Shifting Perspectives to Mend Hearts and Forge Family Bonds

Have you ever stopped to consider the power behind the words "What happened to you?" rather than "What's wrong with you?" Join us, Noel and Lena, as we navigate the profound implications of this transformative shift through the insights of Oprah Winfrey and Bruce D. Perry's "What Happened to You?" Our reflections, sparked by the probing questions of the Skin Deep card game, venture into the realms of cherished childhood memories and formative experiences, weaving a narrative that highlights the importance of creating spaces where independence and connection thrive.

In our intimate gathering, we delve into the echoes of childhood influence and the subtle art of mending relationships. We untangle the complexities of how early experiences shape our worldview and behaviors, stressing the significance of understanding our parents' or caregivers' hardships as a stepping stone to our own healing. The journey doesn't stop with introspection; it leads us to brave conversations with loved ones, where we confront past hurts and disrupt inherited cycles of behavior. Our discourse is an invitation to cultivate deeper self-awareness and forge meaningful bonds through compassion and empathy.

Our conversation comes full circle as we address the tangled web of expectations within immigrant families, the silent yet weighty "Operation American Dream." Bridging generational and cultural divides requires more than just understanding; it demands initiating dialogues infused with curiosity over judgment. As we share our personal aspirations for our children and the conscious choice to break away from past patterns, we hope to inspire listeners to take their own 'kick steps' towards change. It's about being the learner, not the judge, and understanding that while every step may not be groundbreaking, each one holds the potential for significant impact. Join Noel and Lena on this heartfelt quest to embrace the profound shifts that pave the way for healing and growth.

https://www.serenitycovetemecula.com

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:07

Hello and welcome to the Let that Shift Go podcast. I'm Noel.

Speaker 2: 0:10

And I'm Lena.

Speaker 1: 0:11

And this is where we talk about the good, the bad and all the shifting between.

Speaker 2: 0:17

We just talk mad shift.

Speaker 1: 0:19

Let's get into it, and on this week's episode we're going to talk about a book called what Happened to you.

Speaker 2: 0:27

Yeah, and one of what the hell is wrong with you is what happened to you. What the hell is wrong with you?

Speaker 1: 0:35

Why don't you see it the way I see it? Yeah, why did?

Speaker 2: 0:37

you do this? What the fuck is wrong with you? This is a much better approach is what happened to you. So, yeah, this is a book that came out a long time ago. It was one of the not one of the first ones, but one of the many ones that we shared many years ago on the before we even started this deeper path to healing, and so we I think we should revisit it because it's coming up in a lot of ways.

Speaker 1: 1:01

I paused because you said okay, I got to recommend this book to you. It was written by Oprah Winfrey.

Speaker 2: 1:08

You already checked out, yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:10

I mean, you know, it's a little bit, I mean I guess, for me like full disclosure, it just it didn't. It doesn't seem like my cup of tea. Yeah. But then I was like, okay, give it a chance.

Speaker 2: 1:22

See, she wrote it with Bruce D Perry and together I think they came up with just yeah, it goes into the science of trauma in the brain and all of that, so all right.

Speaker 1: 1:34

Well, but first let's get into these skin deep cards and tap into a little vulnerability.

Speaker 2: 1:39

You want to go first? Ladies first. Okay, yeah and ladies. First, what do you wish had never been a part of our experience?

Speaker 1: 1:50

What do I wish was never a part of our experience? Hmm. Very difficult because you know you start to think if this doesn't happen, then that doesn't happen. Yeah. Right.

Speaker 2: 2:09

If any one thing.

Speaker 1: 2:10

Yeah, Um. So to take what? What do I wish didn't happen, Hmm.

Speaker 2: 2:18

I mean, I have one.

Speaker 1: 2:20

Well, let me, let me give you mine. I wish hmm, God, that exc. That counsels out a lot of other things if I say that Well, don't worry about what it cancels out.

Speaker 2: 2:32

What would you think would be the one thing? Hmm.

Speaker 1: 2:40

I wish that we got a chance to live together our whole lives. I wish, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 2:45

That's what I was going to say too Well there you go, I was like he better say that.

Speaker 1: 2:52

Did I pass the test?

Speaker 2: 2:53

You passed the test.

Speaker 1: 2:54

Okay, all right, so okay, so, um, yeah, so, I guess that that's you know, yeah, that we had not been separated.

Speaker 2: 3:02

Okay, yeah that would be nice, yeah, but maybe we wouldn't be sitting here now.

Speaker 1: 3:07

Yeah, that's the thing, yeah. Yep okay. So all right. My question is what's a memory from your childhood you never want to forget?

Speaker 2: 3:18

Ooh, probably. You know, when I was little I would go out and walk by myself and I remember packing myself a little Tupperware of leftovers of rice and green beans and a pork chop. Okay. And I think I was probably about seven or eight and I packed it up, took my little dog, walked down to a canyon, positioned myself under a tree, ate my leftovers with my dog, and I remember thinking like yeah, this is it. This is good, I feel safe, this is yeah.

Speaker 1: 3:56

Out of the chaos.

Speaker 2: 3:57

Out of the chaos into nature with a snack.

Speaker 1: 4:01

A pork, chop some green beans and some rice. A Filipino's dream.

Speaker 2: 4:06

And now I realize, as an adult, that's my life. Yeah, an animal nature eating a snack, that's pretty much it. So, yeah, I would never want to lose that memory.

Speaker 1: 4:18

Why? What's the significance?

Speaker 2: 4:21

I think I just felt safe and I felt independent and I felt connected and I remember walking through this green belt to the canyon and I wasn't worried about what anybody thought about me.

Speaker 1: 4:34

And Dory away. Yeah, yeah, I was just like On the way to Parkside Park, yeah.

Speaker 2: 4:37

I'm just going down with little hike with my dog. In the hood. Yeah and didn't give it another thought. I didn't think anybody like now I think like what adults were looking at me, like where is this girl going with her lunch and her? Dog Into the canyon and really that probably wasn't very safe. I don't know if I'd let my kid do that, but you know I didn't have a care in the world except to go eat my lunch somewhere in a canyon.

Speaker 1: 5:02

Yeah, that's a nice memory to keep in the role of X to tap into.

Speaker 2: 5:06

It guided the rest of my life, apparently.

Speaker 1: 5:10

Yeah, you're right back at that moment, yeah, okay, so let's talk about this book. Yeah, you recommended to me, like we talked about a little bit earlier, and I was a little bit sus, you know, because Oprah's name was attached to it, and but once I read it, oh man, it just kind of gave me a whole new kind of viewpoint to what I wished actually happened for me. You know, even with my breath work like nobody ever asked me how are you breathing? Like what's happening with you and everybody's just like what's wrong with you.

Speaker 2: 5:41

Yeah, I think that's why I was drawn to it, because it changed the, you know, the questioning to something. It shifted it to something that could be that would be opening. So, instead of what's wrong with you because, you know, whenever you notice someone's, you know, treating you a certain way or someone is just acting out in a certain way and we oftentimes just go what is wrong with them, and instead, if you shift that to like what happened to you, there was something that happened that probably created this behavior or this fear or this anger or whatever it is we're dealing with and what I love is that, instead of asking what is wrong with you, it comes from a place of compassion and opening and being able to say, hey, what happened to you?

Speaker 2: 6:26

And one of the reasons we were even talking about this was in our own family, like really thinking about you know, our parents, or even when I'm working with people and they're expressing a lot of trauma or things that you know they're dealing with now as an adult, and having to have a difficult conversation with your own parents about why didn't you show up for me? Why did you? Where were you yelling at me? Why were you hurting me? Whatever that is.

Speaker 2: 6:50

And you know, I don't think anybody heals through blame right, I just don't see that as a pathway to healing.

Speaker 2: 6:56

But asking a question that kind of opens up into compassion, like what happened to you, could open up a whole new conversation and a pathway to healing. So, even you know, with our own parents, or with everyone who's listening, with your own parents, if there is a behavior or there's something that you know, you carry, you know, instead of you know, looking at it like what's wrong with you, what's wrong with my parent, that they had to treat me that way, or, you know, bring me up this way, you know, kind of push these narratives on me and who I am and what do I need to be, and all of that is to just ask, like, what happened to you? Because most of what gets trickled down to us is something that happened to them. You know, but we don't often think about it that way, especially with our parents.

Speaker 1: 7:42

No, I was like see, when I read this book, I thought of it in my own viewpoint and then I thought of it in terms of my kids. Yes.

Speaker 1: 7:51

And so one of the things that we were kind of talking about was this mirroring thing, and so, for instance, if I'm angry with my kid or something pops up, you know, my first response is I'm super angry with what this kid just did. Right now no-transcript I wanna yell and I wanna scream because that's what I used to do, but then I stop and think, like when I got in trouble probably doing the same very thing, how did I wish my dad would have handled it. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 8:22

You know, and so I think that's the what happened to you kind of thing. It's the question that I'm asking myself, because that's really the cultural trauma and the stuff that we keep repeating. These patterns only keep happening because I never take the time to deal, Like what happened to me. And when I read that book I was like I wish somebody would have asked me. Yeah, what happened to you? What? Happened to you? Nobody, ever did Not. Until we you know, talk to me. Yeah. It was always what the fuck is wrong with you.

Speaker 2: 8:52

Yeah, yeah, because I mean I know before you started on this path there was a lot of anger and a lot of, you know, just yelling or controlling and that kind of thing, and no one ever really asked you, well, what happened to you that you behaved this way?

Speaker 1: 9:08

Yeah, that was never asked.

Speaker 2: 9:10

No. And until you started to go, yeah, what did happen to me? And start to dive down deep into all of that that you discovered, oh my gosh, there's a lot that happened to me. That's actually, you know, contributing to the way that I am with my family or I am with the people in general.

Speaker 1: 9:26

Yeah, how ever reactive I am to people. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 9:29

So I think that's where I love this book is because it really talks about how you know, early experience has profoundly influenced a person's worldview, their personality, their behavior, and a lot of that happens in very early childhood.

Speaker 1: 9:42

Yeah, up to the age of about seven Right.

Speaker 2: 9:45

And so even now, when we, you know, when we go into breath work or we're going into, if I'm, you know, coaching someone and we talk about inner child healing, which is such a like trendy word right now or topic, and a lot of, I see a lot of people, especially men, shy away from like that's, like that sounds weak, you know.

Speaker 1: 10:02

But you gotta think about Do you caught up in his feelings?

Speaker 2: 10:04

He caught up in your feelings. But you gotta think about your brain. Your brain development is very influenced in your very much younger years and a lot of that is subconscious. So we have to start kind of digging at like, yeah, what happened to you that maybe shifted this behavior into a personality? Until we're able to really look at those things, then we're just really doing ourselves a disservice you know, and then, once you the thing is, though, once you start doing that, you start looking at your parents.

Speaker 2: 10:33

Yeah, and then you're like, you know you're not just there, or your caregivers or whoever it was that was influencing you at that time. And now there, what do you do with this emotion of like I'm having to work on myself and kind of clear?

Speaker 2: 10:47

all of these things that I'm carrying, which were the results of being raised in this family, which even a perfect family has its own, ooh, you know traumas of perfection and of achieving and all this stuff, and once you start looking at that, like how do you hold now you're you know the people that you love or that you don't, and look at them in the same way.

Speaker 2: 11:11

We have to do the same thing we do to ourselves, which is what happened to me, to make me, you know, feel this way or react this way or be in this deep pit of depression. But a lot of times that's connected to how we retreated as children and now we have to deal with all of that.

Speaker 1: 11:27

Yeah, and so that's what that? Actually, even though I've read this book a long time ago and been applying it to my kids, I never really thought about like applying it to my parents. Yeah, because in you know, even recent conflicts it was like man, what the fuck is wrong with you? Yeah, you know the way that you're responding to me, or the what's not. You know anything.

Speaker 2: 11:45

Why couldn't you be there for me, yeah?

Speaker 1: 11:47

And. But then I start to think in wow, you know what if I said what happened to you? Yeah.

Speaker 2: 11:56

Then it opens up everything.

Speaker 1: 11:57

Yeah, and that's. There's been cases of that already where we've healed and some things have opened and I've felt a safe place, where it was like, oh, I felt an understanding. Yeah. But there's levels to that, you know.

Speaker 2: 12:09

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 12:10

What are?

Speaker 2: 12:10

the levels to it.

Speaker 1: 12:12

Well, just opening, opening up. I mean, you're only, you're only ready to open up at your own pace. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 12:20

And one of the things that you think I was thinking is like, well, I'm, you know, having these difficult conversations, right? This is how this whole topic came up and it was like, man, I really want to have these difficult conversations with my parents, you know, and I really feel like you know these first and second generation, or even just society today, right, Like our parents, because it's so expensive, both of our parents are working and they're out in the field and they're not home and they're maybe not there for us emotionally, so we become latchkey kids and all these things.

Speaker 2: 12:50

Hyperindependence.

Speaker 1: 12:51

Hyperindependence and all these things, right. So then we grew up with all those things, the things we didn't get. And what are we doing to our kids? You know, trying to give them everything we didn't have, not knowing and all these things. But then you know, we reach our midlife crisis and all the stuff hits us and we want to talk to our parents. And now I got to flip this to my parents. Now I'm thinking, man, this is a difficult conversation, but I took the time to think well, these mirroring things, you know, I thought, if I have to take the time and say, I wonder how my dad would have. I wish my dad would have said that. Then I took the step to go hmm, I'm gonna be an old person, I'm already. I feel that way already. But at some point, one of my or both of my kids are gonna come to me and say I've got. I got to have this tough conversation with you about the ways that I failed them. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 13:42

And I really want to think how would I want my son to talk to me about that hurt and I need to use that in the way that I approach my parents. Yeah. Because there's some things that there's no return on investment. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 13:58

Some things are just the ego and that's a difficult balance. But I think, when I take in consideration this book and changing the viewpoint because that's really what this is is right, a shift in an aperture and a shift in perspective from what the fuck is wrong with you To hey, what happened to you. Yeah. What I'm so sad. It makes me sad that you couldn't see me growing up. You couldn't be there for me. Yeah. But what happened to you to make that happen? Mm-hmm, that's the difficult conversation. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 14:36

But see, you're not attacking them, you're not telling them that their piece is a shit. Yeah. You wanna hear them. Yeah. You're coming at them with like I wanna hear your story. I wanna know why.

Speaker 2: 14:51

Yeah why couldn't you be there? Why were you angry? Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: 14:54

Why did you leave? Why? I mean, the questions go on and on, but we kinda shut ourselves down. When we go to what's wrong with you and go into blame, then we kinda block ourselves off from our own path of healing. Because there's something about kind of coming to compassion and being able to see it from a broader perspective, on why all of that took place, Whether it was abuse or the abandonment or whatever. Many times you trace that back and it's just a lesser degree of what happened to them. But our parents, our generation of parents, they didn't share that with their kids. No, they weren't gonna tell you about what happened to them. Like, actually there was so much shame going on and that wasn't a thing was to talk about what had happened to them as children and unless you had experienced it firsthand or they were open.

Speaker 1: 15:49

They were all running from it, yeah.

Speaker 2: 15:50

They're running from it and it also wasn't something that was, you would think, socially acceptable. So you just kinda grow up with a view of your parents that the mask that they provide you with of who they are, and then have to deal with whatever the repercussions look like being raised in that but never really getting an opportunity to say, hey, what happened to you? I wanna hear this. And how do we interrupt the patterns? How do we interrupt the toxic patterns that keep going? Is we start asking questions and we start kind of facing them head on and choosing to do something different?

Speaker 1: 16:25

Sounds a lot like judge versus learner. Judge versus learner yeah, the judge is like what the fuck's wrong with you?

Speaker 2: 16:31

And the learner is all what happened to you. That's exactly it. It goes right along with choice mapping. Change your questions, change your life. This is one of the big questions that can change your life. So, even if you're out in public, okay, we're talking about parents and being parents of adult children ourselves.

Speaker 2: 16:50

And then having to kind of re-parent ourselves and then look at our parents and go, geez, this could have been so much better. But then asking them but you think about just in daily life, even when you're just out at the grocery store or you're on the highway and somebody's just acting up or doing something, instead of saying what's wrong with you Is what happened to you. What happened to you, Karen? Why are you so angry? Why do you think everyone's against you?

Speaker 1: 17:17

Yeah, I heard somebody say like to diffuse a situation.

Speaker 2: 17:20

Nothing against Karen, so I'm just saying that.

Speaker 1: 17:22

But when somebody comes at you with like an accusation or like some kind of just fire coming at you, the only response, the only appropriate response, is are you okay?

Speaker 2: 17:34

Yeah, it throws them off.

Speaker 1: 17:36

Yeah, it will throw them off and I saw some examples of that on TikTok or whatever and I was like whoa, that blows my mind because it would totally throw me off.

Speaker 2: 17:44

Yeah, it would just stop you in your tracks like whoa I was on a roll here with being upset or angry or whatever.

Speaker 1: 17:50

And this person just asked me how I'm feeling.

Speaker 2: 17:53

Yeah, you're saying, are you okay, Cause this is something's going on. This can't, couldn't just be coming from nothing and you're also not making the assumption it's about you. It's probably about something that happened to them, or either that day or in life, whatever, but it does kind of stop it in its tracks.

Speaker 1: 18:12

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 18:13

And I think that is one of the ways that we interrupt the patterns in our families and in our lives is to say, hey, what happened to you, what's going on? Not making it about ourselves it's not personal, just like we've talked about before but how do we go a little bit deeper and maybe find healing for both of us in this? It just expands and opens the conversation, the relationship, all of it.

Speaker 1: 18:38

Yeah, I heard somebody say today the way you respond to conflict tells you the health of your heart. The way you respond to conflict tells you the health of your heart.

Speaker 2: 18:54

Yeah, that makes sense. What does that mean to you?

Speaker 1: 19:00

I mean because if you're responding with hatred and hurt and you're going for the judge, that tells me my heart is out of center. I'm going south.

Speaker 2: 19:09

It's a block. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 19:12

So, but if I'm coming from the other side of questioning, are you okay? Yeah. And even with a stranger that would work. Or the difficult conversations, like we said, with the tough ones. I think in almost every situation it would work.

Speaker 2: 19:29

I do too, and it's worth a try. And one of the I got this really beautiful piece of advice actually from my daughter was if you're going to go have a difficult conversation with someone, especially someone in your family right that you have memories with is to choose a memory that you really love about them. Let that be the first thing you say, and then watch how the energy of a conversation starts to flow.

Speaker 2: 20:06

You know, so if you're in a difficult spot and you're like, oh, I'm avoiding a conversation, or I know there's something to talk about, or there's just like there's a stagnation in the relationship, yeah, you haven't heard it for a moment in a while.

Speaker 2: 20:18

Yeah, there's just stagnation Is to call them up and just give an example of something you really enjoyed thinking about them. So if there is one thing you could take away from this podcast today is if there's stagnation or there's a difficult conversation to have is is call them up with a good memory that you remember about them and then just watch the conversation flow from there. Yeah. You know, just open up communication.

Speaker 1: 20:44

Yeah, and shift out of, you know survival, you know.

Speaker 2: 20:48

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 20:49

It also softens.

Speaker 2: 20:50

If you are, if you are going to go into a difficult conversation after that. It's kind of like, hey, let's soften this up. You know I'm here, I love you. I have this beautiful memory of you. Also, I need to ask you something you know, like especially if it's with your parents or a friend, is you know? I want to know about this, like what happened to you?

Speaker 2: 21:09

Tell me about your childhood, tell me about what kind of led to this, you know, action or this conversation that we had, and let them open up with that.

Speaker 1: 21:20

That's how I would hope my kids would approach me with anything. Yeah, Because that would give me some space. You know, because I'm so defensive. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 21:29

So I could see. You know, even hearing you say that, I can see I can visualize myself going wow, that would be so much easier to receive. Yeah, because I hold so much, you know, guilt or shame or whatever behind the ways that I could have done better as a dad, and I think a lot of people do that. But in knowing that you know, now that I know better, I'm doing better. Yeah, even still, there's always that kind of little bit of a thing where you're going man, one of these days we're going to have a tough conversation. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 21:58

And I can't wait to start.

Speaker 2: 22:00

is you start the conversation?

Speaker 1: 22:02

Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 2: 22:02

Yeah, you know I mean that's something I don't think our generation of parents was ever taught.

Speaker 1: 22:10

Well, that goes into the same thing. What did I wish my parents would have done for me? Yeah. Yeah, did I wish they waited for me to get smart enough and, you know, emotionally intelligent enough and build up my coping skills and all these things and get well into my life and then come up and talk to me? Or should I step forward? Yeah, because you know the battles that we don't fight. Say it all the time our kids are going to. Oh yeah.

Speaker 1: 22:39

Whatever battles we don't fight, your kids will have to. So if you want to be a hero to anybody, saving yourself saves them. Yeah. You know, do your work, do your work, yeah.

Speaker 2: 22:52

Yeah, it's not easy but it's worth it. The other thing, too that has come up, you know, recently, with some clients that are like, you know, our age or just a little bit younger, is like, especially parents who have immigrated over, right, and so they've come over. They're having to be apart from their own community, be apart from their families, come over here, find jobs or get education, raise their kids, and they want this like extreme, it's like achievement, like you must do this.

Speaker 1: 23:25

Yeah, the Operation American Dream, yes, yeah, we're all chasing.

Speaker 2: 23:27

Yeah, and so it's just really pushing this doing mentality and that your worth is in. You know you're validated by your accomplishments and all of that. It's really kind of forcing this mentality of having to live up to something that they're trying to achieve or and they did, you know they achieved in bringing you here and being able to provide for you. But at some point you know you may want to do something different. You may have a different idea for your life or what you want to do. And that goes against everything that they were, that they taught or what they sacrificed to bring you know, to get you here and to give you all of these things. And there wasn't a lot of room for nurturing and really kind of emotional intelligence and really being able to have these like a deeper relationship with your kids. It was about surviving and achieving and, you know, doing something.

Speaker 1: 24:21

So what's the way to break? Like? Let's just say you have, you know, an honorary father who's stuck in his ways and you want to build that bridge back and he's like like you're kind of saying it's hard to do that because they're yeah, like they've sacrificed so much for you and really all of that was to get you where you are, but there's things that you didn't get because of that, you know.

Speaker 2: 24:44

I think that this works, for that too is to see to just ask, like how was that for you? You know, coming over, you know a lot of Asian and Latin American families have dealt with this is to really like ask him how was that to leave your family to come to another country and to have to work really really hard, twice as hard? As anyone else yeah.

Speaker 2: 25:06

In order to give us a good life, like what was that like for you? Like that, I imagine asking my dad, that would be like what You're asking me about. This is something that was probably very hard, and to have your kid ask and have an understanding of you know what that must have been like and hear that that could open up a conversation about how difficult it is for you, you know, to now be in this situation and you understand how much there was a sacrifice and how you want they want the best for you, but that you actually, you know, are interested in pursuing this or doing that, or you have a different idea about something because you are, you know, your second generation here and there's a different way of you know thinking about things. So I don't know, I think it's just really being able to open up the conversation by asking about the other person's experience. So I think in that, it also applies. Yeah, I don't.

Speaker 2: 25:58

I can't think of a situation where it wouldn't. Yeah. Be helpful. You know, to approach a conversation in this way is yeah, what happened instead of what's wrong. Yeah. Kind of just softens everything.

Speaker 1: 26:13

Yeah, it's a whole new viewpoint into Dike For me, approaching hard, tough subjects and even the easy everyday stuff. So I think it's just a wonderful way to go, to just switch from being the judge or to the learner, you know.

Speaker 2: 26:32

Yeah, it changes the perspective. It encourages a more empathetic and understanding approach to dealing with trauma, to dealing with life experience and for opening conversation, and you may just learn something.

Speaker 1: 26:50

Well, I mean, I think everybody wants to feel heard and be seen. Oh yeah.

Speaker 1: 26:55

And if you're a leading question, I mean in your case, you said one of the things which I love is starting with like hey, I was thinking about you in this time, Remember that time, and with like wonderful memory, and then going, you know, filling out that situation and saying also, I just wonder, you know like, what was that like? Maybe even the example with the dad is like you know what was that like? Coming over you know, being in the military, being forced to be a cook. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 27:30

Not being able to advance because you were Filipino, yeah, being talked down to not being allowed to be a chief, you know all those things until way late into your career because of yeah, how was that? Racism. Yeah. And I've seen racism following him through base to base and I didn't even know what racism was until I traveled with them and I've seen how different people treated him in different parts of the world or the country you know. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 27:55

On military basis, they treated him different, you know. So, all those things realizing, man, what happened to you? How was that? For you? That seems like a way better, I think, opening, opening to understanding, maybe why? Because there's some definite questions like that I want to have answered. And it's like, and really, I think, if I'm pulling it way back, my real question is what made you this way?

Speaker 2: 28:22

Yeah, that's the question. And that's a question for all of us, you know, because one it makes us look in and figure out like, yeah, why is that?

Speaker 2: 28:35

And then it just gives more space for relationship to flower you know to like kind of evolve in a bigger way instead of shutting down, because whatever it is that you've got that you're holding onto a wrong that's been done in some way, or you didn't get what you needed or you maybe got too much.

Speaker 2: 28:57

You know attention on one thing or somebody's hovering all the time there could be, like what happened to you, that you feel like you need to do that. You know what happened to your sense of safety or how was it for you when you were being raised, what was your relationship like with your mother or your father? And just starting to ask those questions because very likely how you had it is incrementally better than the way that they did. And you know the big thing too, again is saying that we do not heal through blame. It's finding an understanding of some somewhere. It doesn't mean that you absolve everything that happened to you, but when you can gain an understanding and you can come to a place of compassion, it really opens up your ability to heal.

Speaker 1: 29:45

Yeah, but somebody's got to go first.

Speaker 2: 29:47

Somebody's got to go first.

Speaker 1: 29:48

And that's the thing, that's the hard part, you know, and that's what I look at when we're talking like what would I want my kids to do, or what would I, you know, or what do I want to do for my kids, and how did I want it? Different from my dad or my mom, and so applying that's like ah man.

Speaker 2: 30:07

Just kick steps, just kind of do it, just do things differently, you know, find something that works and a way to open up the conversation and to be the learner, not the judge. Yeah, it may not change everything, but it could All right.

Speaker 1: 30:28

That's been another episode of Let that Shift Go podcast. I'm Noelle.

Speaker 2: 30:33

And I'm Lena. Let us know what your questions are and we'd love to use them on a future episode. Or check us out on Insta at Let that Shift Go, or visit our website, serenitycovetomeculacom.