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You're listening to the Stress Nanny Podcast and I'm your host, lindsay Miller.
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I'm here to help you keep an eye on your family's stress levels.
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In our fast-paced lives, the ability to manage stress has never been more important for kids or adults.
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When it comes to stress, we have two choices we can decrease stress or increase our resilience to it.
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Here on the number eight ranked stress podcast, I interview experts and share insights to help you do both.
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When you tune in each week, you'll bring your stress levels down and your resilience up, so that stress doesn't get in the way of you living your best life.
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I'm so glad you're here.
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Welcome to the Stress Nanny Podcast.
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I'm so excited that you're here for my conversation with TJ Woodward today.
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He is a revolutionary recovery expert, bestselling author, inspirational speaker, educator and addiction treatment specialist who has helped countless people through his simple yet powerful teachings.
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The creator of the Conscious Recovery Method, a groundbreaking and effective approach to viewing and treating addiction.
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Tj is also the author of three bestselling books and their respective workbooks Conscious Recovery, conscious being and Conscious Creation.
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Tj, thank you so much for joining me.
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Oh, thank you, Lindsay.
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I'm excited to be here and be in this conversation with you.
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I am so excited I first learned about your work through this lens of toxic relationships and how to kind of initiate a shift.
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Not an external shift when it comes to how, to, you know, decrease the number of toxic relationships we're experiencing, but an internal shift.
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Talk to us a little bit about the difference between addressing toxicity from the outside versus from the inside.
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Yeah.
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So let's start with what we're hearing in our culture Any social media feed you hear.
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Let's remove toxic relationships from our life.
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Let's look at how we remove toxic work environments and they're almost always not always, but almost always looking at the external.
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This person is toxic, my boss is toxic, and although that might be true on some level, we're looking at something deeper here that can actually provide someone with a real shift, Because what happens if we're only looking at the other person is, you know, we might leave the relationship and then we might find ourselves in a similar relationship down the road.
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So we're going to look at accountability, not blame, and I think that's an important component to this not blaming ourselves, but being accountable for the choices that we're making.
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And it really comes down to worthiness, and I know we're going to dive in more to like core false beliefs and how that creates what we call reality.
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So the short that was a long way of saying the short answer is we must heal the toxicity within first before we start working on our relationships.
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Yes, I love the way you phrased that and I think, again, as we start with this conversation, there can be a tendency to feel a sense of shame around it.
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There can be a tendency to feel a sense of like just being really hard on ourselves for, like, this is me, I'm actually the one initiating these, or I'm actually the one that is keeping this pattern going.
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So I just want to say and I know you say this too as we get started be patient with yourself.
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Like we're going to take the accountability and also we're going to do it gently, you know, but in a way that really does make it clear like this is something you have control over.
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And I like to remind people that when we are accountable, we're super empowered, right, because that means like there's nothing we can't change.
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That's right and that's exactly the word that I was going to bring into the conversation.
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This is really about empowering ourselves, and I know in many people that I work with and certainly in my own journey, I did go from blaming others to blaming myself and that shame that I was experiencing actually felt like it was keeping me even more stuck.
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So I think it's important that we bring that into the conversation.
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We're not talking about going into self-criticism or blame or shame.
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We can be aware if we're doing that, we can stop and pause, be gentle with ourselves and really look at the difference between accountability and blame, because really, what we want to do is offer a way for people to be more empowered to heal the underlying core false beliefs and the sense of unworthiness, that self-criticism that's actually causing us to choose these relationships that are unfulfilling.
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So we're really talking about empowering someone, not blaming someone for the situation.
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Yeah, that's so well put, and one of the things I really appreciate about your work is, like, with your direct experience, you have the ability to bring that sense of compassion into your words, your phrasing, but also to do it in a way that really does enable us to access that sense of compassion into your words, your phrasing, but also to do it in a way that really does enable us to access that power that we do have to make the change.
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That's right.
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We do have infinite amounts of power and it just depends on how we're using that.
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I remember at one point I was in like the fifth relationship and the person seemed to be the same as the last four and I was so frustrated and I said why do I keep choosing these people?
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And I heard myself say it.
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And then I heard a speaker say once if you created these kind of relationships and you keep choosing them over and over again, you can actually change that and realize that you're really powerful and that you keep creating that same unsatisfying relationship over and over again.
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And I thought, well, I honestly I thought, how dare you say that?
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Right, but then, after sitting with it, I thought, wow, if I can create that, I can uncreate it and create something new.
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I love that.
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Yes, well, and again, in addition to that sense of shame, I'm glad you brought out that tendency that the ego has right to say whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
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Not me, like that, you're talking about somebody else, like that's not my story.
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But then when we sit with it a lot of times we realize actually it is.
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I mean, I've had that in my own life too where I'm like what is this?
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Why does this pattern keep emerging over and over again in these relationships?
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And having to sit with it and be like the only common denominator here is yours truly Like.
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So that means you know that I'm a key part of it.
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And so, again, with the sense of compassion and also with that sense of accountability, like you're saying, we bring this gentle awareness to these relational patterns with the realization that, oh my gosh, if I'm the common denominator, that means I can become the common denominator in a whole new world of relationships.
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And that's the exciting part we're going to get to today, right.
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Absolutely, and what I love about this is this actually does empower each of us to realize that we are really powerful creators and we can create the life of our desires.
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The issue with the way most of us work with it is we try to change it.
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Only in our mind, right Like we hear things like change the narrative, change your thinking.
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And I remember thinking, well, I know that's true, but how?
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How do I actually change that?
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And so the deeper work is really, for me, it's looking at what those core false beliefs are that are driving that, and not trying to talk ourselves out of it, not being brutal with ourselves.
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Oh, I shouldn't think that way.
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I remember for a long time I was involved with this community that would say don't say that, cancel, cancel.
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It was very much about you're going to manifest that or create it.
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The gentler approach is looking at when did I first start believing this?
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And usually it's at a very young and very tender age, and really that's where the healing needs to happen.
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For me, five, six, seven, eight years old, I was making these massive decisions about myself and the world, and as an adult, I tried to talk myself out of it instead of having compassion and starting to care for myself as I would for a five or six year old.
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That's a really different way of working with it.
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Yeah, it completely is, and I appreciate you sharing that because I think sometimes we forget that developmentally we may be at a very different age than we are physically, may be developmentally so far from where we think we are that we're.
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Yeah, like you're saying, we're trying to use these strategies that may work great for a 42 year old like myself, right, but actually I'm working with the four year old Lindsay, you know, in that way like she's going to need a different kind of care and she's not going to just be able to think her way out of whatever those needs were that she, you know, understood in that way and so caring for myself deeply and compassionately and intentionally in the ways that help that, you know, belief, kind of let go and release, those are the powerful actions, right?
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A hundred percent, and you said a couple of things that I really want to like lean into.
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One is the developmental stages right, Our little brains aren't even developed and we're making these massive decisions.
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I decided I was stupid when I was five years old and that literally got concretized deep, deep, deep in my subconscious and I tried to like talk myself out of it.
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Look I'm not stupid, Look at all these ways I can achieve.
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But I kept cycling back to it, and the way we care for the younger self is honestly a very different way than most of us got parented.
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I know we're evolving.
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You know I'm older than you are and back in my day it was like you know, if you're going to cry, I'll give you something to cry about.
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Go to your room till you can stop crying.
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You know there wasn't a lot of attention on allowing a child to feel, and that really is what's required, right?
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If someone could have been there for me and said what are you feeling right now, what are you experiencing, and allow myself to actually feel it, I might not have come to that big decision that I'm stupid.
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So that's really the deeper work we get to reparent ourselves in the way that many of us, if not most of us, didn't get when we were actually younger.
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Yeah, yeah, and I appreciate the way that you phrase that because I also think you know, as a society, like you said, we're evolving and like the levels of development that we have access to now, I think are pretty different than what the majority of people had access to, you know, when I was growing up.
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And so if we think of it like Maslow's hierarchy of needs and how there's like the little you know kind of steps to what you can pay attention to, what you have capacity for, and I think there's just so much more that we have capacity for and so many like higher levels of development that we are able to access as a society at this point that it is a function of looking back and saying this wasn't a developmental level that had been accessed by my parents or by the society or culture or whatever groups I was raised in.
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That wasn't something that had been accessed and so it wasn't available to me.
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But now that it is, I offer it to myself.
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That's right and you know I was as you were talking.
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I was thinking about how much blame I had for my mother and my father for so many years and then how much compassion I have for them now.
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It doesn't mean that the events were painful.
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It means you know to say it's a little cliche to say they were doing the best they can.
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But one story that came through when you were talking is I actually remember being in my crib and holding on to the little bars on the crib and screaming and crying because my mom wasn't there and she was actually next door at the family, the family next door, late at night having cocktails with the next door neighbors.
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And this is back when phones had cords and there were no answering machines.
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They would call each other and put the phone down and then they could hear the kids and the other right hear me crying.
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But I remember literally sheer terror.
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So it's not that my mom was a bad mother, it was the cultural norm.
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I mean people would drink when they were pregnant, they would smoke when they were pregnant.
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I mean we've evolved a lot.
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So it's not about blaming my mom, but it is about realizing how terrifying that was and it's so interesting that I have such a visceral memory and I must have been a year old, I'm guessing, if I'm standing in my crib.
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So this got you know was a very, very deep wound, and blaming her isn't going to help.
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Reparenting and holding myself in a very tender way is what's actually going to start to empower myself, and that's really what the work is for all of us.
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Yeah, yeah, that breaks my heart and also, you know, I can relate in different ways.
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Like we all have those experiences that we look back on and we think to ourselves like, okay, I this, this moment like didn't fit my need in the way that I wish it had, you know.
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But, like you're saying, now that I'm an adult, I can meet that need for myself in this way and kind of work through some of that.
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So talk to us, you know, framing that story, or another story, if you'd like, about this idea of like what those kind of experiences, how they translate into these false beliefs that we, you know, like you mentioned so beautifully earlier, get really embedded because we're forming our worldview.
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Right, I mean, that's the age when we're taking in information about the world, understanding our place in it, and really like forming a view of what is safe, what is okay, what you know, where we, where we sit, and so those experiences well, it can be stressful as a parent to think, oh my gosh, everything is so formative, like it really is.
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Yeah it is, and for any parents watching or listening right now I forgive me, you know is the number one phrase right, because a child really needs love and attention and connection and they need to connect to at least one caregiver who is safe.
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Right, and that attachment is what we're really looking for.
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And I'm going to go out on a limb and say I don't think anyone can do that perfectly 100% of the time.
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And that's just life, right, that's just being born on planet Earth.
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So we come in, we might get love and attention in the way that we need.
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Maybe our parents get divorced and one parent leaves and we feel abandoned.
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I mean, there's these situations that happen that cause these attachment wounds is what they really are.
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And then we develop a strategy or attachment style to manage it.
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And so, for me, that experience of being terrified that I would be abandoned and left alone showed up for me as a young adult in particular, as please love me, please love me, please love me.
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And I was doing everything I could to get anyone to love me, including not looking at red flags, including all these different things.
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But the deeper reality was simultaneous to the please love me, please love me.
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I was also choosing people that confirmed the core false belief of I'm not lovable and that's a very painful way to live.
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And so we can learn communication skills, we can learn how to choose partners who are more available, but the truth is I didn't think I deserved that Love could be standing right in front of me and I would turn the other way.
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Yeah, yeah, I mean and you say it so boldly and bravely now, and also, I'm sure, when that recollection, that, when that realization came to you, that it was a humbling, you know, as it is for all of us a humbling moment when we say, oh, like I can see that I'm not actually fostering a belief that I deserve someone who loves me deeply and authentically.
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Yeah, and it can come with a great deal of freedom and it can come with a great deal of pain.
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Right, and they can coexist.
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That's my experience in my own journey and so many people I know and work with.
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It's this kind of bizarre combination of oh my gosh.
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Finally, I understand that all my behavior was stemming from this, and we hear the term coping mechanism.
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I actually use the term brilliant strategy.
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Brilliant strategies could be addiction.
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It could be finding ourselves in unfulfilling jobs.
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There are a lot of strategies to try to manage.
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One example of this is if someone believes they're unworthy, their strategy might be to become a high achiever.
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So everything may look great on the outside.
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This isn't a person who anyone thinks is struggling at all because she's just a powerhouse right, but underneath it there's never enough, because the healing of the I'm not worthy is what really needs to take place, because we can't just achieve our way.
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You know achieve, achieve, achieve to unlearn that we have to do this deeper work.
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in my experience, you know, achieve, achieve, achieve to unlearn that we have to do this deeper work.
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In my experience, yeah, yeah, 100%, I agree.
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Talk us through what that looks like.
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So someone's listening now and they're starting to kind of connect with maybe a false belief.
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Or maybe, you know, they're listening and they're like, oh, we're talking about patterns.
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I, you know, like I do see a few patterns and, like I have said, why does this keep happening to me in this area of my life?
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Or why do I?
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Why can't I ever seem to get out of this?
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You know, loop?
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What are some of the ways you invite?
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I know you have your books and your workbooks, which are so powerful for this right.
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What are some of the ways you invite people into that awareness, like one step at a time?
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So if they're like I have this pattern and they're trying to figure it out, what's the first thing they ask themselves?
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Well, the first thing I would invite which we already said, but I think it merits saying again is to be gentle and kind with ourselves and to look at it through the lens of curiosity, because curiosity opens us up, curiosity expands our awareness, whereas judgment restricts right, and so a lot of us go into self-judgment.
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I shouldn't be doing this, I can't.
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But how many times have I heard someone say I'm 40 years old and I thought I was finished with this.
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I'm 36 years old, I thought I was done Right, and that's just the mind thinking there's a finish line and one day I'm going to be healed from all this.
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So that compassion as a starting point, is really important.
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One thing I want to interject into the conversation, which is foundational to my work, is to realize that we came into the world as whole, imperfect beings.
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We look at a really small child and we see this innate preciousness in them, and so a lot of us believe we're broken or damaged.
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And so, as a starting point, to say I like what, if, what?
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If there's a place within you that's still unharmed and unharmable, what would it be like to make contact with that more?
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And then, from there, what needs to be addressed and unlearned right, because it is true that most of us, or many of us, the change comes from the patterning the change comes from I'm in this relationship again, or this relationship with money, or this relationship with sex or love or shopping, whatever it is.
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Now we can start to unplug from that and really start looking at what's actually underneath that, because when our buttons get pushed, they're getting pushed because it's time for a deeper healing.
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So beautifully put, and I love that idea of thinking of it as like a coming home Instead of a finding, like coming home to that part of you that knows wholeness, instead of like frantically searching for it.
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You know, just instead, just like sinking into it.
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Yeah, and that's you know our culture is built upon.
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Once I get this, I'll be happy.
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Right, I'll get the next degree, I'll be happy, I'll find the perfect partner, I'll be happy, I'll get the perfect home and I'll be happy.
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But we're really talking about something really different, and that is happiness is actually intrinsic.
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It's something that already exists within us.
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A young child, a pre-programmed human, is naturally present.
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They naturally feel their feelings.
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Their natural state is joy, and when they have an upset of some sort, they feel it, they let us know it, and then they go back to their natural state, which is joy.
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For many of us, though, we get taught it's not okay to feel that way, it's not okay to do that.
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Sometimes that's a direct message, sometimes it's modeling, but ultimately it's about being really gentle with ourselves, allowing ourselves to feel, because everything people look for in therapy or recovery or a spiritual practice actually is being more like an 18 month old or being more like a 12 month old.
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Right, that's innate to who and what we are.
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Yeah, I love that, the way you put that.
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I often say to parents, because I coach kids in mindfulness and I say we actually just need to get out of the way.
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I mean that's like the role that we have is to just not mess it up for them, you know, to continue to let those skills evolve and let that awareness continue to evolve in a way that like blossoms and helps them flourish instead of shutting it down.
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Because when we see them like disconnected from themselves in that way, we do see them super stressed out.
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We do see them, like you know, frantically looking for connection or worthiness in other spaces.
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And I think, like you're saying, those patterns they start young, and so I'm a firm believer that if we can kind of shift the trajectory when kids are little and prevent some of these events from happening we're not going to catch all of them right, but if we can shift that perception of self and if we can kind of get to the root of some of those false beliefs earlier than later, then we build our life from that space of wholeness more than we build it from the space of where we feel like we're broken.
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That's right, and the observer has a profound effect.
00:21:54.699 --> 00:22:02.971
I mean, quantum mechanics is now showing us that the way we view a situation actually affects the outcome, you know in a scientific experiment.
00:22:05.454 --> 00:22:06.640
Affects the outcome, you know in a scientific experiment.
00:22:06.640 --> 00:22:27.327
So if I'm looking at my child through the lens of brokenness versus looking at them through the lens of wholeness and preciousness, I mean the number one thing I can do for my child or for my friend or anyone in my life, is to behold the power in them that's greater than these core false beliefs and to see for them that which maybe they can't see for themselves, and that alone is I think that's what you're saying right.
00:22:27.327 --> 00:22:29.564
It's like let's not teach them.
00:22:29.564 --> 00:22:52.906
You know, you need to figure out how to fix that, because nothing's really inherently broken and, as you said, you know we, of course we teach our kids not to run out into traffic, but life happens right, and so there are things that we need to teach our kids that are important for their own safety, but much of what we unconsciously teach our children is about fear, scarcity, protect yourself and all of that.
00:22:52.906 --> 00:22:58.632
They start to unlearn or disconnect from that presence, that preciousness that they are.
00:23:04.095 --> 00:23:08.355
So really it is about allowing them to have their own journey and seeing the wholeness within them.
00:23:08.355 --> 00:23:12.941
I love that there were so many phrases in there that I was like just wanting to sit in for a second and soak up.
00:23:12.941 --> 00:23:19.159
But yes to the gift being to see them like with their wholeness and with their potential and I.
00:23:19.159 --> 00:23:28.325
One of the things that I hear back from parents of the families that I work with is like I'm grateful for your perspective on my child, because that's my tendency.
00:23:28.325 --> 00:23:37.682
Right Is to see them as these beautiful little humans wandering around this world, you know, and who are sorting things out, and there's so much about them.
00:23:37.682 --> 00:23:39.990
That's amazing and I think you're right.
00:23:39.990 --> 00:23:52.025
As you know, as parents we have so many messages coming at us about what we should be afraid of for our kid, or what we need to worry about, or how we need to prevent or fix or whatever.
00:23:52.025 --> 00:23:59.211
That really is such a gift to be able to see them whole and just to see them as developing.
00:23:59.211 --> 00:24:01.136
So I love the way you phrased.
00:24:01.136 --> 00:24:02.138
That was just beautiful.
00:24:02.519 --> 00:24:03.019
Thank you.
00:24:03.019 --> 00:24:23.454
And it's also, I think, important to add to that that we are often unconscious of the generational trauma that we're passing along to our kids and that sounds really big and like we're being monsters or something, but really it's like I remember when my nephew was young I would say things like oh my gosh, that sounds like my mother and my grandmother.
00:24:23.454 --> 00:24:25.779
That's the exact thing that I hated as a kid.
00:24:25.779 --> 00:24:27.284
So what did I do?
00:24:27.284 --> 00:24:51.571
I went and apologized right, like I'm so sorry to my three-year-old nephew, and I would ask him I remember one incident I'm not going to get into the details, but like there was something that was very traumatic for him and I just sat with him and let him cry and then asked him how he was doing and we kind of talked through it and he was only four, I think, but he had the ability to actually name how scared he was.
00:24:51.652 --> 00:24:59.924
Right, he might have had a limited vocabulary, but there was something about just being present and allowing him to talk it through without trying to fix it.
00:24:59.924 --> 00:25:02.160
That was so powerful and I remember.
00:25:02.160 --> 00:25:25.847
You know we call them meltdowns, but the truth is they're having this intense emotional experience that something happening, and I remember I would get down on his level and just be present with him and he would then start to like ah, it's not really about regulating the emotions, it's about allowing them to have them and to actually process them.
00:25:25.847 --> 00:25:34.624
And there was something that was so beautiful about that and I was like wow, I don't actually have to do anything, I can just be something or someone for them.
00:25:35.665 --> 00:25:36.346
I love that.
00:25:36.428 --> 00:25:37.675
Thank you for sharing that.
00:25:38.416 --> 00:26:29.702
I wholeheartedly agree and feel like the tether that you just made was really astute in terms of thinking of it, in terms of generational trauma and our ability to be present right, because if I have in that moment, like I love my grandparents dearly and my parents dearly, and also they were coming at life from a certain viewpoint with the experiences that were theirs, and so some of the things that they learned, or priorities that they had, things that were extremely important, they translate differently in this moment, right, and so my ability to filter that and acknowledge and recognize that those were their responses and their patterns is what allows me to show up and be present in this moment with my child, with what she needs.
00:26:30.403 --> 00:26:32.188
But it is a ton of filtering.
00:26:32.188 --> 00:26:57.064
It's like you're saying, the things that have come to us, most often well-meaning, but from a lived experience that is not our own, and then having those be like kind of the tools or resources we have at our disposal, we tend to kind of start throwing those out real quick instead of, like you said, giving the gift of presence, which is really the thing that is needful.
00:26:58.326 --> 00:27:04.101
That's right and you know, as you were speaking, I was thinking about my grandparents and you know they grew up in the depression.
00:27:04.935 --> 00:27:11.819
Right, so they had a lot of ideas that there was never enough, and that was passed down to my mother for sure.
00:27:11.819 --> 00:27:16.057
And so the message that I received over and over and over again was there's not enough.
00:27:16.057 --> 00:27:20.267
And my strategy was, for that was like I'll show you, there's always going to be enough.
00:27:20.267 --> 00:27:21.959
And so I was an overspender.
00:27:21.959 --> 00:27:26.208
I was like trying to look good, I was like I'm going to get whatever I want, you know.
00:27:26.208 --> 00:27:36.380
So, as a young adult, I was like, oh my gosh, like, oh, credit cards, I mean, I started doing all these things and I had so much self-criticism and then I realized, well, like I understand where it comes from.
00:27:36.380 --> 00:27:38.403
It's not my mom's fault, though.
00:27:38.403 --> 00:27:40.105
It's mine to do the healing.
00:27:40.527 --> 00:27:54.883
And you know, the other thing, to be maybe a little more vulnerable, I remember I loved my grandfather, of course, and and he was overtly racist, like he would say things that were shocking to me, right, and so when I was young, I would say, well, I reject that.
00:27:54.883 --> 00:27:55.664
That's horrible.
00:27:55.664 --> 00:27:55.944
He's.
00:27:55.944 --> 00:27:59.303
That was terrible that he did that, and of course, there's truth to that.
00:27:59.303 --> 00:28:03.858
But I also at some point realized the complexity of I loved that man.
00:28:04.701 --> 00:28:06.165
So what did I do with that?
00:28:06.165 --> 00:28:10.665
Right, I absorbed some of it as much work as I did to not absorb it.
00:28:10.665 --> 00:28:31.257
I think I have to acknowledge that I grew up swimming in that consciousness, so I have had to do some of the deeper work of what are my unconscious biases around race and what wants and needs to be healed, because pretending like I don't have it is not going to help the situation and it's certainly not going to help me right, because then I would project it outward.
00:28:31.257 --> 00:28:32.760
How dare those people do that?
00:28:32.760 --> 00:28:33.923
But it's like wait a minute.
00:28:33.923 --> 00:28:39.182
I absorbed that from a person I loved and there are layers of complexity with that.
00:28:39.963 --> 00:28:43.877
Yeah, yeah, thank you for sharing that example.
00:28:44.138 --> 00:28:50.125
I think you touched on something also that I would love to dive into in terms of awareness.
00:28:50.204 --> 00:29:04.701
I mean, like your, your books around, you know, being conscious of these things, right, like bringing these things into our consciousness so that we're not at the mercy of them anymore, but we can use that awareness to kind of move forward in a way that feels more resonant and intentional.
00:29:04.701 --> 00:29:22.758
I've often heard people say, when they start, you know, becoming aware of their kind of what's swimming in their subconscious, sometimes they feel a little bit like they're drowning in it, like it starts to feel kind of big and it starts to feel like the depth is way more than maybe they anticipated.
00:29:22.758 --> 00:29:35.483
You know, and I think in my own experience, the more I develop awareness, the more I'm, you know, aware of, and it's not always something that's easy to sit with and it's not always something that's really comfortable.
00:29:35.483 --> 00:29:36.915
So what do you?
00:29:36.915 --> 00:29:38.240
What do you tell people?
00:29:38.240 --> 00:29:53.396
You know, maybe there's somebody listening who's you kind of in this process, and they've been trying to become more aware and they're also like oh my gosh, it's a lot, yes.
00:29:53.416 --> 00:29:55.605
Well, that's why I start with the foundation of we're whole and perfect.
00:29:55.605 --> 00:29:57.089
There's a place within us that is still whole and perfect.
00:29:57.089 --> 00:30:09.287
Making contact with that and developing or cultivating a relationship with what I call the essential self Some might call God essence, some might call their spiritual self there's all these different rooms, buddhists would call it our Buddha nature.
00:30:09.287 --> 00:30:15.146
That, as a starting point, I think, allows us to swim in the deep end with much more ease.
