How to Break Family Cycles: Dr. Mariel Buque ~ Some podcasts are So Profound they Deserve their own blog.

First....I am so thankful to have the Spotify account you put me on. Thank you!!!  The Podcast with Glennon, Abbie and Amanda - We Can Do Hard things has continued to literally change my life and helped to continue on the healing road. Sometimes they hit me so hard and episode 346 - How to Break Family Cycles: Dr. Mariel Buque   The episode they discuss it was equally profound - Episode 347 - The Cycles We're Breaking  If ever you have emotional resilience to tackle healing our relationship, this is where I would want to start. Its is so profound. I have listend to it about 3x and am now choosing to listen again and share my thoughts and the things that hit me.  I have already bought the audio book by Dr. Buque How To Break Family Cylces and cannot wait to listen. 

It's interesting but as we let go a little more and take steps to facilitate you not being in our life, we also continue to grow as people. I wish you a happy life and also hope that someday you have the tools to be able to have hard conversations.

My thoughts on 346 - How to Break Family Cycles: Dr. Mariel Buque  

This topic of inter-generational trauma is not new to me. I had already begun to ask myself, what happened to my mother? What caused her to be the way she was. I wish I would have been able to tap into the grace I have found for her before she died. I now understand more than ever this is carrying from generation to generation, in our DNA. Later, the study that Amanda talks about with the mice is insane. We are predisposed to how we handle stress and trauma before we are even born. I realize my mother never worked through her trauma before becoming a parent. I also realize neither Dad nor I worked through our trauma --both of us with high ACES score. We didn't have the ability to regulate our emotions and we passed that down to our children. Intergenterational trauma. 

16:36 Part of my process with therapy has been being able to give words to what I was feeling. Through continued couseling I have begun to be able to label and understand what was happening. When Dr. Buque started talking about the symptoms, I was struck that all the words she used to describe were words Gina had used in counseling. Some of words Buque used was hyper vigilant, no sense of peace to fall asleep, drastic apetitite swings....how I used to get so upset I couldn't eat. Disassocation was a big one I have been working on for years...I rarely do that anymore and I don't miss it at all! It was assounding to hear all the words I learned about myself used....co-dependent/people pleaser, lack of trust in myself, big shame. And then to learn that all came from the past generations of trauma and seeing those things in my mother. The statement she made, "...it helps people to actually feel less that they are broken and more like there is an explanation of why their pain has been so long standing....". It has helped me to understand that I am not broken but that there is a trauma that has been past down to me....the same way I past it down to you. But we are so lucky now, we have tools to use to break these traumas if we choose to pick up the tools that past generations didn't have. 

26:30 So love this part...i know different and have learned different.... and I did different and am doing different even when its hard and awkward. I don't always have the right words but I am finding them more and more. I am thinking different more and more. It's like Abbie said...its so easy to stay in the old patterns because they are comfortable.....it feels worse before it gets better. 

31:00 Man this part is awesome.....but it also explains my fear of going into counseling with you when we first talked about it. I have worked really hard to have the tools to regulate my nervous system. But I have no idea what you have done, if anything. My counseling is on going with a therapist who concentrates on tackling what you are scared of, not avoiding it. So many of these podcasts have given me the tools to regulate what was a totally fucked up nervous system. I have learned how to absorb the stressors of life...my default is no longer stress and fight or flight. Buque says, "If you go into a conversation with a parent who is perpectually triggering you and you go into that conversation with your entire body, literally every cell in your body feeling like it needs to protect you....whats going to come out of your mouth is going to be something thats going to be reflective of that need to protect yourself. If you have actually helped your body to absorb stress and triggers in a differnt way, meaning that you have understood the ways you can down regulate your emotions even in the moment. You may be at that family dinner...someone says something but you already have the tool to learn to down regulate, then what you say is going to come from a place where your nervous system is calm and and at ease and you are not in survival mode. So thats why its really important to first go into the body to first train the person to understand how to regulate themselves and then go into the very very hard stuff thats going to be the digging work which is like going into the root of what has casued the trauma. But if we go there to soon, there is a likely chance we may push a person into avoidance."  Such good stuff!!! It helps me to understand that while I may have the emotional regulation to work through our difference, your "nervous system may be in a state of threat and alarm".  I love how they talk about knowing that helps to come from a place of compassion. "It allows us to see each others humanity in a more profound way. When we are able to see each others humanity in that way we are able to then almost shift to a mind state where we want greater peace or connection instead of fend off the threat."

38:00 This part was interesting because I have heard you before talk about playing the victim...that I'm just blaming it on someone else. Though they are talking about family loyalty blame, it still fits. At one point Glennon says she is angy because, "I have to do this work because you didn't...why didn't you do better".  Because it is as Glennon says, part of a chain. Dr Buque answer is so profound that I am going to type it out. It just sums it up. "the reframe that is criticial is to understand that the intergenerational loyalty that they have to keep thing as is and not talk about things and not engage in the healing process is only going to hurt everyone in the family because we are just going to keep the pain going into the next generation. Versus the true loyalty that can exist which is the healing that we can do ourselves which will have ripple affects back and forward. When it comes to ripple affects forward (she said back but its obvious she meant forward) it can show up in the ways we now interact with the same parent, who is saying the same thing because they may not ever have an opportunity to really heal that but we respond differently. We are a different person. Our nervous system is structured differently because we worked on the internal mechanisms of how we are carrying the pain". She goes on to talk about the settled response instead of a triggered response. On how our interchanges are different and we instead break the cycle.

46:00 Abbie talks about how she is angry about her parents not doing the work before her. She says "fuck everybody who came before me because now it feels like I'm the one who has to change this thing....it feels like there is a select few of us that are brave enough to go down this path of trying to heal some of this intergenerational trauma and it feels so heavy and so a lot. I feel like this comes before the compassion and before the healing. So if you do wanna go down this road of trying to heal this within yourself and among your family...know that there is, for me at least, there was a time where I felt really angry and frustrated and overwhelmed and pissed off that I was even having to do this". This was profound to me because I felt this way with my mother. Why did I beg her to go to counseling and she wouldn't go. To me it just said I had no value. And staying true to myself, there is also a part of me that is angry and pissed off at you that you won't do the work with me to heal this with me...to stop this incidious generational trauma. You demanded we go to counseling but when we said lets go you disconnected and and stopped speaking to us. There was a time when I was angry and pissed off...and maybe still am to an extent. To hear Dr. Buque say this was a universal feeling was a relief. "I think every single person that has some element of trauma that they are sorting through that is generational and they see that the pattern wasn't broken and that they are hurting because of it will have some form of rage thats righteous rage...it's rage that has to be honored......because it is very much a part of what keeps shame alive. Its a part of what is also hindering the healing and growth process if we aren't tapping into the rage. Very often is what we tend to find with rage is that rage tends to be a secondarly emotion. Its secondary to the primary emotion which is of feeling hurt. What I would want is to find the the way through the rage and understand it because it is a messenger. Its helping us to understand something and beyond that I would want to know what hurts...what is hurting you thats creating this experience of feeling angry. Anger is more accessible and is also an emotion that is likely to make you feel more energized to fight off anybody that comes near you....for family memebers that are working through this we have to hold moments for the rage and invite it into the process if we want true healing".  Then Amanda has a light bulb moment and says, "OMG and its such a macro of the whole thing...its like we have to go through that process to start dealing with intergenerational trauma but that whole rage is more comfortable than like hurt or fear is and its what got us in so much intergentional trauma to begin with our...our parents and forefathers couldn't be that vulnerable maybe literally because they would die or they never had the skills so they raged at us because that was covering their fear or their hurt....so ironically we have to go through the rage part to get to the hurt part that they never could- CRAZY!"   This is crazy when I look at how I wasn't allowed to have rage that I was molested becasue then my mother/brother would have had to deal with their own rage and hurt that they didn't protect me. It makes me wonder how you would attach this to what happened between us. And understand that I am talking about myself because I have no way of hearing your point of view. I would so love to have this conversation with you. To get your perspective...but also understand that I will have to deal with your rage....I can and would because I have the tools...I have the emotional regulation. Buque goes on to say something so profound. "When we are talking about generational healing, for many of us, not evryone but many, it is really critical for us to do the healing for the people who couldn't or the people who didn't have the privilege and the access to be able to do that healing. I think that can really penetrate our hearts in a profound way to help us to feel like, okay, this work its hard but its really worth it". This statement brought me to tears when I realize I am doing the healing for my Mom that she didn't have access to. That she didn't have the privledge or the emotional regulation and maturity to access...and because it wasn't even there for her to access back then. I'm sorry but this is so profound. Glennon goes onto say, "I think it is a great honor to have the time, space, privelege, money, perspective, whatever it takes because it does take a lot. This takes a lot of access I feel like or has for me. I think a lot of people think this is just blame. I've heard that from a lot of people ...oh this is just blame...you just want to blame somebody. For me I have never done anything that is more like taking responsibility. This IS taking responsibility.  If we live in auto pilot with all these patterns that is an avoidance of responsibility.

Richard Rohr said, {If we do not transform our pain, we will most assurdely transmit it} [Glennon said it different but I looked up the true quote] and thats it. There are only two options. The actual moment of 'I will figure this out' and it might be a process and I might think of myself as a little isolated puzzle piece and now I see myself in this big puzzle. It might feel like blame for a little while. Now for the first time in my life I am responsible. Meaning in each moment i am able to respond from power, peace, freedom and compassion instead of from familial patterns that leave me completely irresponsible. Its  a great responsible moment!" I just keep typing thiese responses but wholly hell they are so damn profound. Abbie then says, "Is it a thing that we are also taking on responsbility for those who came before us...are we taking on the responsibility with them in some way? Becasuse I do think some of the blame that does come....like my parents thats just Abbie...ya know ...woo woo spirtual all that shit. But I do think there is a part of this process for me that I am trying to, in honor of them and their inability to take responsibility, I am taking on responsibility for myself AND for them and for my grand parents who might not have had the chance/".   There was more in there so important but than Glennon says, "We are doing it for everyone and it's not just generations.  I don't like it when only framed as this is for your children. It's not the way the world works either. We are transmitting trauma when we have a road rage incident, when we are rude to someone in a meeting, when we are mean to someone in a coffee shop. Whether we have children or not, we are constantly passing on our trauma or not"  And this is a big statement...and I don't take it lightly....you are passing on the trauma  (maybe backwards but you are sending that out into the universe) when you delete parents who love you out of  your life. Parents who admit they have faults and could have done better but didn't know how. We know and admit that a lot of your trauma came from inside our home. I know now not to say all because there are peer things that happened we had no control of...so i won't say all BUT we are responsible for not giving you the tools to handle those things better.

Dr Buque talks about having someone who showed up for you. It actually gives me peace to know I did show up for you.....I reached out....I tried.....kept up with our own counseling...we did and continue to do the work...to take responsibility for the part I played. Dr Buque says, "The most important buffer that we have against exeriences in life becoming trauma or making trauma symptoms surface is having a secure and safe person that we can lean on and we can say they showed up for me. They came and they helped me to understand the circumstances. They helped me to understand themselves and their response and their reaction. When we have those experiences of repair of also oreintation around situations especially when we are little, those can have such a positive affect of how we absorb the world. Even how we absorb the very people that may have errored. So its really important for us to hold in consideration the fact that we (parents and children) can actually have a conversation with the people in our lives today. Especially our children and grandchildren amd (parents) and we can offer some sort of repair that can have a profound impact. And whats the alternative....leaning on shame and saying 'I'm not going to say I'm sorry' and then leaving this earth and leaving that person with that understanding that you were never sorry for what you did...I mean that's the alternative right? Or, you can do the more courageous thing which is really hard for us to do, but we can do it right? Which is actually engage in whatever repair can look like." She goes on to say, "it is never to late, so long as we are living we have an opportunity for repair and restoration for the relationship that we have in our lives."

Love this podcast so very much. Glennon goes on to say, all that stuff we handed down to  you is not yours and she wants them to keep figuring out what isn't there's and not inherent in you. Just as Dad and I have been figuring out what isn't ours and isn't inherent in us...and things we can can change. I hope you also figure out what isn't inhearent in you. I remember saying to you yell at me.....tell me what is on your mind. Now I realize I don't want you to yell at me. But I would love to hear what bothers you, and have you talk in a regulated way but also balance it with your rage. 

Dr Buque goes on to say, "The added benefit here is that everybody has just been trained like parents are this all knowing beings ...they are perfection...always right. It has been such a disservice to both parents and child because a parent has to live up to these expectations that are unrealistic to them and it shaves away their humnity. Then their children aren't able to actually experince the fullness of the parent they have in front of them and then also be able to have a mirrored reflection of this fully human being. Instead they are fed this idea of a parent, just by way of society/socialization ..... What I love about what you are all diong is disrupting that completely. You are shattering it. You are like I am in my full humanity here and I want you to see it on full display so that you can see that its okay to just be a human that is in their process. I wish for more of us to be able to have those moments of vulnerability and reflection that are really, really authentic and can have a muli-generational impact." I felt this last paragraph so deeply. 

So much said here so I am going to publish this...then come back and add to it because the discussion they did was equally as awesome.   I hope you were able to receive my authentic humanity in how I feel. You may even be reading it after I am gone....but I hope it changes you and how you view the word.  I will add onto this as I go through the follow-up again. 

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