listeners will just gain something from it. But understand, like you said, it's going to be a ride. So there might— there's going to be ups, there are going to be downs, there's going to be time to laugh. There's going to be a lot of things happening, hopefully in this episode. But listen, it's just an honor to be here with you.

So Jamal wears many hats and he has many hats too, right? So he's got a different baseball cap on. I don't know, Ohio State baseball cap.

Yes.

Last time I spoke to him. Yeah. With, with a training sweatshirt. Today he's got a paper airplane. How many baseball caps have you got?

One to match every outfit I think I own. So I have a lot, enough for my children to steal from me. So let me not think about it.

Yeah. And he also wears a number of hats. This is what I'm doing with the metaphor here, right?

Yes.

It just occurred to me he wears a number of hats. So the hat that kind of identifies him within the space, our space here, is that He's a, he's a foster, an ex-foster kid. People call themselves fosters, right? But you were kind of— what did you say? Unofficially, unofficially adopted by your science teacher?

Unofficially adopted by, um, yeah, my 9th grade science teacher, um, when I was in high school. I was a senior, and, you know, as any, any person leaving, getting ready to leave care, I wasn't prepared. I wasn't equipped to leave. So I was on the verge of not graduating high school. And it just so happens this teacher, his name is Jeff, he said, hey, as your senior advisor, I have to make sure that you pass and graduate. So he brought to me this adoption paper and it was a, it was, Made with— it was, it was interesting because it was just a form and it said, I, Jeff Grace, uh, adopts Jamal Callahan to make sure that he passes, uh, the 9th grade proficiency test, uh, for graduation. And we both signed it, and that was the start of an unknowing, beautiful relationship. One that I know I didn't know I needed, but didn't know that it was going to transcend just making sure I graduated from high school.

So 2 hats: foster, unofficial adoptee, is a trainer, does some great work with Families Rising. I went to— so Families Rising used to be called NACAC, North American Council of Adoptable Children or something.

Adoptable Children, yeah. North American Council for Adoptable Children, correct.

We should have met last October when I was at the Families Writing Conference in Orlando, but we didn't. But we're here, we're meeting on Zoom. So that's the third hat that he wears, and he also does some child welfare consultancy.

Consulting. So I consult with agencies around the country to just help them do what they do better. Everything that I do is in the vein of improving outcomes for children and families Uh, with a splash of how do we help the workforce, um, not only heal but do better as well. So it's, it's a number of different hats on top of, um, one of— one that I hold near and dear to my heart is, you know, housing, making sure that those of us who've experienced care and adoption, um, has an easy access to stable housing. So being able to work with You know, federal partners to ensure that these these avenues are open and funded. But at the same time, just you know being being able to do some things with the local government as well in passing policy around extending foster care to 21 and making sure that there's monies available for those of us who've experienced care. To have a runway of success once leaving.

Yeah, and another hat that he wears as Mr. Motivator.

As Mr. Motivator.

So do you know that there's a Miss? There used to be a Mr. Motivator here in the UK.

No, I didn't. No, not at all.

And he was he was some really eighties clothing. Let's call it eighties clothing. So I would. Uh, so there you are, there you are, listeners. After that, there's your homework after, after listening. So find him and find, find, find your mom, uh, and, and one Mr. Motivator, and have a look at Mr. Motivator from the UK from the '80s, and you'll see that, uh, you'll see an uncanny difference. Some similarities and some very big differences, uh, notably how coolly they are attired.

Listen, I got that moniker some years ago because being a— I think I've always been positive and I've always wanted to see people thrive. So on social media, I would always put just different words of affirmation, words of encouragement. But even when I talk to people, when people come to consult with me or Say, hey, Jamal, just kind of can you lend me your ear? And it would just be giving them giving motivation. So one day someone said, hey, Mr. Motivator, and it kind of stuck because I didn't think about it in that way. I said, oh, okay, I guess that is what I do because I wanted to make sure that I was giving some light into the world of of chaos. So. And that's what I did as a motivational speaker. You, you, you motivate people, you light fires, you, you bring a sense of belonging, right? You bring a sense of belonging, you bring a sense of, hey, I, I can do this, I can still do this work and create some sort of impact, some sort of change. So that's how Mr. Motivator truly got started.

Yeah.

And continued.

So there's a few themes and topics and one from last time.

Yeah.

So my go-to question would normally, you know, be jumping on the thrive question, but I'm gonna do something differently today. So last time we talked about mindset.

Yeah.

You've talked about mindset, positivity, thriving, and motivation. Now, as we— when you mentioned mindset last time we spoke, which last week, right? I think it was last week, week before. And I said we don't hear the word mindset a lot in adoption and fostering and child welfare. We don't hear the word mindset a lot. It's basically, it's kind of trauma all the way, right?

Right.

We don't hear the word thriving a lot apart from the Thriving Adoptees Podcast, of course, right? And we don't hear the word, we don't hear the word motivation. All the way. Like, it, it, it's trauma. It's trauma all the way. But basically, it's trauma all the way. And, you know, okay, a little bit of healing, you know, um, but sometimes a little bit about brokenness, something like that. Um, why, why don't we hear about motivation? Why don't we hear about thriving? Why don't we hear about positivity? Why is it Trauma all the way. I think— is it trauma all the way? To what extent is it trauma? Is my— am I— am I oversimplifying it? You know?

No, you're not oversimplifying it, Simon. But I will say there's room for, for, for both, right? It's a both/and. But you hear more about the trauma of child welfare and adoption because of the circumstances that it takes for the majority of young people to enter these situations. It's very traumatic. And in a space where if it bleeds, it leads, which means also if you can tell me the worst story about your experience, it could either gain attention, it can gain potential funding because it's like, oh, we have to fix this, right? We have to throw money at this problem to fix it because of all of this trauma. If you say that it's working, then why do we need to fix it, right? Why do we truly need to fix the mechanism of child welfare if it's thriving? There's no need to throw more money at it. So sometimes you can look at it, or I can look at it as there's capitalistic space, right? And I can't assume people, everyone would agree with it, but if it continues to show that it's broken, if it continues to show that it's not working, we have a tendency to throw more time and effort to it. If we said that as child welfare, as a child welfare arena, that we're doing everything we're supposed to do for families and children, then it wouldn't need any more attention, nor would it need any more money. I will go on the record and say that yes, it causes a lot of— it does cause a lot of trauma, right? I experienced it. Other, you know, I did learn something when I was in the UK that care leavers is the term that's used, that's used a lot, right? Um, myself, other care leavers, other, uh, former fosters, I mean, we experienced a lot of trauma coming into the space, but we don't ever talk about those spaces where youth are truly thriving because They're in a loving home. You know, they found a forever family. They found an adoptive family that is truly, truly, you know, for them. So I think those are, those are some of the, some of the things. So, and it does boil down to mindset. Like, how are we truly looking at this? I, I've said many a times, while my experience, even though I experienced 9 homes, While my experience wasn't the greatest, there was some, there was some amazing moments that I had. I can draw amazing moments from each one of the placements that I experienced. Now, again, it wasn't all, it wasn't all great, but I can pull something that could work in any situation. That makes sense.

Yeah. You, you were talking there about both the system and individuals.

Yeah.

Um, yesterday I saw a, I saw a post, uh, and it was, it, it was that the head— the headline, I can't remember, it wasn't a particularly snappy headline, but what it was getting at was Instead, instead of having us having to build resilient people, kids, whatever, why don't we build resilient systems? Resilient, yeah, resilient systems, resilient child welfare systems is kind of what they were going at, right? And the, the first thing that hit me, uh, on that was What I'm I'm going to I'm going to wait. I'm going to wait until the system's resilient before I can feel my resilience. That is totally nuts. Yeah, that is totally nuts.

Yeah, it is. And I I would say if we waited for the system to become resilient, we'll be waiting another fifty years.

Yeah, well, we'll be waiting forever, right? Right. Based on your on kind of how you're talking. About it. People will never admit that the system is okay because then they won't get any more money from government to sort of—

yeah, yeah. And you know, there's always, there's always something happening. Um, you know, here in the US with every new administration there are— excuse me, you can cut that out. Um, with every, with every new administration that comes in There is someone who has a different view of what child welfare should be or could be. So it's always forever changing. So if, let's say, I was to get into office and I was the top child welfare guy here in the US, well, because of my lived experience, I've seen certain things in my career that I'd say this should be the focus. that might not necessarily be someone else's, right?

Yeah.

So it truly does depend on your experience, what your values are, which is why it goes back to your point. We can't wait for a system to become resilient, which is why I work so hard to make sure that if it's— if it's a foster parent that comes to a training or an adoptive parent that comes to a training, a young person that needs some guidance, a staff, a worker that needs or comes to a training, my philosophy has always been to throw that rock in the pond, create a ripple. Because if you create a ripple of resilience, you give people hope and true hope that they can make a difference individually with the people in their circle of influence. Then that's where the change happens.

Yeah.

It, it, this, for some reason, we assume, some people assume that to change child welfare, it's a top-down approach. I think it's a bottom-up approach, and people should be meeting in the middle. So it should be happening simultaneously. Um, but that's, that's a consistent movement, right? But you have to, you just, you can't focus on what's happening at the top all the time.

Yeah.

You truly have to, you truly have to think about and work, how do you inspire and move people to do good work or great work, um, in the small spaces that you have, in the small arenas? So like conferences, I love meeting people at conferences because you get to see what they're doing, what inspires them, and if know, they feel burnt out or beat down because of the work and help them find that, find that fire again.

Yeah. So as a ripple maker, what, what gets in the way of your— of the ripples that you make or get— what gets in the way of you making more ripples?

Just opportunity. Opportunity to meet people, opportunity to To help anyone see what their potential is. Now, I will tell you that in a world where we feel beat down or that we feel that the work that we do is for nothing, those are some of the barriers because You go knock on the door and it never opens, right? And you know, you feel like you strongly, you have the answer. You know that what you have will fix this problem and the door never opens. You get defeated, you get discouraged. And you've, if you, and this is where it comes back to mindset, you get discouraged so many times, then you give up. That's like, I was talking to a worker some years ago. It was an adoption worker, and she had been working with this family for many, many years. And at every turn where she thought she had a family for this young person, something happened, right? Whether the family pulled out. It just didn't work out, you know, for a number of years. So not only was she defeated as a worker, but the young person was like, you know what? But can we not talk about this adoption thing anymore? Because every time I get excited, every time I feel like we're gonna cross the finish line, disappointment happens, right? And That takes a toll on the mind. So when you talk about barriers to ripples, I can tell this worker every day in a coaching session that, hey, you have what it takes to truly continue to work for these young people. But when you are up against that door every day, then you start internalizing this mindset of, It's not going to work. We're just about to hit another door. And I, as a worker, don't want to disappoint this kid that I'm working for, this kid that I've been chosen to help find forever.

Right.

Those are the barriers that get in the way with the ripple. But I can't— that can't stop. Right? Because eventually, mindset shift is understanding that yes, you've hit doors for many years. There's going to be a door that opens. So how do we continue to motivate the workforce to keep going? And that's— those are the ripples, right? I'm never going to see the end result. My job is to throw the rock in the pond and let the ripples happen, not to guide the ripples, not to tell them where to go. Not even to see the end result all the time, but it's about influencing, doing the work, dropping the pebble, and letting the world do its job.

So 2 themes come to me from that metaphor, from the metaphors, the ripple-making and the knocking on doors. The, the, yeah, so they would be creativity and persistence.

Yeah, definitely creative and persistent. Yeah.

So what, how could you, how could you build on those metaphors with creativity and, and with these themes of creativity and persistence? And is there a, is there another theme You know, I've just picked 2 themes. Is there another theme that you think is more important in terms of ripple-making?

No, I think the thing— as though, as a person who motivates or as a person who is setting those ripples, the only thing is to guide and show where you can use persistence and creativity to help a young person Get a family, but it's only my job to create that space, right? It's only my job to be able to say, "Well, have you thought about X, Y, and Z? Have you thought about these different ways to knock down the door?" Right? If the door is not opening, well, we have to ask ourselves a few questions. One, was it unlocked, and did we try to just open it? 2, was anybody home? And if not, just come back. We're staying with that metaphor of the door being there. I think the 3rd idea is, or 3rd question to ask is, well, did you just look in the window?

Right.

So giving folks a mindset of what are the possibilities and what could be What could be next? Like, do I always have to go through a door? Do I always have to try to climb the barrier versus trying to find ways to go around it? Right? Um, again, when you are up against not only time, what policy says, or what rules say about the timeframe you have as a worker to get things done, Those things can stress you out, which is why now a lot of— you see a lot of agencies going to— we talked earlier about healing or coaching support. Agencies are starting to now move about, move towards the well-being of their staff because this work is hard.

Right.

And then that's where I come in as a consultant. Like, what can we do to make sure that your staff feel Like they are seen and heard and that they feel like the work that they do is valued.

Yeah.

Ever before has that truly been a focus in our workforce. And all of that truly affects the ripples and how we work with children and families here in the States.

Yeah. I'm wondering if we can move the conversation on to kind of problem solving and creativity and persistence.

Absolutely.

And make it more kind of general for somebody looking at a challenge in their life, right? So whether that's an adoptee who is struggling with a reunion, right? Or whether that's an adoptive parent who's struggling with their their kids' well-being or their kids' behavior. What have you learned around these areas of— around problems, problem-solving, problem definition, new ways to tackle old, you know, new ways to tackle old problems? And take it all. You don't need me to give you more than that, I don't think.

No, no, you're fine. Um, I think when it comes to— first of all, let's set the, the stance of parenting is hard, right? Parenting is hard, um, whether you are a foster adoptive parent or a bio parent. Parenting is hard. And what we sometimes, what we sometimes miss, or we say the issue of behaviors is that they're— they have— we're back to trauma. The trauma of being in care or being in out-of-home placement and the trauma of feeling like you don't belong, right? I mean, imagine you just said yes to a young person and it's their, you know, first or third week in the home. And you're now dealing with some of those behaviors that are unsavory that you don't know how to to deal with it. And for for parents, it's always or you should always be thinking of what is the root cause of this behavior because it's more. It's more than just I'm acting out. It's more than just I'm lashing out at you as a parent. It's more, and we have to think one. Well, what is it, right? Is it that they don't feel comfortable? Is it that they feel like that no one's listening to them? Is it that the issues that they're dealing with internally don't have any other way to show up but in the behaviors that they're exhibiting? And as a parent, an adoptive parent, we'll just say that. Use that as a, a point here. As an adoptive parent, you have to be able to take a step back and not only not react on emotion, but if you don't have the skill to analyze where— what these behaviors are saying, then have a, you know, have a professional come or ask your worker to say, hey, I think I need some help. You know, understand how I need some help on Understanding why these behaviors are the way they are, right? I think one thing I learned about parenting personally is that everything means something, whether it's they're not getting enough attention, whether it's their needs aren't being met, if that makes sense. What are they trying to communicate? in the only way they know how, right? That's the main thing that I've learned. And talking to many, many adoptive parents, that is the main struggle. The main struggle is, how do I fix this behavior? And I have to come in and say, well, it's not about fixing the behavior. It's about understanding where it's coming from.

And the The thing that's coming back from me on this is that we have, we have to change before they do.

That, that's the point. We do. Um, and again, this, Simon, this comes from— and we— I say this in training all the time to even potential parents— it's what we have to get over Is we can't parent our children like we were parented, right? So some of those bad habits that we picked up from our parents, and whether you want to admit it or not, there are some bad habits, right? We can't. We just we can't parent the same way. We have to be. If you want to throw out again trauma again, we. And our parenting in this space for adoptive and foster parents, we have to parent trauma-focused, right? Not relying or resting on the trauma, but we have to be aware. So it's an awareness of something happened with this young person. The behaviors that are typically shown derives from some of that trauma. And as a parent, how do I react? And I can't react how my parents reacted. So I can't, because of this behavior, move into screaming and yelling and thinking that you're going to get, you know, get something across. So to your point, yes, as adults, we have to change. But we also have to recognize where we need support.

Yeah. When I get near this space, I keep coming back to reading in a book on— we were talking, listeners, before I hit recording about this, the difference between British holidays and American vacations, right?

Yeah.

I'm going back maybe 25 years, I don't know, maybe, maybe just maybe 20 years, something. I'm sitting on a beach in, in, in, uh, in Greece on an island called Symi in Greece, read— reading a book about emotional intelligence, right?

Yeah.

Uh, and it starts with us, right? It's— there's 4 quadrants to emotional intelligence. I can't remember what they're called, all 4 of them are called, but I know the first 2 are us. And I know the second 2 are other people. So we have to change first, in whether that's in parenting, whether that's in advocacy work, whether that's in our relationships with our, our wife, husband, spouse, what partner, whatever we call them, with our relationship with our boss, with our relationship with our colleagues.

Yeah.

We, we have to change first, right?

I think when you talk about the 4 quadrants of emotional intelligence, you have to, one, understand fully what they are, right? Um, self-awareness being, uh, one of them, right? And to be self-aware is to understand your emotions, how you react, um, all of those things, because they mean— they really do mean Something, and they play a huge part, right? As of all of the other quadrants, the other one you talk about, self-management, right? When you think about just, um, in parenting as a whole, we know that as adults we're triggered by a number of different things— kids not listening, um, even boiling it down to, hey, did you clean your room? No, I didn't get to it yet. And then now you're all frustrated. So, you know, how, how do you self-manage? Right, your thoughts, how you react. Um, but also, what are those strategies that you can use when you kind of get out of, you know, your, your normal regulated self in order to bring yourself back? The third quadrant that is talked about is that social interaction of emotional intelligence. Um, how do you engage with others? Um, to not only, you know, meet the goals, right? But how do you— just how do you interact? How do you interact appropriately to analyze and understand others? And that means as a parent, how are you— how are you able to sit back and understand the key— your kiddos, right? Your young people. And then it comes to that 4th one, which is social awareness, you know. All of these, all four of these quadrants, if understood and used effectively, listen, you can be the best parent, best parent ever. But when you think about social awareness and even teaching kids how to be socially aware, it's being able to read others' emotions and signals and to think about how others And how their emotions affect them. Um, so, and then just being, again, going back to that whole, the self-awareness piece, it's just being, um, what's the term I'm looking for? Just being, that's just that, right? Being that, that self-awareness is being able to be self-aware of how you respond in certain situations.

Yeah. One of the— so I've had mentors that have been in my life for decades, right? Like, and your unofficial adopted dad, Jeff, as a teacher, Jeff Grimes, right? He's still in your life, isn't he?

Yes, he is. Yes, he is.

One of the key mentors in my life, uh, around this space. And one of the reasons I'm into the— I, I mean, I— that led me, you know, 10 years later, whatever, into the, to the adoption space. He said he had— he said this, um, phrase that's always stuck with me, and it's called Christian Simpson. Um, and he said, it's hard to see the picture when we're in the frame.

Oh my God, yes. I use that analogy a lot because when used and when brought to this realization that you can't see the big picture because you're living it, like you don't know all of the effects of it or even the beauty of it. Because you're living it. It reminds me of if you think of a Picasso or Rembrandt, right? It's, it's beauty. But there's some chaos in there, right? As you're painting, as they were painting it, it looked like chaos to people. But that final product was just a thing of beauty. And you can liken that to a lot of our lives. So for that, for that adoptee who is now living and thriving, right, you never understand what you needed to go through to get to the space where you are, right? Because internally, and as you're looking at it, you couldn't see What could be next? Like I said, I love that. I love that analogy though. I love that analogy. You can't see the picture.

What helps? What helps you see see the see the picture when you're in the frame?

I think it depends on the moment, right? There's some moments that are so can be so frustrating that I don't know what this is going what this is going to truly. Become, right? But in other senses, what I've been able to learn and adapt is to be able to stop and bring myself outside of what's happening, to really analyze, like, what is— this goes back to the self-awareness piece. What needs to happen? And unless I'm thinking it through, unless I'm taking time to to really just hit the pause button, I'm not gonna see, I'm just not gonna see it, if that makes sense. So I've developed, I think I've developed a sense of being able to pause and step outside of the frame for a moment, which is a skill that unless you're doing it, unless you're aware of it, it's not gonna develop.

Yeah. So I'm trying to figure the question that links a couple of these themes, right? So if we're gonna, if we're looking for a different result, we've got to do something different.

Yeah.

And until we see that we need to do something different, we'll keep on doing the same thing.

Yeah, and that's insanity.

That is insanity, but we don't see it, right? So it's that, you know, I think you used the word analyze, and as you were saying that, I thought, I kind of get the picture where Jamal's here, but to me, analyze could, for me, could actually take me into the detail. Whereas, um, what would be, what would be more, uh, what's more likely to, to lead to a change for me is actually big picture rather than a little picture, you know. Like, so, you know, I've been, I've been thinking about the— I've been thinking a lot recently about the conversations I've been having over the last couple of couple of years and realizing that I need to change. I need to change my approach. But I've been kind of seeing that, but I've missed it for 2 years. I kind of got a little bit wise to it maybe 3 months ago, 4 months ago. But the change isn't yet there. It's not yet manifest, to use a word.

Well, Simon, here's what it boils down to when it comes to change. At some point, we have to be willing to flip that switch, right? Either we're going to do it's it's it's like walking. Are we going to take the next step forward? Are we going to continue to stay in the same spot? And a lot of a lot of when you think about mindset, folks don't move because they get in their own way. There's a book that I read that talks about getting out of your own way, and a lot of us change. A lot of us when it comes to change or moving forward or helping to change systems. It's truly about what are we willing to do in that moment, right? Are we, are we going to continue to see this problem persist? Like when it came to housing and trying to find solutions to youth home— excuse me, youth homelessness, you know, we saw 30% of 20,000 youth almost every year. What did I say? 36% of 20,000 youth every year within a year. Become homeless after they leave state's custody. That was continuing to be a problem. Now it's gotten a little better, not as much as we want it to, because we want to end youth homelessness as a whole here in the States. But when you continue to see a problem and all you can say is that's the problem and you do nothing about it, What's the use of talking about it? So there comes a point where in your mind you have to say, you know what, change has to start with me. I don't know where I'm going to start, but change has to start. So how do we put one foot in front of the other to begin to walk in that change? And it came to back to now analyzing Big picture, who needs to be in the room? What agencies need to be a part of it? What is the potential impact? And as scary as it is, because now you're saying you're about to tackle a whole system, you have to be willing to get in the ring and fight. I think about this battle with homelessness and housing. like myself up against Mike Tyson or Muhammad Ali. These are heavyweights, and this is the government we're talking about, right? We're talking about showing the government that as— there's this phrase that some of us advocates use here in the States, as the government technically are our parents, when they take us from our— from home and they are— they assume custody of us. Technically, the government is our parent. So as our parents, you have to provide basic living necessities so we can thrive. And now it's about showing the government that these are the things that you're responsible for. At the same time saying that those things you did 50 years ago no longer work. So let's, let's, let's work to change it. And if any, any of your listeners who've worked in policy or with government understand that it's not quick to change. It's not quick to change. And that's where, when I talked in the beginning about feeling defeated about hitting a door and it not opening. You just have to keep at it. That's where the mindset is. Like, the work has to get done. Change has to happen. We have to be willing individually.

But we need to knock. We need to knock on the door differently. We need to try different doors.

Yes.

We need to knock louder. We need to knock quieter. Have you, have you ever— oh, this is a, this is a trick I heard from a speaker. He said, if you ever want anybody to listen, if you're on stage, start talking quietly.

Whisper. Start whispering.

Yeah. I've used it.

I've used it. And it's one of those things for me that is why it's very effective. Even in parenting, I think my kids are more afraid when I start talking softer than I do when I'm yelling. Right? But it's about being persistent.

Okay.

And I'll give you this one. And, you know, I talk about it a lot. It's just the journey through advocating for housing. And of course, you know, we have our two-party system. We have, you know, one side that that loves pieces of it but hates pieces of it. And then you have the other side that loves pieces of it and hates pieces of it, but no one can come to an agreeance on what those things say. So what was interesting about those meetings was one side wanted us to remove— One thing we've always said that we don't want handouts. We want to be able to work for what we What we have. So we put a clause in there where any youth who experienced care would have to either go to school full-time, which means would have to go to university or a trade school, something like that, part-time, or just go into the workforce, and then you'll be able to receive this voucher for housing. Well, depending on what side you were on, you either liked it or you hated it. Right. So it took us to go back to, again, to your point of knocking on the door differently. We were able to come up with some creative language that still covered that, but didn't say that outright. Right. And here you— here we are. We got it passed. It's signed into law. There's money going towards it. But we were able to knock on the door differently, to your point, and still get the job done. You know, that was the beautiful part about it.

You mentioned at the top of the conversation workforce healing. What about parental healing?

It's huge. It's— but it's also needed with any type of healing. Um, you have to be willing to do the work. That's the first thing. And what I mean by willing to do the work, you have to give yourself permission to heal.

But isn't it realizing that there's some healing to do first? If, if it's hard, if it's hard to see the picture when we're in the frame, like, it's our— um, I, I love this on a little micro, micro level. Uh, Joelle, I think you like this, right? So you ever tell anybody You're talking to— you're with some friends or something, and, um, or with some family, and somebody gets angry about something that's happened, right? Uh, and, uh, you— somebody says to them, you know, you know, why are you getting angry about this, right? They say, I'm not getting angry. This is a British thing, right? I don't know, is this— is this a common—

No. Yeah, it's common. It's common, right?

So yeah, this instant kind of denial Instant denial of our anger.

Yeah.

Like I don't. So that we've got to see through our own stuff first.

We do. We do. And I think when it comes to parental healing, there's five things that I feel should happen, right? When you think about the context to to one understand why you get angry, right? The five things that you can do. The first thing is just acknowledge your own wounds. First, right? I think that that's where we start. What happened in your past that has you operating the way you are? So what just what are those things? You know, healing as a parent has to begin with facing everything that you experienced as a kid, as a teenager, as a young adult, as a Beginning adult, you know, all the way through to where you are, right? You could be 40 and have to acknowledge things that you— that had— you have experienced in your past, um, because any un— anything that's unresolved is going to continue to show up in your parenting. So you have to be able to do the work, and whether it's go to therapy, forgive yourself, Talk to those people who did you did you wrong in a sense. But you this goes back to one of my favorite sayings: You can't pour from an empty cup, right?

Can I can I interrupt you, Jamal?

Yeah, absolutely.

Because five seems like a lot. Well, and I think that and I and I think the first one is in the acknowledgment and. But even before the acknowledgement, there's a recognition, right? So you've got to see it before you acknowledge it. Um, I'm just thinking of a, of a short-term, uh, like a practical here, right? So a practical step here. Um, what— can I—

Yeah.

What, what would you, what would you say, right?

What's—

so before the acknowledgement, we have to see it. So what helps us see, what helps us see something new? You've been talking about reflection. We've been saying that it's hard to see the picture in the frame, but we've got to kind of take a step back. I'm just thinking of a really simple tool that alerted me to the need to change, and it was doing an online questionnaire, like an emotional intelligence online questionnaire. And then there was another one, a thing called DiSC. Have you heard of DiSC?

Yeah.

It's like a profile. Yeah, it looks at your work. It looks at emotional intelligence within the workplace and looks at your behaviors within in the workplace. Um, and I— and those have been— you, you said right at the— you said right at the top that you saw, you saw some learning that you didn't know that you needed to know, something like that. I didn't know that I needed to know this.

Yeah, I— so what— in, in what I said was, I— when you don't know you need to know something it eventually clicks that, oh crap, I didn't know what I didn't know.

No.

It's like when your kid comes up to you and says, I need some alone time with you, but you have a number— like, I have 4 children. And what I didn't realize is that all of them needed individual time. I was never taught that. I was just taught to be present and make sure that all of them knew that I was around and I was there. And, you know, we did fun things together until walking in the park, my youngest son said— no, I'm sorry, my second son said, come on, let's walk the trail. So we start walking the trail and my youngest son comes up to start walking with us and he says, well, I'm gonna come too. And my second son said, No, this is me and Daddy time. This is us. This is us and us alone. So go back and be with Mom and everybody else. And in my head, my first reaction was, he can come, right? But my second son wasn't— he didn't like that because he felt that this was our time. That goes back to, I didn't know what I didn't know as a parent. Fully and truly understanding that each of my children needs individual time. Like, that went over my head because that— and that was something I had to acknowledge.

Yeah.

That wasn't something I experienced as a kid. Every parent space that I had been in never did that. That was me assuming that as a parent, this is how I'm supposed to show up, where we all do things together and not give them individual time. So back to the point of acknowledging it, that was an acknowledgement that I didn't know I needed. But experience will give us those, those moments.

Yeah.

Like being in the space will give us those moments of recollection, like, oh, I get it now.

So the, you know, I'm saying questionnaire, you're saying presence.

I'm saying presence. Like, experience teaches us things that we never thought we knew we needed, right?

But you had to be present to see something. And then yet that acknowledgement comes after something that you've seen. So yeah, it kind of comes down to presence.

And I will tell you, if that experience and I had And by that time, I hadn't thought about, you know, those assessments that we have now. But I tell you, this experience came up after doing one of those. Matter of fact, it was the DiSC assessment.

Ah, okay.

And I was like, it was like a light bulb went off, right? Like, I'd never realized that. This all— look, it all makes sense now. So when you talk about tools that are out there, I would definitely, um, use the, the emotional intelligence, uh, quiz that's online, um, just to get a start. Just to get a start of one, how— again, back to how do you acknowledge some of your childhood Your childhood trauma, right? And to understand why you are the way you are, how you show up, how you respond to certain things. That truly is the first part of that parental healing, is understanding why you, why you parent the way you do. Um, but like you said, acknowledgement is probably the Very most important, first important step that you take when we talk about parental healing.

Wow, it's flown by, mate. Flown by.

What like what time is it? I know here in the States we've been going an hour.

Yeah, just in over an hour. Yeah, yeah.

Oh wow, wow. I think part of healing too, if if I can just throw this in here, and I don't know how much time we got. I know we don't have time for three-hour episodes. And maybe you can be a part of it.

Hopefully you're going to come back one day.

Oh yeah, yeah. And one thing I want to leave your listeners to, especially those adoptees that are now having children, because this is what I experienced, we have to be— we have to think about how do we break those generational cycles intentionally, right? How do we say I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure that my children and my life is set up that doesn't mirror what I experienced as a kid, right? We have to notice the patterns that we inherit, whether it's from our adoptive parents, our foster parents. There's patterns that we inherit. We have to be able to recognize those patterns, analyze those patterns, and say, What out of this is useful? And what out of this can I do different? That way, it goes back to being able to truly begin to thrive as parents, as parents who experience adoption, or as parents who have experienced foster care, is being able and being willing— ah, to being able and being willing to break those generational curses intentionally. Wow.

Big stuff. Big stuff, Jamal.

It is big stuff. It is big stuff.

It's deep stuff. It's big, it's deep. And we make no excuses for that.

No, no, not at all. Not at all. You know, it's, it's, it's those roller coasters, though, especially those emotional roller coasters that we experience. But again, we have to be, we have to be intentional in how we approach.

Yeah. Cool. Thanks, Jamal. Thank you, listeners. We'll speak to you again very soon. Bye-bye.

Thank you.