How to Write an Amends Letter With Parental Alienation Specialist Josh Coleman Part 2 - Episode 25
Jan 15, 2024
Lawrence Joss
Have you ever reached for pen and paper, hoping to mend bridges with heartfelt words, only to find yourself at a loss? Dr. Josh Coleman joins us to explore the cathartic journey of writing an Amends letter, a voyage that might begin with you, but has the power to heal entire family systems. In a conversation that's as raw as it is insightful, we tackle the nuances of apologies and the personal growth that emerges from truly acknowledging the impact of our actions on our children. The art of the Amends letter is not just about saying "I'm sorry," but about opening channels for deep, transformative connections.
Navigating the complexities of strained family relationships requires patience, acceptance, and oftentimes, a strategic touch. We unveil strategies that can help parents and children alike to initiate and nurture the path toward reconciliation. With Dr. Coleman's guidance, discover the delicate balance between too much information and just enough, the importance of framing conversations positively, and the maturity needed to let go of being right in favor of closeness. This episode doesn't just offer a beacon of hope; it provides practical steps for anyone ready to heal old wounds and forge stronger bonds with those they call family.
This podcast is made possible by the Family Disappeared Team: Anna Johnson- Editor/Contributor/Activist/Co-host Glaze Gonzales- Podcast Manager Kriztle Mesa - Social Media Manager Gen Rodelas-Kajabi Expert Kim Fernandez - Outreach Coordinator
Have you ever reached for pen and paper, hoping to mend bridges with heartfelt words, only to find yourself at a loss? Dr. Josh Coleman joins us to explore the cathartic journey of writing an Amends letter, a voyage that might begin with you, but has the power to heal entire family systems. In a conversation that's as raw as it is insightful, we tackle the nuances of apologies and the personal growth that emerges from truly acknowledging the impact of our actions on our children. The art of the Amends letter is not just about saying "I'm sorry," but about opening channels for deep, transformative connections.
Navigating the complexities of strained family relationships requires patience, acceptance, and oftentimes, a strategic touch. We unveil strategies that can help parents and children alike to initiate and nurture the path toward reconciliation. With Dr. Coleman's guidance, discover the delicate balance between too much information and just enough, the importance of framing conversations positively, and the maturity needed to let go of being right in favor of closeness. This episode doesn't just offer a beacon of hope; it provides practical steps for anyone ready to heal old wounds and forge stronger bonds with those they call family.
This podcast is made possible by the Family Disappeared Team: Anna Johnson- Editor/Contributor/Activist/Co-host Glaze Gonzales- Podcast Manager Kriztle Mesa - Social Media Manager Gen Rodelas-Kajabi Expert Kim Fernandez - Outreach Coordinator
There's no better experience for me as a therapist than seeing having parents write and send me pictures now with them and their grandchildren. So I think a lot, of, a lot of parents have reconciliation.
Speaker 2:
Hi, my name is Lawrence Jollison. Welcome to the Family Disappeared podcast. And today we have the second part of our taping with Dr Josh Coleman and we're talking about writing in the men's letter what it looks like, what to do, what not to do, and at the end of the episode there's some great what not to do's and also access to a webinar so you can actually go a little bit deeper on the what not to do. And remember, please share, like, help us propel this message forward. And we're a free service, we're a non-profit organization. We're trying to help as many families parents, grandparents, kids as possible, and this is a really big tent. That I say all the time. It doesn't matter what your nuance is, is where you are. Take what you like, leave the rest behind and come and join us on this journey. So let's jump right into it.
Speaker 2:
There was a time in my life when I was overwhelmed and underwater. Those days are the inspiration for this podcast. This is by far the ultimate healing journey for all of us. Healing ourselves emotionally, spiritually and physically is paramount to this journey. From this place of grounding, we can all go out into the world and change all our interactions and relationships. We can engage people from an integrated and resourced place. This is a journey of coming home to ourselves. In today's episode we'll start to explore some of these issues. Let's begin the healing journey today.
Speaker 2:
Welcome to the Family Disappeared podcast. So in writing the Amends letter for myself, you know I had a preconceived notion about what the relationship was like with my daughters and I had an idea of what was going on. And the idea that I had about what was going on was all through my lens. You know and I shared this in the last episode a little bit but going through the letter writing process was cathartic and it was slow. So if you're thinking this is going to happen really, really quickly, it might and you might be able to get through it quickly and be able to send something out.
Speaker 2:
But if you want to take a little bit of time after the Amends letter with the Amends letter and just kind of like dig into a little bit of extra stuff and it might not necessarily be to send to your kids, but just for me on an interpersonal level, as I started to dig into some of the situations or some of the things my daughters had said to me, I was able to start to unpack their perspective, like as a 12 year old girl telling me I hate you, you know what? What does that really mean? And in the Amends letter it means like, hey, I'm scared, I'm angry, I don't want my family to get split up. Why are you doing this, you know, and a plethora of other emotions that she's getting flooded with. But as a parent, I was hearing like you're bad, so like I'm going to defend myself and you know I'm going to be reactive and I created a lot of harm.
Speaker 2:
So for anyone that's like newer in this process, taking the time to spend some real time digging into this process of writing an Amends letter, I think will be incredibly healing, and also healing to your child, because you won't have to make the same mistake that some of us have made and there's a humanity in making mistakes, because we're all going to make mistakes and even if you try to do this perfectly, you're not going to do this perfectly. You're going to make mistakes, you're going to create harm, but you're also going to create opportunity for healing and for change. And again, from my perspective, this is all about an interpersonal journey. As I start to grow emotionally and spiritually, I start to heal from that place I have the best opportunity to connect with my kids and the best opportunity to write an Amends letter for them, and from that place there can be change and the change might not be something that I necessarily get to see. My kids might start to change because they see me changing and one day I might get to see that and physically experience it, and maybe it just starts to heal the family system.
Speaker 2:
And that's a whole different conversation and maybe I went down a little bit of a bunny hole. Anyway, this episode, the balance, is great. There's some really great content on there, and stick around to the end, because I really feel like the last couple of questions are really the meat and potatoes. So let's jump back into the conversation with Dr Josh Coleman. In your letter, writing experience and working with parents and grandparents, can you share a couple victories of people that have shared maybe a story with you that might be really nice for the community to hear.
Speaker 1:
Oh sure, I get letters every week that people who've had success. It was funny. I was walking yesterday at a reservoir near where I live and the woman said are you Dr Corman? She said I've seen you on the webinar. She said I had a successful reconciliation with my son and I was like that's fantastic. And so there's no better experience for me as a therapist than seeing having parents write and send me pictures now with them and their grandchildren. And so I think a lot of parents have reconciliation. So I don't want anybody to be discouraged, but I also don't want people to white-knuckle it. I think you have to have one foot in radical acceptance and one foot in hope, because a lot of these eventually do reconcile. It may take years, we don't know, but a lot of them do. But radical acceptance, so you're just not white-knuckling it through life and not getting on with the rest of your life.
Speaker 2:
I like the work, radical acceptance and it sounds really beautiful and spacious and incredibly challenging at the same time. And I wanted to touch on one thing that you said before. You said something to the degree that you don't want to share with your kids or your grandkids. Someone like the negative stuff or the pointing fingers at someone else. And I did an interview with a previously alienated adult now and he was talking about, yeah, like he wants a relationship with both of his parents, irrelevant of what anyone did, and with someone trying to give a negative discourse on one parent, it actually hurts the child and doesn't give the relationship an opportunity to breathe. So I think a lot of parents and grandparents are missing this. It's not about you getting hurt or being seen or anything, but you get. It's about you having a relationship and meeting them where they are Right.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, no, that's exactly so. And so many parents will say to me well, when do I get to give my perspective? What I often say is well, maybe never. You might never be able to give your perspective, particularly if you are a victim of parental alienation, because it's just not going to serve your relationship or your child. If you talk about all the terrible ways that their parent hurts you, et cetera. Or even if you weren't alienated and there were other things that caused it, your child just may not be able to tolerate that amount of pain or your perspective. So you kind of have to keep your eyes on the prize.
Speaker 1:
But one of the things I want to highlight is one of the points that parents get confused around is the way that our language has changed in the past three or four decades, because younger generations are very therapy intensive and so a lot of adult children are coming to their parents and saying well, you emotionally abused me, are you a narcissist, are you a borderline, et cetera. And for most of these parents they probably weren't any of those things, and a lot of them came from truly abusive homes. So when their kid says, will you emotionally abuse me? They feel like you want to know what emotional abuse is. I'll show you what emotional abuse is. Or I can tell you you should have grown up in my household, but that doesn't work either.
Speaker 1:
It's far better for parents to just say well, it's clear that I have blind spots and I wasn't aware that that felt emotionally abusive, but I'm glad you let me know. I hope you let me know in the future If I do that. Are there other memories that you have? Not to dispute the memories and not to prove them wrong, more to deepen your understanding and to demonstrate that you're open to hearing their perspective. Because today's relationships between younger adults and parents are predicated on the principle of this much more egalitarian mental health producing personal growth kind of quality. And so parents have to kind of get with that program if they want a relationship. They can't just insist on respect or duty or obligation because that ship has sailed.
Speaker 2:
You also said something interesting which I think is really important for parents to understand that when we do have these conversations, we do get to interact with the kids, young adults, adults, whatever they are that they can very easily get emotionally flooded by talking about some of the different activities that are going on or hearing any of our stuff. So they just like us on this journey. As we age and mature, they need time to cultivate new coping skills, new strategies, how to handle these feelings and stuff. So I think that's something really important for parents and grandparents to understand. Like, we can't give them this information because they can't disseminate it, they can't process that, they can't move it through their bodies. So, yeah, I think that was a really important part that you mentioned there, doc.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I think that's right. It's kind of like you're trying to build a house on a foundation that hasn't yet been built, so you have to wait until there's a level of maturity and psychological development that may never come. So, yeah, you can be right or you can be close, but you sometimes can't be both.
Speaker 2:
And also tapping on that, like you mentioned, you've been actively in this space for 17 years. Something like that and in your experience, like as we age and as we mature, you can be close to the same. Like we want to be happy and not necessarily right. So as we age, like this arc happens where we are able to let go of a lot of these things and they no longer become important, like at 40, something's important for my kids to know, at 50, it's different and at 60, it's different too. So do you see parents in this arc as they're writing a men's letter where it's just not as important, some of the stuff anymore, and they're able to let go of maturity and personal, emotional, spiritual growth?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, it depends on the parent and kind of where they're at by the time they reach me. Some are really ready to walk over hot coals to get to their kid and others are still too mired in the desire to defend themselves and feeling wronged and hurt and victimized by the child's rejection, particularly parents who were traumatized themselves in childhood and just don't have a lot of mental reserves. So those parents sometimes need a lot more care before they can write a men's letter. Because parents sometimes feel like in writing a men's letter they're saying they deserve the estrangement. And what I'm telling parents is you're not saying that you deserve to be a stranger, only saying that your child is a right to have their feelings and complaints heard by you and understood by you. You're not saying, therefore, you deserve to be estranged. That helps parents.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, no, no, that's a big deal. So you were saying that we're going to write the original men's letter. Six weeks later you send out a follow-up, a men's letter, and some people can do this by email, some people can do it by text, by mailing it in the mail. What do you suggest? And after the six weeks, is it like I'm going to put this down now forever. I'm going to pick this back up in a year On those two questions. What is your take on that?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I recommend you write the really good, detailed men's letter and this shouldn't be very long, it's like one to two paragraphs. You don't want to give enough rope to hang yourself with. You also don't want to trigger them with too much information. You want to hit the main points and get in and get out. So after that you wait six to eight weeks to get nothing back. Then I just recommend writing something back and just saying, just checking in with you to see if you've had a chance to read the letter. I'm sure there's things that I left out that would have been good to have included. I just wanted to see if it was possible to get a conversation started with you and hope that you'll let me know your thoughts or feelings. And again, just to remind you, I'll promise to listen purely from the perspective of learning and not to defend myself and you know or to do family therapy, if you're open to that.
Speaker 1:
Now, if you get nothing back, depending on sort of what you feel like the other side is like, if you get nothing back, you know, if it's been a kid who's been more hostile and rejecting and critical and negative, I probably wouldn't do anything for at least a year, and sometimes that work, including birthdays, holidays and sometimes that works for the following reasons what is the child? And they feel like you're respecting their boundaries. Secondly, they may respect you more for it, for not continuing to throw good energy after bad. Third, that old saying, how can I miss you if you never go away, is sometimes true in families. The child has an ability for there to be enough distance to meet you. Similarly, they're not being triggered by you reaching out to them, even if it's in a positive, loving way. So there's a bunch of different reasons why sometimes just a lot of space is the right thing to do. And then after a year you can reach out and say you know, just checking in with you.
Speaker 1:
I wanted to give you at least a year of no contact. It was clear that my reaching out wasn't helpful. I wanted to see if anything's changed, whether you'd be open to beginning a dialogue with me. That doesn't mean that we have to have everything figured out or reconciliation. Just want to see if you might be open to that. If you need more time, I hope you'll let me know. I'll respect that. Love mom, dad, etc.
Speaker 2:
And the idea about email or text or sending like snail mail, like sometimes we're just sending something out into the like this black abyss and we don't really have any understanding on knowledge. If it's ever open, ever received anything like that, what would you say about that?
Speaker 1:
Generally I'm a bigger fan of text and email because it's more informal and I think you kind of want to get in under the radar. You know an email opens up, you know the text is right there. A letter can be more easily thrown into the trash. Similarly, a letter your handwriting might be triggering to the adult child. So I prefer email or text. But if a parent actually doesn't know if they've been blocked, then I encourage an actual letter because a lot of parents have been blocked.
Speaker 2:
realistically, Sure, and you also brought up an interesting point which I didn't realize like two paragraphs is a good letter and there's a lot of different processes out there and different ideas on how to write a man's letter and I've seen stuff where it's like two pages and it's going through all different stuff and like owning particular actions and instances that have come up, which is definitely contextually a lot more, is definitely going to be more emotionally flooding for the children and you discourage that. You feel like that's not necessarily going to be in everyone's best interest. Is what I'm hearing.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I mean, occasionally I'll hear from an adult child well, here's the 10 things you need to address, and so I mean, if that's the case, then the parent probably does have to address them.
Speaker 1:
But most of the time it's not that and most of the time, you know, it's sort of testing the waters where a kid who really wants an immense letter and is open to reconciliation, you know, will be grateful that the parent has taken the effort and made the moves towards the adult child and taken responsibility, whereas somebody who doesn't really, isn't really ready to make amends but just kind of wants to torment the parent for their own reasons, isn't necessarily going to let the letter land where the parent thinks that it should. But I in general I think long letters are just the two triggering, the two overwhelming. It's too much information. You're better off getting in and getting out and see if you can get the conversation started. You can always say more afterwards, like if the adult child were to say, well, you didn't even talk about the time that you know you left me standing on the corner after my baseball game something, and you can say, oh, sorry, you know, yeah, I'm happy to address that or whatever else.
Speaker 2:
But yeah, so it's interesting. As you're talking about it, I feel my skin getting hard. I feel some anxiety coming up, some just a little bit of trepidation, because I definitely did a deep dive and and, as you're talking about it, I might have created some additional harm and I'm sorry. I'm gonna flip this question right. There's, there's a lot of people that that listen to the podcast and that are in the community that are estranged or alienated, or I've chosen not to talk to their parents or their grandparents or something. Can they take the same process and write in a men's letter in the opposite direction to their parents, to their grandparents? Do you have anything you'd like to share about that idea?
Speaker 1:
yeah, well, I mean, statistically, more of the time it's the adult child who cuts off the parent. But but to your point, yeah, I do work with adult children who've been cut off by the parent and you know, I think the main thing if they're writing the parent is to they can still complain about the things that they feel hurt about, but know that the parents probably going to be very defensive. So to do it in a way where they first talk about the things that the parent did write that they actually liked or valued, and just to sort of prepare the ground to talk about the things that were more problematic or what they would need to have be different if they were to be a relationship, and then also end with some kind of thing positive. You know we call it complaint sandwich. So just to make it clear that the goal isn't to shame or humiliate the parents it's very hard for any parent to hear the ways that they failed their child. So to start out positively, do the complaint in the middle and positively.
Speaker 2:
That gives the best chance for something positive to come from it yeah, I'd love the the hamburger analogy you got the two bonds and you stick the meat in the middle. Like that's really useful, like just to be able to visualize it in my head. And I just want to follow up with one more question. Like there's some people that are being alienated and they're going through this process of their own development and they're like, oh wow, I cut off my parent, I cut off this person, and from that place of just starting to realize like all the different pieces and what, what was happening for them in the family system, like that's more like the question like, oh wow, I didn't talk to my dad for 20 years and now I'm going to reach out to him. It's not about telling him what he did wrong, but it's kind of acknowledging like wow, I was in this kind of like emotional developmental haze. Do you get folks that that write letters from that kind of perspective?
Speaker 1:
yeah, sure, and you know I think the majority of parents are grateful to to have that reconciliation there. There are going to be more troubled parents who are going to, you know, be rejecting no matter what. So I think people have to be psychologically prepared for any of the outcomes. But I think the majority of parents would love to hear from their adult child that they're open to to resuming contact.
Speaker 2:
I think that would be a very happy day for most okay and we've got two questions, three questions left over here, and you had mentioned in the beginning of the the podcast like I could tell parents and grandparents 10 things not to do, could you? Tell us 3, 4, 5, if you can come up with 10 off the top of your head, I would love to hear 10 things not to do.
Speaker 1:
Well, sure, I mean, I have this webinar called the five most common mistakes of a strange parents, and we'll start there. One is insisting that it be fair rather than strategic. That's mistake one. Mistake two is using guilt, because it doesn't work, it'll work against you. Mistake three is returning fire. With fire, you could say something disrespectful to you. You return it with something equally disrespectful. That doesn't work.
Speaker 1:
The fourth is not realizing that estrangement is a marathon typically, not a sprint. The fifth is in your men's letters, being defensive, being, you know, to explanatory, not going far enough, you know, not doing a deep enough dive into things that your child might be complaining about. Number six is assuming that it's all about you. For most of us who have adult children, you know they have lives that are that they're very involved in and things can feel very personal to us. They have nothing to do with us. By the time you have children and adult children and grandchildren, you know they're really front and center of the parent's consciousness. But for the adult child, they're more preoccupied with their own marriages or divorce or parenting, or hobbies or careers or friendships, et cetera. So we're way down, way down the line. So I'd say those were probably my top six or seven.
Speaker 2:
I love that and, again, like, like getting our egos out of the way and realizing everyone has their own life and has their own priorities and we're not it today like they have their own immediate family. I love that and that you have these different webinars that are talking about these different topics, and because those mistakes that you listed create a lot of turmoil and create a lot of harm and they're basic if you're willing to listen to what they are and just work within their framework. Not to try and do these things like that would have saved me a lot of trouble.
Speaker 1:
The things we all do, I mean I, I, you know, I did every single one of them, so they're almost inevitable and unavoidable, but if you can catch these things early enough, you're you're better off.
Speaker 1:
So so, yes, thank you for mentioning the webinars. I also have a free newsletter for a strange parents that comes out about four times a week, just lots of practical advice, and have a free Q&A every other Monday at 11 30 Pacific for a strange parents. So there's a lot of free support on my, on my website, because this is something that I really want to help people with.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, we're going to put all those links in the chat so you're able to get hold of Dr Josh Coleman and participating in all these different free stuff, and there's some really, really phenomenal stuff out there. And there's one thing that we both just discussed is the humanity of being a parent and being a human being. Like I mess up all the time and I have a really wonderful intention, and usually with intentions, we never really follow it through to the impact zone and I think those suggestions you're making make people more aware of the impact zone. While look at your intention, see what possible harm it can form, and you're going to make mistakes and you're going to do stuff. That's not great and it's human and and it's okay and we can still go forward as Dr Coleman is reunited and has a full, sounds like a really rich and loving relationship with with his children.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, no, it's true. So I'm grateful for that and I think to your point, to really you know whether you're in the midst of the estrangement or you're on the other side of it to to work on your own self compassion and forgiveness. Because I think to your point yeah, you're going to make mistakes, you're going to screw up, there's going to be things you're going to regret that your kids are going to be mad or hurt about, but you still deserve self compassion and self forgiveness. So that's really critically important. Otherwise, you can live a life just of guilt and regret, and who wants to live like that?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, that sounds terrible and just I know that you just wrote a new book, rules of Estrangement. Do you want to share a couple minutes on on on what people can find in there and what might be useful or any highlights you'd like to tell us about?
Speaker 1:
Sure, I talk a lot about kind of why is this happening? So much now. In my first book on estrangement, I didn't talk at all about the problem with troubled son-in-law or daughter-in-law. I talk about that Also. Talk about estranged grandparents. How to manage conflicts around money whether you should cut your kid out of your will. I say you shouldn't, but a lot of parents want to how to heal the pain. So there's there's a lot of a lot of topics in there that I hadn't included in my first book that people are finding really helpful.
Speaker 2:
I love like you're addressing money. Money is such a huge thing and and and the new spouses and the new family dynamics as people move. That's incredibly, incredibly rich. And we're going to have all Dr Coleman's information in the chat. And is there any last thoughts you'd have that you'd like to share with the community or anything you'd like to say as we we wrap up the podcast?
Speaker 1:
No, I think I think we covered it. I appreciate you're inviting me on.
Speaker 2:
It's a good conversation. Thank you so much for taking the time to come out and and and chuckle a little bit and share some incredibly useful and challenging information, and I just want to reflect this back to you. Like your, your demeanor, your delivery is incredibly digestible and welcoming, and that's not always the case when we're dealing with professionals in this sphere. So I just want to say thank you. I would say thank you for that. It is very inviting. That will kind of you to say I appreciate that, Thank you.
Speaker 2:
Again, what a what a, what a great show and I really like how affable and easy it is to talk to Dr Josh Coleman. I haven't found that with all the professionals in the space that he made that, that that podcast really fun and useful and informative. For me personally and I've been on this journey for a long time and sometimes I think I know a lot. But when I talk to a professional that's really intentional and deliberate about what they're saying and you can see all the experience and wisdom that's coming along with that, it really settles my nervous system. So I really appreciate that about you, dr Josh. I just want to throw that out there again. And Dr Josh has his new book out. He has his webinars, he's has his newsletters. Everything will be in the show notes. You know, reach out to him. He sounds like a wonderful professional and a lot of his services are free and accessible, which is very different in this community. So please, please, take advantage of that and remember to join the Facebook group for the Family Hope project. You'll see some of the art that's coming out that hasn't got out onto the website and you'll also see some of the art before it gets onto the website once the art's launched and there's some really cool conversations that we can have if we get more density of people in there and the Family Disappeared podcast Facebook group, we're going to start posting original content. I'm going to start posting little videos every day about different thoughts or different things that we run into or different conversations I'm having with different people. So I think that's going to be really fun and add like a dimension to folks that want to participate a little bit more in community. And then PAA has its own Facebook group too. The website has a plethora of information and free resources and everything we do is free and all the literature and everything we have for all our meetings is open source. So you're more than welcome to start a meeting. We can help you with that. You can start your own meeting and remember to like, share, subscribe and I know I keep saying that and it was probably. It's a little irritating and I'm getting irritated from myself saying it over and over again and we need your help in spreading the message. And thanks for coming along for the show.
Speaker 2:
And, in case no one's told you yet today, I love you. Yes, and that sounds weird and you know what I mean. This is. This is a challenging journey and I love it when someone tells me that they love me and it's just from a place of openness and, yeah, maybe it's a little strange too. But either way, I love you. Have a beautiful day and we will see you around the neighborhood. Thanks for taking the time to join me on this episode of family disappeared podcast. Do you know someone who can benefit from what we're discussing on today's episode? If so, please share this podcast with them and anyone else in your community that might be interested in changing their lives. Together we'll continue the exploring, growing and healing journey. I will see you on our next episode. Until then, happy days to all.