How to Heal: Adult Survivors of Emotionally Abusive Parents with Dr. Sherrie Campbell

From Scapegoat to Self-Empowered With Dr. Sherrie Campbell

We welcomed the brilliant Dr. Sherry Campbell back to the show, a guiding light for anyone navigating the murky waters of toxic family dynamics. Together, we pulled back the curtain on the roles of authoritarian & subservient figures in family structures, & how these roles cast long shadows over our perceptions of love & fear. Dr. Campbell and I journeyed deep into the transformation from scapegoat to empowered 'escape goat,' up to the pinnacle of becoming the 'greatest of all times' (GOAT) through the healing process. We dissected the raw complexities of finding love in the wake of abuse and the courage it takes to stop the cycle cold in its tracks, ensuring a brighter future for the next generation.

Think of the last time you held on to hope, even when experience taught you otherwise. In this episode, that's exactly what we explored: the concept of 'rebellious hope.' Dr. Campbell and I shared heart-to-heart on the harrowing yet liberating path of setting boundaries with those who have hurt us deeply. By intertwining our personal narratives, we shed light on the struggle to reconcile our desire for love with the harsh reality of our upbringing. The discussion turned towards the revolutionary act of self-awareness, embracing our truths to liberate ourselves from the chains of our past, & the profound impact this freedom has on our own healing & the lives of others.

This episode is a treasure trove of insights for anyone who has felt trapped by toxic family bonds. It is a call to action to rise above adversity, set boundaries, & embrace the journey of self-discovery with rebellious hope & unyielding courage.

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Chapters

• 0:07 Healing From Toxic Family Dynamics
• 15:03 Rebellious Hope
• 28:48 Embracing Rebellion and Finding Peace
• 43:15 Embracing Insecurities for Personal Growth

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:07

Welcome to Empowered Within, a soul-quenching, transformational podcast that will set your soul on fire. Through candid and inspiring conversations, leading experts, celebrities, healers and I share our journeys of how we've overcome challenges to living an empowered life from within. I'm your host, jennifer Pilates. Welcome to another episode of Empowered Within. Hi there and welcome to the show. I am over the moon excited to have back with us our special guest, dr Sherry Campbell. Dr Sherry is a licensed clinical psychologist who specializes in helping healthy people cut ties with toxic people in their lives. She is a nationally recognized expert on family estrangement, a bestselling author, tedx speaker. She's in the top 1% of podcasts for her show, sherapy Sessions Cutting Toxic Family Ties. She's a well-known social media influencer and she is regularly featured as a media expert. Welcome back, dr Sherry.

Speaker 2: 1:14

Thank you, I'm so excited to be here. I love being on your show.

Speaker 1: 1:19

Oh, thank you. And for those of you so, we have one episode pre this where we talk to Dr Sherry about her book, adult survivors of toxic family members, and now we're following that up with her latest book that you do not want to miss adult survivors of emotionally abusive parents how to heal, cultivate emotional resilience and build the life of love you deserve. So we are going to dive right in, because this book is just. Every book is another book that you should read. It's another book that you should share and helps on this healing journey when you've been brought up through a toxic family, toxic people surrounding you, and one of the things we wanted to touch on in this book you really talk about there's lots of different types of parents and one that I feel, when I've been speaking with people lately, I've come up with a lot, is the authoritative parent versus the subservient parent. I feel like we see that a lot and I'd love for you to share with us that dynamic and help people better understand that.

Speaker 2: 2:21

So we tend to have one author, authoritarian parent married to a subservient parent. So, for example, we may have the most dominant person in the family is the mother and we have the passive, toxic father who's kind of shushing the kids and you know, don't act like that when your mom's around. He's thinking he's saving you trouble. But this parent whichever it is because it can be the opposite dynamic isn't confident enough to get their children out from under this abusive dynamic. They they're very stuck in being underneath this very controlling dictator like parent. So it is something that the children see that the most, you know, most toxic parent is also the least confronted because everyone now is afraid of this parent. Everyone's learning to acquiesce. So if our passive parent is showing fear to the toxic parent, then the children learn, even in that other form, to fear that parent. That you just cannot go against that parent. You have to walk on eggshells and you need to learn as a child to bend the world on its axis so that this parent is not upset, because if this parent is upset it all goes down.

Speaker 2: 3:38

So this parent also has control over defining every single role that each person has in the family. So we get the scapegoat, we get the family fixer, we get the golden child. You know, we get all of those things going on and that parent will shift all those roles to their, their desire. So if the golden child isn't acting the way they want and they're not being golden enough, they'll elevate the scapegoat just for a minute. Then that makes the one child afraid. They want their role back because no one wants to be the scapegoat. And then the scapegoat is further scapegoated now because the golden's mad. So it's a circus, it's a dictatorship, it's definitely not a democracy.

Speaker 1: 4:20

No, that's for sure, and the way that you describe it, the abuse is sort of starting from that hierarchy, but then it's playing out. The person that thinks that they're protecting you is actually and I believe you call it the secondary abuser. Is that, is that the language Secondary?

Speaker 2: 4:33

abuse you're being he's abusing or he or she is abusing you. Toxic by proxy it's. They're not confident enough to get their children out from under an unhealthy parent. It's easier to just placate that parent, and then the family is miserable and the children learn nothing about love. So then these children have a very hard time locating love outside in romantic relationships, in their future and friendships. It's very hard to locate it because what you know love to be because you're watching a passive, dominant parent style is we don't know how to locate it in a way that we're not drawing back in that pattern we learned.

Speaker 1: 5:17

Right, a lot of healing has to go on. And you touch there on the scapegoat and you talk about what that means in both of your books and in this latest book, adult Survivors of Emotionally Abusive. And you talk about what that means in both of your books and in this latest book, adult Survivors of Emotionally Abusive Parents. You talk about the path from the goat, from being the scapegoat, to the escape goat to greatest of all times goat, and I really think that that's so important, because so many of us have been the scapegoat and to know that it does mean more than how it started out. Will you share that with us?

Speaker 2: 5:50

Yeah, so the scapegoat is the child who's the most evolved, and that child is sensitive to what's going on, intuitive to what's going on, and lives in that space and feels it's healthiest to externalize those types of thoughts and feelings, because the desire the scapegoat has is just to have peace. But what happens is, the scapegoat then is the most abused, and the scapegoat the most sensitive one also ends up being the one that acts out the most, because they end up rebelling against these lies and rebelling against what's going on. And then all of that rebellion is then twisted into a narrative that they're mentally unstable, they're unwell, they need help. We're not like other kids, you know, because we don't know how to go along, to get along, and I think that is maybe even a genetic situation in that we try to go along, to get along. But even if we cry at our abuse, we're telling the truth, you know, and the toxic parent doesn't like to see that reflection. So we're just a baby, you know.

Speaker 2: 6:59

They find a way to turn what they see in front of them the healthy, normal reaction to abuses we're unstable, we're too sensitive, we're unwell.

Speaker 2: 7:08

So they essentially divorce us from ourselves, they divorce us from our love, they divorce us from our spirit and we do end up feeling like a burden. We end up feeling like we're in the, that we are bad, and we believe this for a long time. But what I love about the scapegoat part is it's the healthiest person in the family. It's the only person who has a chance to get out, because at some point living the lie becomes far more painful than to just be alone, and we've always been alone because we've been the scapegoat. So it's not like our position changes that much, except that we do lose attachments to the core of who we are, which is the family we were raised in. So I put scapegoat from escape greatest of all time, because once we escape, our truth can then really be told and we can really have a shot at life, living in that truth, which becomes a far lesser evil. Being alone and totally isolated from family becomes a far lesser evil than just being attuned to our truth and living in that truth.

Speaker 1: 8:23

Yes, I agree with you so much. I call that living on my island. I've always said that I've been living. I've lived on my island my whole life and now, literally for the last six months, I've been on an island, and so it is like being on an island.

Speaker 2: 8:38

In my book I call it no man's land. Yes, because we, when you get out and many scapegoats are actually cut off. I was cut off. Now I didn't mend the fence and that's how it became.

Speaker 2: 8:51

No contact from my end, because when they cut me off, they've done this all throughout my life. They'll just silence me for however many days until I would be so uncomfortable that I would be doing extra stuff on top of what I was already doing just to try and find a place of like. Please just stop ostracizing me. When you're ostracized to a group, that's kind of really painful because it's kind of like dominoes. But even if you're just, your mom just cuts you off for a certain period of time, as my mom's favorite game was to do that. But I learned, and she learned, that I would just always mend the fence. So I just didn't mend the fence and it's been eight years, and not that she hasn't done things in those eight years for her image, but none of those things were genuine toward me.

Speaker 2: 9:40

So I think that, being in the scapegoated position, you end up in no man's land and you have to prepare for trying to heal that life and wondering what kind of abuse you're going to get now that you're not going to be there to be forewarned on, and then starting the new life that you've got no contact for, and people can get stuck in no man's land, which we don't want to do. But I was there for five years, learning three years, attuned to like, oh my God, what is going to happen to me now? What are they doing on that side? And they did a lot and then I got tired of constantly being in that place of like gosh.

Speaker 2: 10:19

I did this because there's this whole life over here I would love to experience, but I have to be brave enough to leave this door and recognize they're always going to abuse me and I was never prepared for the abuse as a child, so I don't really need to be over-prepared now. I never saw it coming then. I'm not going to see it coming now. My voice didn't matter in the relationship, it's not going to matter out of the relationship and I just stepped away from that old life eventually.

Speaker 1: 10:46

And I love the wording that you use feel, deal, heal, yeah. And it's so simple yet so intricate all at the same time.

Speaker 2: 11:53

Yeah, Most of us unfortunately try to avoid the first part, which is the feel. We try to skip to deal and then we don't heal. Ok, because feelings are like you know, they live in the basement of who we are and if we are not doing our basement work, we have to make space for healing to occur, which means we have to move out what's not ours. Abuse is done to us are not things that need to be kept in our basement. We need to know what the core wounds are to those memories and that can stay in the basement.

Speaker 2: 12:26

But I'm writing a workbook right now on how to move their stuff out, because you need to know what's your stuff and what's not your stuff to be able to heal. So to heal, you have to create space. So you have to create space, so you have to feel. If you accumulate all kinds of feelings, then you're not going to create the space to truly deal with it, because you're going to have to deal with it daily. Every day you're dealing because we're feeling creatures by our DNA and emotions are the only universal language that we have. So we have to feel. And that is the hard part is that grieving is lifelong and we grieve the living dead when it's no contact or estrangement.

Speaker 2: 13:09

Which is kind of grief.

Speaker 1: 13:11

Yeah, and I think that that's important also, and I appreciate you bringing that up, because people think, oh, it's just so easy to cut off and move on. And when we've gotten to this point and maybe you've done it a couple of times, like myself, I've done it numerous times, which also has a whole nother backlash to it, but this isn't like Disneyland. For us, this is survival.

Speaker 2: 13:32

I don't know anyone in their right mind who would choose to cut off from the most important social group you can belong to. You have to be half out of your mind. So this is in our society. What I think we're up against right now is that estrangement has been a part of human existence since the beginning of human existence. But no cancel culture comes into play at the same time that I pioneered the first book on no contact with family, because it's really the first book dedicated to going no contact with your family, and so that timing aligned with an interesting, divisive shift in the culture. So we are seen as now cancel culture. So let's talk about the difference for a minute.

Speaker 2: 14:27

Cancel culture is there's one spat or you have a difference of opinion politically, or you have a difference in opinion on what sports team you like and you stop talking to somebody. Okay, they get canceled. Right, it's a gang up, bullying warfare, but over a moment. Okay, in toxic families we spend decades, decades getting abused and decades trying to fix our families, educate our families, help our families, go to therapy with our families, point out their wrongs. We give them scripts for proper apologies. We are working our asses off to try and have the best relationships we possibly can with these people that we want to love more than anything.

Speaker 2: 15:21

But there's a bandwidth to the human being, thank God, and we will run out of bandwidth. So when we cut off, it is forever. We're not cutting off for a game. We're not thinking about how long we should stay cut off. Until then maybe we should give them a breadcrumb. But that is how our toxic family members cut off. They cancel us. We cut off. Cutting off is forever. It's a loss, it's a death it is. We know by history that going back does not serve us. It enables us to be more abused. Our forgiveness was abused and used, and so forgiveness isn't about that anymore. It's an act of mercy that we offer someone who has shown remorse. So if there's no remorse, then we need to stop forgiving and get into accepting. We have to accept them for exactly who they are, and we cannot want for them or wish for them to be different, because if we stay there, we stay in pain.

Speaker 1: 16:29

Right, right. And then it's completely different and I so appreciate. In this new book that you wrote, you really dive a little bit deeper into different emotions and how you feel, and one that really hit home was rebellious hope.

Speaker 2: 16:46

Yes, please share a bit about that, because I really feel that everybody needs to hear this right now, yes, and one of the things that has helped me heal and deal is reading, reading and journaling. In my very first book that's self-published, that hardly anyone's read but it's such a sweet little book. It's so sad, but I'd paper parents If I needed calm, sound, rational advice. I couldn't go to two maniacs. I had to go to paper and I read Little House on the Prairie and little books that kind of got me through life right To give me an idea of maybe what I was looking for.

Speaker 2: 17:25

I was drawn to books that were about family. I was drawn to movies like Annie, because I felt orphaned, even though I had a family. I used to fantasize my parents would die so that someone would adopt me from a funeral, like you know, all those little things and those girls. Pippi Longstocking was totally alone. So I think it's interesting that I gravitated to the Punky Brewsters, the Pippies, the Annies.

Speaker 2: 17:49

I had to get out of relentless hope where I was sacrificing my spirit for love all the time. My spirit for love all the time, and my mom especially, would provoke me in ways that were very passive and she would drive me to be hateful. And then I would be hateful toward her because that's the natural reaction to the abuse I was being given, and she would be so satisfied when I'd act out in hate. And then I would feel so bad because she'd call me an abuser, I'm out of control, you're a bipolar monster, all the things. And then she'd swing me back to hope because once she got me to hate, she was satisfied because I was bad. And then she'd love, bomb me and I lost myself, because each time I fell down the hate trap, I lost more and more self-worth, became more and more adept at believing that I was an abuser. There was actually something fundamentally wrong with me. And then, as I got away, I first moved. That was my first step in getting away was moving states. Then I had my daughter, and I didn't like the way I felt when she was being held or played with by my parents at all. That was interesting for me. And then the abuse just kept continuing to get worse. The more I succeeded, the more I was hated. So I had to cut ties eventually and I had to turn in to rebellious hope, which is no more shit. I'm done. This person is a cancer for me, and relentless hope is a term coined by someone who had cancer.

Speaker 2: 19:30

You have to have rebellious hope in your truth, and rebellious meaning. You're going to start a revolution. You're not going to just be a sheep anymore. You're not going to go along with the pack just so that you belong because you don't belong in that pack. So who are you belonging for?

Speaker 2: 19:46

For a society that doesn't care that parents abuse their children, that we can't tell parents when they need to do better, that our parents didn't know better because they were abused? Okay, but if you didn't like being abused as a child, then why in God's name would you not stop that with me? You abused me and I'm not abusing my child and using that as an excuse. So what's the difference? I don't want to be an abuser. I understand that.

Speaker 2: 20:13

I choose how I show up in relationships and treat people. And if we don't learn not to be an abuser in our family of origin, we start learning that in preschool. We start learning there's a book everything I ever needed to know in life. I learned in kindergarten. So it's a poor excuse, okay. And you have to have rebellious hope in yourself, meaning go out and be a goat, tell your truth, live your truth. Do not live in revenge. Don't do that. Be quiet, be classy. Your words didn't matter in the relationship. Like I'd said earlier, they're not going to matter out. Your purpose now is other people, other people like you. Have that kind of rebellious hope in yourself and your healing, that you touch other lives and you change them.

Speaker 1: 21:00

That's so beautiful and it's so true and I love that. You touched on the fact that the aspect of just because your parents may say, well, I was abandoned or I was abused, or I was this or I was that in their 60s, 70s, 80s, wherever it is, you have to question at that point in time well, if you knew it was wrong, why would you continue it? Or if you knew it was wrong, why weren't you getting help? And I'm sure, like you, like me, you know, in our families we're the ones going to the therapy and doing all the things and we're saying, well, why haven't you? And a therapist doesn't constitute a coffee chat in Starbucks.

Speaker 2: 21:38

No. And then if they say, well, I didn't know it was abusive, well, when someone started telling you, or I was crying and I started staying away from you, or now I'm no contact, what are you doing now? Where's your ownership, so that you just feel sorry for yourself that you didn't know. But I'm telling you they knew all the time, because the human spirit doesn't feel good when it's dominating, controlling, hurting, harming another human spirit. So I just don't buy it. I don't buy it.

Speaker 2: 22:13

You know, we all are raised in certain families and there are families where they don't think they're parenting unless they're punishing Okay. So my person that I that I've been with for eight years grew up in a family like that and I see some of those habits in him. For example, his son is 16. He's six, four, he's huge. And I looked out in the basketball nets all you know, messed up. I'm like, oh my God, what happened to your net? He's like, well, my son, he's always hanging on the rim and I told him, if you keep doing that, you're going to have to buy your own net. And I was like, okay, but like he's 16. He's doing something so healthy, he's practicing something he loves, he wants to be really good at dunking. He's not out drugging, screwing girls, not getting good grades. Like, why are we punishing him? Why not buy 10 extra nets for the kid and just let him become the best version of himself playing basketball that he can? So here's what my boyfriend did, you're absolutely right. So we get in the car for Easter and he's like hey, son, guess what my amazing girlfriend taught me this weekend? So I want you to know that all the nets are free. They're on me.

Speaker 2: 23:31

I was wrong. Not everything needs to be punishment. So if our parents can be wrong and he didn't know what he was doing was wrong he thought that he was trying to teach his son good values about taking care of his things. Okay, well, but it's like basketball, like you know, it's a sport and he wants to be good at dunking. And what it did is is put his son into a position to lie Like but I wasn't hanging on the net. Of course he is, it's not going to, but he's, it's always in trouble, right? So what I love about my person is that he doesn't get defensive. He's like truly, I never thought of it that way Because in his life everything was punishment. But look, wow, right. How amazing was that that he announces it in the car in front of everyone in the family that he was wrong and that his amazing girlfriend taught him something new and he's willing to learn. If I had a mustard seed of that in my parents, I wouldn't be no contact. I don't even have a mustard seed.

Speaker 1: 25:22

That is an excellent example to drive that message home. Excellent, right, simple, simple, very simple.

Speaker 2: 25:33

Why are we punishing for something healthy. That doesn't make sense to me, and that he's open and he wants to do the best by his son and he didn't know better. But then, when he knew better, what did he do? He did better. That's all we're asking. Is kids that have been abused Know better, do better? They can't even get to a place. They're so above reproach that they have to even know better because they already know Right, right. So that's the problem. There's a big difference. I'm not saying parents have to be perfect. I'm saying, when we're told that we need to do better, let's use some humility, you know. So I do feel that you know. That's a healthy way to correct behavior and change a pattern of. Not everything needs to be punishment.

Speaker 1: 26:27

Right and it's just so crucial, and especially right now in our society. You know there's no coincidence in the conversations you and I have been having. And this takes me into the aspect again I love in your book. It's all about healing and you take us on that journey step by step, and the one place that you bring us is like the undoing and the undoing brings us to the miracle and which is so incredible, and I would love for you to talk about this because there's a page in your book. It's on 131. Now I have to tell everyone, if you haven't listened to the other episode, I can't count how many times we broke down crying and I already swore I was like, okay, we're not going to cry today, but now I'm already crying. I haven't even read anything.

Speaker 2: 27:11

I got you, girl, girl. I know a lot of people are crying in this book, especially the second half of the book.

Speaker 1: 27:17

Yeah, yes, because it's all about truly getting to feel your feelings. And when you've been in this dynamic, you were never allowed to feel your feelings, you were never allowed to show your feelings, you were never allowed to express anything. And so, the little bit, if we can share, a little bit about the miracle, and then I'll have you dive into I won't read too much because you know the thing. So it's all about start choosing you. And here is the miracle, the truth that drove your feelings to the surface eventually grew strong enough to overpower the negative influence of your parents. When you allow your feelings, you allow your truth.

Speaker 1: 27:54

Emotions are the only things powerful enough to change thoughts, and when you take the time to get out of your head and into your heart, the brainwashing you have undergone is easier to unravel. And it goes on. I won't read it all, but the very last little piece talks about somehow, some way, you arrived at the place where you would rather be alone, ostracized, without support and ganged up on, rather than stay under their rule, and your last words were this is powerful, so incredibly powerful. And that's what we're here. We want everyone to feel so empowered by your insights, your knowledge, your personal experience and through your book, and letting people know that they're not alone and that there is power and healing and miraculous miracles to come through this.

Speaker 2: 28:48

You have to become rebellious or embrace your rebellion. You know, one of the most punished emotion in children by parents is their anger. The most misused emotion in discipline, in toxic parents, is anger. It's actually rage, but anger not rage is the most honest of our emotions. Not rage is the most honest of our emotions and it is something that brings momentum to our sadness. And we are taught not to be angry by toxic parents, as they are allowed to rage at us and it becomes very confusing. So we tend to learn to fawn and we tend to learn to just keep the peace.

Speaker 2: 29:32

And I talk in the book about inner peace and outer peace. Both are important, but the goal would be inner peace. So you have to be rebellious, you have to get to a space where enough is enough and if they aren't gonna value you, I mean I left my family. Well, they cut me off, but I didn't mend the fence. I know that game, but I would rather have been alone with low self-worth for the rest of my life than to be a part of that family, to be a part of these people that were so destructive to one another, whose intention was to make my life as hard as they could make. It was the intent in the parenting, and there's nine marriages between these two people that were my parents. So that made it even harder, because if I had any reaction to all this disgusting change then their way to get back at me was to make my life as hard as they could possibly make it. So I had to, lonely and alone and isolated, at some point felt like such a lesser evil than trying to keep up with the pace of my abuse. And it has so set me free to realize that they were so lucky to have a daughter like me and so many things helped me become rebellious.

Speaker 2: 30:58

You know the Disney movies. You know that she saves him in every movie and she's not even looking for him in that. In those movies that man's always looking for her. She either accidentally stumbles upon him, but the miracle of who she is changes his soul and then he spends the rest of his life trying to find her, not to rescue her, to rescue him. She rescues him. And Drew Barrymore and Ever After was sort of an incredible depiction of that. And movies, music, reading, journaling.

Speaker 2: 31:35

I had to write myself back into existence, and I mean that in two different ways. I used writing W-R-I-T-I-N-G to write R-I-G-H-T a freaking narrative, because if I didn't write down what was going on in me, I was so afraid to get lost to this lie and the only way I could defend myself was in private and on paper, to which they would read They'd breach my privacy. However, I continue to write myself back into existence. I get to write and end the narrative of my chapters. Now it's my life, and all I can say to anyone listening is it's such a beautiful thing once it becomes your life and you learn that your life is a different type of management, now that you're not managing them. My life was spent in management of other people. Now that I had to learn how to manage me, learn how to focus on me, learn how to love me, this is what changed the course of my life and started attracting one miracle after another.

Speaker 2: 32:47

I'm the loser kid, by the way, and I'm sitting here on your podcast. I'm sitting here. I went to the TEDx stage. What is going on? What is going on? What is going on? There are days that I wake up and I'm like I hardly made it through high school.

Speaker 2: 33:03

I was 1.6 GPA my sophomore year. Okay, I'm really telling you the truth. I was hardly making it so getting away, because I grew up in Colorado in a ski resort. There's no college there, so my first break was actually separating from them. But I also had to get used to the lack of confinement and the lack of abuse. I missed it for a while, but the more I separated and I was very scared to be on my own because I was programmed to believe I could never do it. Sick families don't like losing their scapegoats, because sick families need scapegoats. Okay, so there was so much confusion going on all throughout my life, but learning to be rebellious Tracy Chapman has a song called Revolution and pinnacle songs or things really started getting me embraced and I separated a little bit.

Speaker 2: 34:00

If I were to look back, throughout every stage of my life I was separating until it was just done. So I do think that everybody's timing is different, but I will say that even though it was four and a half decades of my life, it was not a waste of my time, because I can look back and know that I tried as hard as I could try and I hear this a lot. I wish I would have done this 10 years ago. I wish I would have done this so much sooner. I get that. I can appreciate that. I've had that feeling. But everything that I did and I tried so hard, it counts in this universe. Long-term it counts, or I wouldn't be here doing this.

Speaker 1: 34:41

Right, no, it absolutely counts. And as we shift into where you are now with the books, with the TEDx, with a healthy relationship, how do you help and guide people around that fear, around being okay when something good happens and not needing to wait for the shoe to drop, being able to release that and being okay that you deserve happiness, you deserve good things to happen, you deserve the miracles in your life.

Speaker 2: 35:12

Okay. So this is going to be an answer you probably don't expect I'm a six on the Enneagram. I don't know if you've taken the Enneagram, but I encourage everyone to take the Enneagram and the MBTI, whatever those personality tests are. So the six is very suspicious. The six is always worried about hidden intentions and is prepared for the bottom to fall out. It's a dark, it's a bit of a darker number and at first I was like, oh you know, dang, why my six?

Speaker 2: 35:45

But I look at it that my personality has to protect itself in a sense of skepticism or suspicion, as a strategy, unconsciously, to not experience what I did before. So I will not say, I will not be dishonest and say that every day I feel like a miracle. In fact, most days I have to convince myself to keep going on that line of thinking. I say, like my little monkey, and I plug the monkey in and then I'll look over and it's unplugged. I'm like, dang it, it's a very slippery outlet. So it's constant work for me to stay out of the fear, which is my default, and into the miracle. So I don't feel the miracle every day. In fact I can perceive a lot of lack. I can perceive I'm not where I want to be. Yet I can perceive that I'm not going to get there I and I don't even know what there is sometimes, but I don't try to change that about myself anymore, as much as I try to acknowledge it and work with it. So so I read tons of stuff on manifesting, I get way out of the box of psychology because I think it's important and I love metaphysical ideas and I'm a human design analyst as well. So I really do search for information that gives me feeding me that spirituality, feeding me the miracle mindset and feeding it to me, and I need it constantly because there's nothing in me that was developed for trust.

Speaker 2: 37:25

That's the first stage of life and I talk about that in the book we talked about our last show. That's not developed for me. So in place of it is fear or skepticism. So I'm overly fearful and I'm overly skeptical and I'm waiting for the bottom to fall out. And so the gifts of that. I work very hard because I work from fear very often.

Speaker 2: 37:51

But as I learned to trust more and I learned to see that there's positive consequences to my actions, it does help to settle, but I do not make it a goal to make that part of my personality go away, because I do think it's the part of my personality where my intuition is and I do think it's important for me to be skeptical. I think it's important for me to not be a pleaser anymore because eight years ago, before no contact, I tested out consistently as a two on the Enneagram fascinating, and those numbers don't tend to change. But if I were to analyze it, the two was who I was forced to be and the two is a beautiful number, very pleasing, it's the helper I am and was, all of that. But I love the idea that as I embraced my rebellion and I've gone no contact and stayed there and dealt with years of abuse since that, the six is probably at the core of who I always was be me and my family and I wanted to be good.

Speaker 2: 39:11

I think that I was still answering questions from that part of my personality that was wanting to be seen as helpful and good, and so it's a more honest number for me to see that there is some darkness there and I have a lot of healing to still do and to me that is the miracle. Becoming the future me is my most passionate pursuit and I write about that in the book and a lot of people cry in that space, in the three aspects of self paradigm that I talk about. And so miracles are everywhere, and what I'm learning is I don't need to suffer to get one. They can be effortless.

Speaker 1: 39:47

Right, and that's something that we're all learning.

Speaker 2: 39:50

We're all learning.

Speaker 2: 39:52

We're all learning and it's important to note that healing is a journey, it's not a destination, and it's always you know, unless we get a lobotomy and we get rid of the amygdala and hippocampal areas of the brain, then we're always going to be healing. Yes, I'm a therapist. I'm also a therapist who sees a therapist Okay, Like I'm as human first, before I am therapist as anybody else. And you know what that makes me a really good therapist? Okay, Cause I'm not playing a role in my room.

Speaker 2: 40:26

But I also feel that in being somewhat skeptical and embracing that part of my personality, because at first this six, I was kind of like, oh, like it was painful, because it was so truthful to me, and it's just like, for example, I was robbed a couple of years ago and I was robbed of cash so by a cleaning lady and made a police report and I don't know, I think she might be attached to some scary people. So at this point I mean the amount was insane. But and I'm a single mom, no family, so it hit me in a different way and again, just being not trust, I can't trust people. So the police called my phone the other day. We need to talk to you, the DA has some questions and I'm like, oh, my God, I'm going to jail. Like, see, from my childhood. I'm like, why don't I know? Like what? So this is where my partner comes in. He's like honey, it's probably from the case two years ago. I'm like, why would they even care now? Like he's like just just calm.

Speaker 2: 41:33

I'm like, but is there something that I don't look at the child, Is there something that I don't know about that I did? And like there's some lawsuit against me, Instantly, wide eyed and petrified, completely divorced from rational thought, and yes, that's exactly what it was. And um and I and I journaled about it that night. How fascinating it is to me that my, my brain and here's where the number six makes sense to me is oh, my God, what did I do that I don't know that I did because I was always in trouble for things I didn't do, because I was always in trouble for things I didn't do. I feel that this lives through me and I just want everyone listening. Like it's okay, I don't feel silly telling you this story. It's how I work and it's because I was abused and I just have to unpack these things. When I unpack them, I think I'll get better at it the next time.

Speaker 1: 42:28

That's what growth is, and I appreciate that you're feeling so safe and vulnerable in this space to share that, because I know that that's something that we all literally deal with every day. That's a huge part of my life too, so I resonate so much and I also appreciate you sharing that just because you have chosen to go no contact, or you're wherever you are in your space, it doesn't mean that the hurt and the pain and the dysfunction and the abuse doesn't still pop up here, there or everywhere, because it does. But what we want to make sure that you're aware of is that call it a trigger, call it a light, a pothole, whatever it is, it's just showing you where there's still healing that needs to be done. It doesn't have to be a negative. You can look at it as a positive of oh, that's where I still need to heal.

Speaker 2: 43:15

And a moment of self-compassion, like dang poor little Sherry man. She just thinks I fell off the short end of my flat world. And yes, I'm in my office treating people world. And yes, I'm in my office treating people, letting them know that when they fall off the short end of their flat world, it's okay, it's normal, it's natural. So I hand them a parachute. Okay, because I can only take someone in my office as far as I've gone in my own growth. That is also true.

Speaker 2: 43:44

So never follow a leader who's never suffered, because then, when suffering comes, what are they going to do? Where are they going to lead you? Right? Oh, you'll be okay, oh, okay, thanks, that's reassuring. No, I think that I go home and I write about it, I journal about it. I acknowledge that I had that response. There are so many of those that I have that I had that response. There are so many of those that I have. I was financially abused, so I don't like owing anybody money. I mean, there's so many ways that I'm trying not to be a burden, right. So I think that all of those are beautiful gifts that you learn and the miracle comes from feeling, dealing and healing those things.

Speaker 1: 44:27

I love that, and this is a perfect segue into a little piece that you wrote in your book. This is a little one. Deepest insecurities have also been your most profound visionaries and greatest saviors that have helped you heal. In a twisted irony, your insecurities are the North Star that have the power to lead you to your happiness.

Speaker 2: 44:49

I like to turn insecurities into a superpower. If I'm insecure, I immediately have direction. I don't like the way this feels. I want to feel something different and this feeling is leading me in that direction. We don't want to get stuck here and have like a black and white thought of well, it's just how I am, you have to deal with it. No, you don't. No, they don't. So if you have this feeling, I'm insecure about whatever it is right. I'm insecure that the bottom can fall out all the time. So guess what I have? I have.

Speaker 2: 45:27

I call it plan B instead of plan B. So I've got plan B on the side that if I have to have a plan B in every area of my life to feel safe in plan A, so be it. Okay, my plan Bs have turned into me having a podcast, writing a book and being on a TEDx stage, because my degree is only to be in this office that we're in right now with my patients. So it's okay to have a plan B. If plan B brings you a sense of safety, then it makes plan A a better living experience super.

Speaker 2: 46:01

I think there just needs to be a lot less judgment, and that's why I jump out of the box of psychology very often, because labeling is helpful for a certain moment but then you have to go do the deeper work and your insecurities. If you look at them the right way, they are teachers. They lead you. If you're overweight and you don't like that, it makes you feel insecure. There's your direction. Take care of your body, you know will increase your self-esteem and it leads you into a superpower. So we're not powerless ever.

Speaker 1: 46:32

No, the power is there, we just have to reach for it.

Speaker 2: 46:35

And we have to get rid of the poison that caused it. I could not be powerful until I got rid of the toxic powers that were running my life. I have to be the leader of my own life to find an authentic sense of power.

Speaker 1: 46:50

And I feel like this is a really good time to ask. I feel like there's someone out there that's going to say who maybe isn't as far along on their journey as where you and I are, and they're teetering what is one piece of advice you would give them to take an empowering step forward wherever they're at?

Speaker 2: 47:09

I would meet them where they were at, actually, and that take their time. To me, forward is a pace. It doesn't matter how fast you're going If you're going forward. Forward for me is a pace. It took me four and a half decades.

Speaker 2: 47:28

I always tell people in my office you will know when, and I can't know that for you. So if you don't know for sure enough, I don't know that there's ever a hundred percent in this dynamic but you will know when and then stay the course because there's so many temptations. Really, the Wizard of Oz is such a great metaphor for what it's like to get out of a toxic family. The flying monkeys they're still circling me constantly the smear campaign, the tricks along the journey, your lack of belief in yourself. You will question yourself Am I doing the right thing? Should I feel guilty? This new book unpacks all the stuff about respect, everything you can imagine about guilt, and all of those things help. So if you're in the meantime or you're not sure, read, read, journal, read, write yourself back into existence, read some more, just educate yourself. Knowledge in that area is power, because it does end up leading you to the right place, because when we feel solid in our information, and that information marries up to and validates our experience, which is what I hear so often with my books, and my books are not hateful.

Speaker 2: 48:39

Let me share something that someone from Germany wrote me, the sweetest message. She said thank you so much for your sensitively written book. She said thank you so much for your sensitively written book. I cannot stand books that make other people just evil, especially parents. It's too hard to digest and you do not out parents as hateful, but you acknowledge the abuse and you give us the pathways out. Thank you again for writing such a sensitive book. I do not hate my parents today. I don't have time for that kind of emotion for them. I love them. I don't like them or respect them, and if I can't like someone or respect someone, I can't trust that person. They have no business being in my life and that's all fair game in our society if it's not parents. But as soon as it comes to parents there's a problem, especially mothers, especially mothers. So if you're not there, that's okay, be where you are. Just don't stop educating yourself and you'll know when no one can tell you that.

Speaker 1: 49:42

Yeah, beautiful. Thank you for that. I so appreciate that. Wow, this has been, oh my gosh, just another amazing episode, and I have to tell you so Dr Sherry and I always start with. This is where we're going to go, and I said what did I say? I said I feel like we have three shows in one, and of course we do. So I'm already going to give a heads up that we do have one very special episode coming for us. That is all about this next step and it's really that, yes, you can have a healthy romantic relationship and we're going to help guide you through that. And so stay tuned, because that one is coming. These two podcasts were so important to really help people from point A to Z and then back in the middle again, because you'll always need to review, revise, rethink and know that that's okay and that we're here for you.

Speaker 2: 50:31

We are here for you, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 50:34

Absolutely Well. As we end the show today, dr Sherry, what is one piece of advice? You'd like inspiration, even that you'd like to leave with us today.

Speaker 2: 50:44

You know, what I think really inspires me is this idea, and Gabby Bernstein, I just think is wonderful and I love a lot of her work. But miracles are natural and we don't have to suffer for the things that we want to get into the space of having rather than wanting, and you've got to get out of your own way to do that, and that is a really hard thing to do. But if I can make it out of the terror of what I grew up in and the horror of what I grew up in and I can be here today doing this work and having a sound mind and a good heart and they didn't ruin me then you can too. I'm just as human as all of you, so I'm no different. I'm not any more special. I just have a gift of externalizing what I write, so you're seen, you're loved, you're understood. So love yourself, do your healing work and the miracles will come. Beautiful.

Speaker 1: 51:44

I love that. Thank you so much and, as always, all of Dr Sherry's information will be over in the show notes, all of the links to her websites, to the books, so you can head over there on jenniferpilatescom. Dr Sherry, thank you again for today. This has been amazing. I so appreciate your time, your energy, your vulnerability and feeling so safe in our space and making this a safe space for us. I thank you for that.

Speaker 2: 52:10

I feel like the luckiest. Thank you, honey, for having me on. I think you're super great and super special and what a voice. You are helping so many people.

Speaker 1: 52:18

Thank you so much. Well, everyone, this has been amazing and, as we say, she makes me cry at the end. Oh my gosh, I love you so much. As we say, may you live an empowered life from within. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe to Empowered Within with Jennifer Pilates. Your feedback is important. It helps me to connect with you and gives me insight into who you are and what you're enjoying about the show. For today's show notes and discount codes from today's sponsors head over to JenniferPilatescom. Until next time, may you live an empowered life from within.