Advertise on podcast: Finding You: with Dr. Brad Reedy

A Child's Greatest Burden Jung believed that the heaviest thing a child carries is the unlived life of the parent. He wasn't talking about the parent who chased a dream and fell short. He meant the life a parent avoided: the risks never taken, the fears never faced, the feelings never allowed. That unfinished business doesn't disappear. It gets handed down. In this episode, Dr. Brad Reedy explores how children absorb what we avoid, often more than what we say. Wherever a parent is stuck, the child tends to take that on as a roadmap. They either repeat it or spend a lifetime running from it. Drawing on Jung, Winnicott's false self, Alice Miller's The Drama of the Gifted Child, and Bowlby's work on how attachment passes between generations, Brad looks at what our children actually inherit: our shame, our anxiety, our blurred boundaries, and the parts of ourselves we've kept in the dark. The hardest part is also the most hopeful. When we make our children our project, we often dodge our real responsibility, which is to make our own lives the project. Brad walks through differentiation, the difference between enmeshment, cut-off, and healthy connection, and why the greatest gift we can give a child is a regulated nervous system and a clear sense of self. Take-home themes: learn what is yours and what isn't. Take responsibility for your own peace. Know the difference between loving a child and needing to be loved by one. Get busy with your life. Follow your bliss. It ends with you. Upcoming: AMA: Thursday, Sept 24, 6:00 PM MT Art of Living Retreat Center: Sept 27–Oct 2 (artoflivingretreatcenter.org) Ketamine Therapy Intensive: Oct 29–31, Salt Lake City Finding You Intensives: Oct 7–11, Oct 16–18 (online), Nov 11–15 (couples), Dec 2–6, Jan 6–10, Feb 10–14 (couples) Alumni Zoom: third Wednesday monthly OPLM support groups: Saturdays, oplm.com Inquiries: [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Why don't we do the things we know would bring us closer to the people we love? We're not short on instructions. Speak your truth. Tell your story. Be vulnerable. But a script for intimacy doesn't create intimacy - because the barrier was never knowing what to say. It's what happens in your body when you try. Last night's episode: Creating Intimacy. The shift from doing to being, why "just communicate better" doesn't move the needle, and what actually makes closeness possible - with your partner, your kids, your friends. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Link in bio. #FindingYouPodcast #DrBradReedy #Intimacy #Relationships #Attachment #CouplesTherapy #MentalHealth #Therapy #Podcast #SelfWork #ConsciousRelationships #EmotionalHealth Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr. Reedy talks about how in marriage we often project onto our partners things which are our responsibility. He explains that when we ask our partners to be responsible for our peace, we will use punishment to manipulate and control them. He explains that individual work must form the foundation of the work we do in couples. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr. Reedy, discusses mythology and the Odyssey. He explains that the story of Odysseus and his journey home is about the journey back to ourselves. He emphasizes the patience required to reverse this journey. He talks about the costs we pay along the way. And eventually, like Odysseus, the new version of ourselves may become unrecognizable and unacceptable to the people that expect us to be who we were. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr. Reedy discusses the impact on the development of the child when a warm, resonant part is present. He discusses the impact of affluence on a family's process around boundaries. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr. Reedy discusses the trend of people going no contact with their family members. He explains how to respond when someone shares that they want to go no contact. He explains why people do and don't set such a boundary with family. members. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr. Reedy takes questions from the Inner Circle audience. He talks about the difference between sharing your feelings and asking others to be responsible for your feelings. He talks about the challenge when children don't forgive parents. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr. Reedy talks about what is required for us to be able to listen to the people that we love. He explains that unless we do our healing and account for our energy and capacity, listening to somebody share their painful feelings about us may feel like self betrayal. He explains that listening is one of loves other names. And the act of doing our healing work, may be the greatest act of love we can show to the people that are important to us. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr. Reedy discusses the impact of parental anxiety, especially anxiety that is un-owned by the parent, on the child. He explains that the child will interpret this distress in the parent as "something is wrong we me, the child." He also describes how a parent's nervous system becomes the blueprint for the child's developing nervous system and sense e of Self. He describes the coping strategies employed by the child when parental anxiety prevents attunement, connection, and a secure attachment. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr. Reedy discuss the negative influence of guilt on our lives and our relationships. He minimizes the often cited distinction between guilt and shame and talks about how both are obstacles on our journey towards mental health and intimacy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr. Reedy reviews what he considers to be the most important book written on the subject of child development and mental health. Alice Miller writes in her book, “Experience has taught us that we have only one enduring weapon in our struggle against mental illness: the emotional discovery of the truth about the unique history of our childhood…we must try, in a long process, to discover our own personal touch, a truth that may cause pain before giving us a new sphere of freedom. If we choose instead to content ourselves with intellectual ‘wisdom,’ we will remain in the sphere of illusion and self-deception. The damage done to us during our childhood cannot be undone, since we cannot change anything in our past. We can, however, change ourselves. We can repair ourselves and gain our lost integrity by choosing to look more closely at the knowledge that is stored inside our bodies and bringing this knowledge closer to our awareness. This path, although certainly not easy, is the only route by which we can at last leave behind the cruel, invisible prison of our childhood. We become free by transforming ourselves from unaware victims of the past into responsible individuals in the present, who are aware of our past and are thus able to live with it. Most people do exactly the opposite. Without realizing that the past is constantly determining their present actions, they avoid learning anything about their history. They continue to live in their repressed childhood situation, ignoring the fact that it no longer exists. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr. Reedy explains the diagnosis of NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder) and the wound that creates it. He explains the connection between this wound, defenses, and gaslighting. He talks about how narcissism isn't too much love or indulgence, but rather objectifying the child. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr. Reedy takes question from the audience on taking care of yourself and setting boundaries with your family to do so. He also talks about how our defense, our need to be good, will often result in gaslighting type behaviors. He takes question on how our children are our teachers and how symptoms can inform us about ourselves and others. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr. Reedy discusses psychodynamic informed therapy and how many of what we hear today is 100 years old. We just weren't ready to hear it when Freud and Jung were alive. He talks about the core of their work (and what people call "trauma-informed") is based on the idea that symptoms are messengers that we need to listen to rather than get rid of. He explains that the therapeutic relationship is the medicine where the client can re-experience themselves is a safe context. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr. Reedy discusses faith in the context of depth psychology. He discusses spiritual bypassing, shame based religions, and how faith is not a search for certainty but a way of holding paradox and the mystery of what it means to be a finite person in an infinite universe. He explains how some versions of faith and religion serve as a defense against the uncertainty of life - how god can get in the way of finding God. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.