Connectfulness Practice

For this final episode of the season, I talk to Julie Lythcott-Haims, who is asking the question “what does it mean to grow up?” For her, it's about lovingly letting go of your past burdens so that you can be true to yourself – while not trampling on anybody else. Our conversation flows naturally from topic to topic as we learn about how learning mindfulness took her from being a lawyer and dean of a university to becoming a New York Times bestselling author, speaker, and activist focused on helping humans find their true north. Later, we bring these themes into a discussion of inclusion, identity, and intergenerational healing. Julie shares about growing up as a Black and biracial person with a white mother, healing her past to be the parent she wants to be, and widening her scope to community engagement after isolation during COVID 19. --- Julie Lythcott-Haims believes in humans and is deeply interested in what gets in our way. Her work encompasses writing, speaking, teaching, mentoring, and activism. She is the New York Times bestselling author of https://www.julielythcotthaims.com/how-to-raise-an-adult (How to Raise an Adult) which gave rise to a popular https://www.julielythcotthaims.com/speaking (TED Talk). Her second book is the critically-acclaimed and award-winning prose poetry memoir https://www.julielythcotthaims.com/real-american (Real American), which illustrates her experience as a Black and biracial person in white spaces. Her third book, https://www.julielythcotthaims.com/your-turn (Your Turn: How to Be an Adult), has been called a “groundbreakingly frank” guide to adulthood. Julie holds degrees from Stanford, Harvard Law, and California College of the Arts. She currently serves on the boards of Black Women's Health Imperative, Narrative Magazine, and on the Board of Trustees at California College of the Arts. She serves on the advisory boards of LeanIn, Sir Ken Robinson Foundation and Baldwin For the Arts. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her partner of over thirty years, their itinerant young adults, and her mother. Learn more and follow Julie at https://my.captivate.fm/julielythcotthaims.com (julielythcotthaims.com). Julie is currently running for office with Palo Alto City Council, support her campaign at https://www.julieforpaloalto.com/ (julieforpaloalto.com). --- If you enjoyed this episode and want to dive in deeper, consider joining one of Rebecca's online offerings to deepen your relational skills and expand your Self care. Learn more at https://connectfulness.com/offerings (connectfulness.com/offerings) Also, please check out our short form weekly https://whydoesmypartner.captivate.fm/ (WHY DOES MY PARTNER) sister podcast. This podcast is not a substitute for counseling with a licensed provider.  

I'm excited to share this podcast conversation with one of my dearest friends Akilah Riley-Richardson. Akilah has been in clinical practice for 16 years, is based in Trinidad and Tobago, and specializes in work with sexual and racial minorities. In this conversation, Akilah and I talk about relational privilege and the impact historical and race based trauma has on relationships. Akilah teaches to pivot, rumble and imagine to help gain a sense of where the hurt is, what the body needs, and how these needs connect back to the behaviors expressed is relationship…and what is needed now. And we rumble with the politics of interest, the impact of feeling that your experiences in the world matter (or don't) within intimate relational spaces. RESOURCES:  Find Akilah online at https://akilahrileyrichardson.com (akilahrileyrichardson.com), and dive in even deeper to learn more with Akilah in her Academy of Therapy Wisdom course https://therapywisdom.com/relational-privilege-and-systemic-trauma (Relational Privilege and Systemic Trauma: Confronting Race and Sex Discrimination in Couples Work) additional resources mentioned in this episode: https://www.resmaa.com (Resmaa Menakem) Shawn A. Ginwright's https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/675693/the-four-pivots-by-shawn-ginwright/ (The Four Pivots) https://adriennemareebrown.net/ (adrienne maree brown)'s concept of radical imagination (http://adriennemareebrown.net/2015/10/28/there-is-an-edge-ode-to-radical-imagination/ (see this poem)) If you want to dive in deeper with Rebecca, consider joining ourhttps://whydoesmypartner.com/events/p/bootcamp-feb2022 ( Relationship Bootcamp) or exploring her offerings to deepen your relational skills and expand your self-care.  Learn more at https://my.captivate.fm/connectfulness.com/offerings (connectfulness.com) Also, please check out our sister podcast, https://whydoesmypartner.com/ (Why Does My Partner)

Moraya Seeger DeGeare is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, consultant, writer, activist, and mom. We recorded this conversation in-person, meandering in our discussion around moving within a world that tries to adhere to dominant culture all the time. Here's what we hope you get out of this conversation: if you are someone who's not walking around in a dominant culture body, we hope you can simply listen and not have to do extra work to find resonance. And if you are someone that's walking around in a dominant culture body (white, cis, heterosexual, able-bodied, neurotypical, etc), we hope we've opened some awareness that not everyone experiences the world the way you do. Check in on the people around you. Moraya is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, consultant, writer, activist, and mom. She is the co-owner of BFF Therapy in Beacon, NY and has a monthly sex and relationship column, Can We Talk? with Refinery 29. The connecting line through all of her passions from research analyst to being active on a school board is that she engages in life with an understanding that culture and connection need to be understood first. Moraya is certified in Emotionally Focused Therapy and specializes in mixed race LGBTQIA+ couples and racial identity development. Her activism work encourages intergenerational conversations on systemic issues. RESOURCES: Find Moraya online at https://bfftherapy.com (bfftherapy.com), https://PeteSeegerfamily.com (PeteSeegerfamily.com), and her monthly sex and relationship column with Refinery29 https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/can-we-talk (“Can We Talk?”) If you want to dive in deeper with Rebecca, consider joining ourhttps://whydoesmypartner.com/events/p/bootcamp-feb2022 ( Relationship Bootcamp) or exploring her offerings to deepen your relational skills and expand your self-care.  Learn more athttps://my.captivate.fm/connectfulness.com/offerings ( connectfulness.com) Also, please check out our sister podcast,https://whydoesmypartner.com/ ( Why Does My Partner)

Dr. Han Ren (she/they) is deeply rooted in Liberation-oriented, anti-oppressive, culturally informed therapy. In this time of global upheaval and collective trauma many people have experienced increasing amounts of isolation. Social media is one of the places people turn when they feel alone. Han's widely viewed content on social media centers on liberating the idea that healing has to look a certain way, especially for often historically overlooked people and communities. Normalization goes a long way in undoing our collective experience of aloneness. In this gentle yet confronting conversation, Han guides us towards 3 moment to moment healing practices, accessible to us all: check in with your body, say what you mean/mean what you say, and repair. RESOURCES:  Find Dr. Han Ren online at http://www.drhanren.com/ (drhanren.com )and on all the social channels, tiktok, twitter, and facebook @drhanren, and on IG @dr.han.ren https://connectfulness.com/ (connectfulness.com) If you enjoyed this episode and want to dive in deeper, consider joining one of Rebecca's online offerings to deepen your relational skills and expand your Self care. Learn more at https://connectfulness.com/offerings (connectfulness.com/offerings) Also, please check out the new http://whydoesmypartner.com/ (WHY DOES MY PARTNER) short form weekly podcast.  This podcast is not a substitute for counseling with a licensed provider. 

Patriarchy, supremacy, and toxic individualism are cultural values that really are at the root of so many social and political problems we face today.  Systemic change can seem overwhelming, if not nearly impossible.  But changing the power structure within our most intimate relationships?  That's something we can definitely do–starting today.  How?  By shifting from Me vs. You consciousness to Us consciousness and learning to act from our wise adult rather than our adaptive child as we work through hard things with our partners. When we do this, we spark a cultural butterfly effect that ripples outward into the world.  As this episode's guest, Terry Real, says, “We may not be able to bring peace to Ukraine for example, but we can bring peace to our living rooms and our bedrooms. And why don't we start with where we live?” Terry Real is the creator of Relational Life Therapy and author of the forthcoming book, Us.  Tune in as Terry shares his insight on speaking to your immature, adaptive child parts vs. speaking to your wise adult parts, key differences in how boys and girls are conditioned to be in relationship and how to relearn what was taught out of us as children, the harm that patriarchy and individualism cause us in relationships and how relationships can upend them, masculinity and the current state of our country, the power in changing the choices we make in relationship in order to get more of what we want (rather than pointing the finger at our partners), plus a relational skill assignment to try in your relationship right now. Note: This podcast episode was recorded in February 2022, before certain current events in the U.S. took place, such as the massacres in Buffalo, NY, Uvalde, TX, the Depp/Heard trial, and news leaked from Supreme Court of the decision to strike down Roe v. Wade, all of which have roots in supremacy, patriarchy and toxic individualism.  Any omissions of such events in this conversation are not intentional, though we hope the correlations between these events and the issues discussed in this episode come through and further underscore the need for this work at every level from the most intimate to the collective. RESOURCES: Learn more about Terry Real and his work at https://terryreal.com/ (TerryReal.com).  You can order Terry Real's new book, Us, https://terryreal.com/us-book/ (here). If you enjoyed this episode and want to dive in deeper, consider joining one of Rebecca's online offerings to deepen your relational skills and expand your Self care. Learn more at connectfulness.com/offerings Also, please check out the https://whydoesmypartner.com/ (WHY DOES MY PARTNER) short form weekly podcast. This podcast is not a substitute for counseling with a licensed provider.

What our culture teaches us about sex isn't very useful. Many of us have absorbed the message that sex is a means to some kind of end–orgasm, connection, a baby.  We've learned that there's a right and a wrong way to do it.  We've even learned that sex is natural.  It's no wonder then that when our libido doesn't match our partner's or our desires don't match our politics, we assume there must be something wrong with us.  Here's the real truth:  There is nothing wrong with you.  Or your partner.  So many of us have just been trying to conform to someone else's narrow version of sexuality (often without even realizing it).  If we slow down and take the time, we can instead get to know the sexuality that is uniquely ours and the fulfillment we all deserve. This week's guest, Cyndi Darnell, says in her forthcoming book,  "The body has always belonged to either God or science. There has never been a time in Western history that the body truly belonged to the person who inhabits it."  She says we can begin to reclaim our bodies for ourselves by unlearning the things we've been taught about sex that aren't serving us.  By rediscovering our libidos and desires.  By learning how to show ourselves to ourselves.  By being in our bodies.  Cyndi, clinical sexologist & sex & relationship therapist who works with clients all over the globe, is here to tell us how. Learn more about Cyndi Darnell and her work at https://cyndidarnell.com/ (CyndiDarnell.com) You can preorder her book, Sex When You Don't Feel Like It: The Truth about Mismatched Libido and Rediscovering Desire at https://cyndidarnell.com/book/ (cyndidarnell.com/book) If you want to dive in deeper, consider joining ourhttps://whydoesmypartner.com/events/p/bootcamp-feb2022 ( Relationship Bootcamp) or exploring Rebecca's offerings to deepen your relational skills and expand your self-care.  Learn more athttps://my.captivate.fm/connectfulness.com/offerings ( connectfulness.com) Also, please check out our sister podcast,https://whydoesmypartner.com/ ( Why Does My Partner)

In Lissa Rankin's book, Sacred Medicine, she writes,  "We live in a disembodied culture because trauma causes us to leave our bodies. It is a defense mechanism and in extreme cases, a survival skill that can save you. Yet you can't heal the body without being in it."  Our culture encourages dissociation:  Buy this product to feel better, drink this to escape, distract yourself with social media.  Numb out, stay busy, look outside yourself.  And yet, science has enough data to say with certainty that trauma causes pain and illness in the body.  This is no longer a woo-woo idea.  Sometimes, dissociation absolutely saves us. Other times, it keeps us in patterns that no longer serve to the point of making us sick.   In this rich conversation, Lissa and Rebecca discuss the paradoxes in healing trauma:  trauma is treatable but you have to be in the body to heal it. They discuss the necessary skills in drawing on all of your intelligences—your intellectual intelligence, yes, but also your somatic, intuitive, and emotional intelligences—and why we must stay in our bodies enough to pay attention to them.  They also discuss nuances of power-over/power-under dynamics and the paradox of why the reward of shared-power-with is so unfathomable to someone in a power-over position and yet, the reward is so compelling and full of possibility. RESOURCES: Learn more about Lissa Rankin and her work at LissaRankin.com and HealAtLast.org. If you want to dive in deeper, consider joining ourhttps://whydoesmypartner.com/events/p/bootcamp-feb2022 ( Relationship Bootcamp) or exploring Rebecca's offerings to deepen your relational skills and expand your self-care.  Learn more athttps://my.captivate.fm/connectfulness.com/offerings ( connectfulness.com) Also, please check out our sister podcast, https://whydoesmypartner.com/ (Why Does My Partner).   This podcast is not a substitute for counseling with a licensed provider. Thanks for listening! We invite you to deepen into the discussion with us onhttps://www.instagram.com/connectfulness ( instagram) and please support the show by sharing and reviewing the episode.

Dear listeners, for this month's episode, we decided to do something a little different.  Instead of interviewing a special guest, we've turned the tables and your host has become the guest!  Out of curiosity and a sense of play (two things we adore here at Connectfulness), Rebecca agreed to be interviewed by our podcast editor, https://alhoberman.com/ (Al Hoberman), who is also a fabulous music therapist.  Together, they let the conversation meander where it will, delving into topics like why we can never be “healed and ready” for a relationship before entering into it, the importance of knowing oneself (and why it feels so scary at first), implicit and conscious memories, the burden of generational survival mechanisms and why they should be celebrated and released, and the power that lies in letting things get awkward. This episode was really fun to record.  We hope it's equally fun for you to listen in.  Should we do more of these?  Do you have questions you'd like us to unpack?  Let us know by emailing us at podcast@connectfulness.com or through our contact page. RESOURCES:If you want to dive in deeper, consider joining our https://whydoesmypartner.com/events/p/bootcamp-feb2022 (Relationship Bootcamp) or exploring Rebecca's offerings to deepen your relational skills and expand your self-care. Learn more at https://my.captivate.fm/connectfulness.com/offerings (connectfulness.com) Also, please check out our sister podcast, https://whydoesmypartner.com/ (Why Does My Partner). This podcast is not a substitute for counseling with a licensed provider.

“I can't adult today” makes for great social media fodder. But as with all humor, there's a nugget of truth in there.  How many models do we have for adulting that is healthy, balanced, secure and relational? Our culture has sold us quite a bill of goods: Independence and “rugged individualism” as an indication that we've become successful adults. Perfection or mastery as the ultimate goal.  Self-care has become “treat yourself”.  The pop psychology idea that having boundaries means you get to tell someone else what they can and can't do.  Even the idea that objective reality not only exists but should rule over all else.  The truth is, none of these concepts are serving us very well because there is a whole lot of nuance and self-attunement missing. Terri Delaney is here to debunk all of these ideas.  Disrupting our old programming won't necessarily make life easier, but it does offer each of us more grace, a chance to heal, and the power to get out of our own way.  This delicious conversation contains so much.  Terri and I discuss the unicorn parenting most of us never got and why there's still hope if we didn't, how to use the “full apology” and why it works, and the overlap in understanding our inherent worth, our subjective realities, and having good boundaries.  Terri illustrates what listening and containing boundaries look like and why protecting ourselves is our responsibility, not anyone else's.  She differentiates between wants and needs, and explains why both matter.   We muse on the spiritual component of this work and why moderation is actually a form of humility.  She even turns anti-dependence on its head by explaining how it's actually a covert form of dependency in a way that might blow your mind.  Join us as we unpack what it really means to operate from our functional adult selves and what a work-in-progress we all are. RESOURCES:Learn more about Terri Delaney and her work at https://www.relationalskillbuilding.com/ (relationalskillbuilding.com) and https://www.terridelaney.com/ (terridelaney.com) Book mentioned: https://www.amazon.com/How-Parent-You-Always-Wanted/dp/B00F8K44KE/ref=sr_1_2?crid=28XCCPVSUC5U0&keywords=how+to+be+the+parent+you+always+wanted+to+be&qid=1645199719&sprefix=Adele+faber+how+to+be+the+parent%2Caps%2C80&sr=8-2 (How to Become the Parent You Always Wanted to Be) by Adele Faber  You may also want to listen to episodes https://connectfulness.com/episode/18-welcoming-our-protective-systems-juliane-taylor-shore (18) and https://connectfulness.com/episode/025-science-behind-how-your-relationship-can-help-you-heal-juliane-taylor-shore (25.) And if you want to dive in deeper, consider joining our https://whydoesmypartner.com/events/p/bootcamp-feb2022 (Relationship Bootcamp) or exploring Rebecca's offerings to deepen your relational skills and expand your self-care. Learn more at https://my.captivate.fm/connectfulness.com/offerings (connectfulness.com) Also, please check out our sister podcast, https://whydoesmypartner.com/ (Why Does My Partner). This podcast is not a substitute for counseling with a licensed provider.

So often, many of us are still just waiting on our parents to show up for us in the way we needed them to when we were little.  Sometimes we're consciously aware of this, oftentimes we're not.  And it can continue long after our parents have passed, if we haven't made the unconscious conscious and learned to reparent ourselves.  Otherwise, we often unintentionally seek this fulfillment from our most intimate relationships.  In this episode, I chat with fellow Certified Relational Life Therapist, Shane Birkel, who is able to take these big concepts and ground them in very clear language and context.   If you're new or feeling resistance to the idea of Relational Life Therapy, this episode is a great point of entry. Tune in as Shane and I discuss families of origin, healthy versus toxic shame, the importance of compassion and grief work during conflict, and what healthy relationships actually look like. RESOURCES: For great little relational videos, find Shane Birkel on https://www.tiktok.com/@shanebirkel (Tiktok). You can learn more about Shane's work at https://shanebirkel.com/ (ShaneBirkel.com).  You can also check out Shane's podcast, https://www.couplestherapistcouch.com/blog (The Couples Therapist Couch). If you enjoyed this episode and want to dive in deeper, consider joining our upcoming https://whydoesmypartner.com/events/p/bootcamp-feb2022 (Relationship Bootcamp) or one of Rebecca's online offerings to deepen your relational skills and expand your self-care. Learn more at connectfulness.com/offerings Also, please check out our sister podcast, https://whydoesmypartner.com/ (Why Does My Partner). This podcast is not a substitute for counseling with a licensed provider.

Life gets bumpy at times.  We as humans make mistakes, we cause harm, things can get awkward or uncomfortable.  This doesn't change when you learn new relational skills.  We never stop having those moments in our intimate relationships.  We just get better at sitting with the awkward and imperfect.   In this episode, I chat with Gina Senarighi about what happens when we bring the observational self onboard and practice being in the awkward with our partners.  We discuss perfectionism, creativity, pleasure and play, shifting from judgment to curiosity, and making the most of things versus going into a sulky place.   The lesson Gina and I both have learned in our relationships and in our work is that there is no perfect relational tool to end conflict or mistake-making.  The real transformational practice is getting comfortable with discomfort and in staying present. RESOURCES: Get to know more about Gina Senarighi at https://heygina.com/ (HeyGina.com) Listen to Gina Senarighi dish out relationship advice on https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/swoon-love-lessons-with-julie-and-gina/id1455655840 (The Swoon Podcast) Learn more about Gina's online relationship course at https://swoonwithus.com/ (SwoonWithUs.com) Check out Gina's new relationship workbook, https://bookshop.org/books/love-more-fight-less-communication-skills-every-couple-needs-a-relationship-workbook-for-couples/9780593196656 (Love More, Fight Less) If you enjoyed this episode and want to dive in deeper, consider joining one of Rebecca's online offerings to deepen your relational skills and expand your Self-care. Learn more at connectfulness.com/offerings Also, please check out our sister podcast, https://whydoesmypartner.captivate.fm/ (Why Does My Partner). This podcast is not a substitute for counseling with a licensed provider.

When conflict arises in our relationships, what does it mean to shift from 1st consciousness to 2nd consciousness? It has a lot to do with shifting from a preoccupation of the self into self-awareness of our own “going up” and “going down” as well as curiosity about other perspectives. This alone is a complex conversation, but believe it or not, it's one that can be grasped and practiced quicker than you'd think.  And once you have an understanding of it, it's like someone's turned a light on and you realize there's so much more you can see clearly. Full disclaimer though: this is only the beginning! Self-awareness and 2nd consciousness is a life-long practice with many more lightbulbs to turn on along the way. Like all new things, it's wobbly and awkward at times. Perfection just isn't a thing when it comes to being human. (Does that disappoint you to hear or does it release you?)  Vickey Easa and I love musing on these things and we really dig in this week on the podcast. Tune in as we talk about the message perfection is really sending, both inwardly and outwardly, why contempt is always the thing behind being less than or better than, and how Vickey and I are both still working on all of this in our own lives. RESOURCES:Learn more about Vickey Easa at https://vickeyeasa.com/ (VickeyEasa.com) and download her free guide at http://www.yourdecisiondiva.com/ (YourDecisionDiva.com) And, if you haven't already, be sure to check out our podcast, https://whydoesmypartner.com/episodes (W,hy Does My Partner), that Vickey and I cohost along with our dear friend and colleague Jules Shore. Ready to transform your relationship?  Join Vickey, Jules, and me at our upcoming https://whydoesmypartner.com/events/p/bootcamp-nov2021 (Essential Skills Relationship Bootcamp) on Nov. 20 & 21.  If you enjoyed this episode and want to dive in deeper, Rebecca has a few online offerings to deepen your relational skills and expand your Self care. Learn more at https://connectfulness.com/offerings (connectfulness.com) This podcast is not a substitute for counseling with a licensed provider.

So often, we tend to think of boundaries in a punitive way, a way to protect us after something has happened.  They often show up as consequences, even sometimes creating a continuous cycle of retaliation and defensiveness.  But what if there was a way of thinking about them as a protection that helps us understand how to be relational—A protective layer for your relationships to ensure needs are met while preventing resentment or hurt?  It's not only possible, it's so necessary.   There's a catch though:  As my latest guest, Sharon Martin. MSW, LCSW, will tell you, you need to know who you are and what you need, in order to put healthy boundaries into place.  And, since so many of us weren't raised with healthy boundaries as children or maybe weren't given age-appropriate space to discover who we are, this presents some messy boundary issues for us as adults.  Listen in as Sharon tells us why we all deserve healthy boundaries and how we can make small shifts that make a huge difference in our lives and relationships. RESOURCES:Learn more about Sharon Martin, MSW, LCSW and her work at http://livewellwithsharonmartin.com (Livewellwithsharonmartin.com) Pre-Order Sharon's new book, The Better Boundaries Workbook, on https://www.amazon.com/dp/1684037581?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&linkCode=sl1&tag=shamarcouperg-20&linkId=b2eb6f3526ffcc1bb07562b8c100c893&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl (Amazon), available 11/1/2021. If you enjoyed this episode and want to dive in deeper, consider joining one of Rebecca's online offerings to deepen your relational skills and expand your Self care. Learn more at https://connectfulness.com/offerings (connectfulness.com/offerings) Also, please check out the newhttp://whydoesmypartner.com/ ( WHY DOES MY PARTNER) short form weekly podcast. This podcast is not a substitute for counseling with a licensed provider.

Dr. Stan Tatkin and Kara Hoppe, psychotherapists and co-authors of Baby Bomb: A Relationship Survival Guide for New Parents, join the podcast to share their wisdom on creating secure, purposeful relationships in a world that is indifferent to us.  They explain why this relationship is so imperative, especially when it comes to raising healthy, happy children. Stan and Kara both bring a wealth of understanding of neurobiology and personal relational experience to this conversation. We talk about the importance of humor, how suffering can motivate us toward change, and how we can shift from being feeling-centered to purpose-centered in our relationship.  All of this ultimately makes us better parents and creates a secure relational foundation for our children.  In other words, this is how we parents can make it through the overwhelm, heal wounds for future generations, and begin to create the world we want to live in. Whether you're expecting your first child, are deep in the throes of raising children already, or just want to be a parent someday, this conversation is for you.  RESOURCES:Learn more about Dr. Stan Tatkin, his upcoming trainings and retreats and more at https://www.thepactinstitute.com/ (https://www.thepactinstitute.com/)  Follow him on social media: https://twitter.com/drstantatkin (Twitter), https://www.facebook.com/PactTrainingInstitute (Facebook), https://www.instagram.com/drstantatkin/ (Instagram) Learn more about Kara Hoppe and her upcoming virtual retreats for couples at https://www.karahoppe.com/ (https://www.karahoppe.com/)  Follow her on social media: https://twitter.com/kara_hoppe (Twitter), https://www.facebook.com/karahoppetherapy (Facebook), https://www.instagram.com/karahoppe/ (Instagram) Buy their book, Baby Bomb: A Relationship Survival Guide for New Parents, on https://www.amazon.com/Baby-Bomb-Relationship-Survival-Parents/dp/168403731X (Amazon) or https://bookshop.org/books/baby-bomb-a-relationship-survival-guide-for-new-parents/9781684037315 (Bookshop.org). Listen to Rebecca's conversation with Dr. Stan Tatkin from Season 1 of the Connectfulness podcast, https://connectfulness.com/episode/006-stan-tatkin (Episode 6 “Why Are Relationships Difficult? With Stan Tatkin”) https://connectfulness.com/ (connectfulness.com) If you enjoyed this episode and want to dive in deeper, consider joining one of Rebecca's online offerings to deepen your relational skills and expand your Self care. Learn more at https://connectfulness.com/offerings (connectfulness.com/offerings) Also, please check out the new http://whydoesmypartner.com/ (WHY DOES MY PARTNER) short form weekly podcast. This podcast is not a substitute for counseling with a licensed provider.

The pandemic isn't over yet, but life is opening back up again.  For some of us reopening can feel like whiplash just as much as it did when everything suddenly shut down.  This comes as a surprise for so many because who of us didn't dream about what we were most looking forward to doing when the world reopened again?  It turns out it's not so simple. With everything opening up so rapidly, it takes slowing down to reflect and notice what is bubbling up for us. In this episode, we explore windows of tolerance and how we can stay grounded and in our bodies as we test out the different facets of re-entry.  We also hold tight to the lessons learned over the last year and question how we can be more intentional in how we redesign our lives going forward.  There is wisdom in what we do to survive.  For all the challenges, pain, and grief of the past year or more, there is also gratitude, joy, and possibly even a fear of forgetting.  As Paola Bailey, Psy.D. says, “We have an opportunity and you have to claim it.” This is our last episode of the season. We'll return in late September with a fresh new season. RESOURCES:Paola Bailey, Psy.D. is a bi-cultural, tri-lingual, clinical psychologist who works online with clients in NY and CA thru a feminist psychotherapy and trauma-informed lens. You can find her online at https://www.paolabailey.com (paolabailey.com) and on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/drpaolabailey/ (@drpaolabailey). https://connectfulness.com/ (connectfulness.com) If you enjoyed this episode and want to dive in deeper, consider joining one of Rebecca's online offerings to deepen your relational skills and expand your Self care. Learn more at https://connectfulness.com/offerings (connectfulness.com/offerings) Also, please check out the new http://whydoesmypartner.com/ (WHY DOES MY PARTNER) short form weekly podcast. This podcast is not a substitute for counseling with a licensed provider.

No matter where you are on your healing journey, this episode has much to offer about therapy and setting boundaries. It highlights a gentle way to approach long term healing and reinforces the value of discerning and setting boundaries that keep our selves safe and deepen our relationships. Relationships are foundational to our individual and collective wellbeing. Generation after generation of intergenerational trauma have imparted messages that tell us it's selfish/unsafe to focus on our selves. In this episode, we explore how compassionate self inquiry helps expand our understanding of boundaries beyond protection and walls towards invitations for deeper closeness. Healthy relationships feel expansive. Therapy helps us become more expansive, healthier humans, more connected to our full messy, authentic, human selves, to others, and more present in the world. As Esther Boykin says, “therapy is not a dirty word.” RESOURCES:Esther Boykin is a psychotherapist who wants to live in a world where everyone believes that Therapy Is Not A Dirty Word. Whether in her role as CEO of Group Therapy Associates, a coach, consultant, author, or media expert, she works daily to make mental health accessible, innovative, and culturally relevant for all people. Find Esther online at https://estherboykin.com/ (estherboykin.com), https://www.grouptherapyassociates.com/ (grouptherapyassociates.com), https://therapyisnotadirtyword.com/ (therapyisnotadirtyword.com), and on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/estherbmft/ (@estherbmft). https://connectfulness.com/ (connectfulness.com) If you enjoyed this episode and want to dive in deeper, consider joining one of Rebecca's online offerings to deepen your relational skills and expand your Self care. Learn more at https://connectfulness.com/offerings (connectfulness.com/offerings) Also, please check out the new http://whydoesmypartner.com/ (WHY DOES MY PARTNER) short form weekly podcast. This podcast is not a substitute for counseling with a licensed provider.

Kelly McDaniel, LPC returns to the podcast (she joined us on episode 28: https://connectfulness.com/episode/28-legacy-of-chronic-loneliness-kelly-mcdaniel (The Legacy of Chronic Loneliness)) to explore the legacy of maternal deprivation. Her upcoming book, https://kellymcdanieltherapy.com/books/ (Mother Hunger), soothes the legacy of shame that accompanies being under-mothered. Mother Hunger addresses the constant search for love —nurturance, protection, and guidance— that may lead to a lifelong quest for what was missing. It’s not about critiquing how you were raised, rather it’s about learning how to heal and re-parent the hungry parts inside. Healing begins with knowing and naming what we are missing. If you’re one of many who feel a sense of dread and grief as Mother's Day nears, these feelings may be related to Mother Hunger and I hope this episode helps you feel a little less alone. RESOURCES: Kelly McDaniel's Website: https://kellymcdanieltherapy.com/ (kellymcdanieltherapy.com) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1401960855/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_7ND6ZQGX7BMF41CRY7DJ (Preorder the “Mother Hunger” book) https://connectfulness.com/ (connectfulness.com) If you enjoyed this episode and want to dive in deeper, consider joining one of Rebecca’s online offerings to deepen your relational skills and expand your Self care. Learn more at https://connectfulness.com/offerings (connectfulness.com/offerings) Also, please check out the new http://whydoesmypartner.com/ (WHY DOES MY PARTNER) short form weekly podcast. This podcast is not a substitute for counseling with a licensed provider.

Our society is constructed to benefit White people, whether they're conscious of it or not. The “norm” we’ve inherited centers an oppressive and privileging system when it comes to equity and power. And it plays out in relationships... In this episode, Francesca Maximé joins us to explore how interracial partners can embody anti-racism in their relationship. We explore how blind spots and racial misattunements affect interracial relationships. And we discuss how to build more equitable partnerships. White Partners: You may have to practice sitting with discomfort, be honest about what you don't know, educate yourself, and lean into curiously opening conversations with your partner about their experience and how it differs from yours. (This episode was recorded at the end of 2020.) RESOURCES: Francesca Maximé, LMSW is the host of the https://beherenownetwork.com/category/francesca-maxime/ (#ReRooted trauma, neuroscience and social justice podcast on the Be Here Now Network). Learn More about her offerings at https://www.maximeclarity.com/ (maximeclarity.com). https://therapywisdom.com/embodied-anti-racism/ (Embodied Anti-Racism: A Mindfulness Way for Therapists and Helping Professionals) https://www.embodiedphilosophy.org/embodied-antiracism-examining-whiteness-for-equitable-activism (6-Week Online Course Embodied Antiracism: Examining Whiteness for Equitable Activism) More Resources Mentioned: http://whiteawake.org/ (Whiteawake.org) "Before We Were White" https://www.euroamerican.org (The Center for the Study of White American Culture) https://www.cswac.org/building-multiracial-community/ (Building a Multiracial Community) https://www.amazon.com/Lifting-White-Veil-Jeff-Hitchcock/dp/193439033X (Lifting the White Veil) https://nmaahc.si.edu/learn/talking-about-race/topics/historical-foundations-race (Historical Foundations of Race) https://medium.com/@bennessb/social-location-what-people-mean-27dd94c29dd5 (Social location: what people mean) If you enjoyed this episode and want to dive in deeper, consider joining the next cohort of Rebecca’s Supporting Your Relational Self 6-week-online-course. We untangle core issues that affect us all in relationships, cultivate sustaining practices, and weave in relational skills to expand your Self care. Learn more at https://connectfulness.com/offerings (connectfulness.com/offerings) This podcast is not a substitute for counseling with a licensed provider. 

My colleagues Jules and Vickey and I just launched a new podcast and I am super excited to share it with you, so I'm sharing it here!! In this trailer, we're sharing the story of how we met, how we've come to work together, how this podcast came to be, and what you can expect in future episodes. We're calling this podcast Why Does My Partner (or Why Doesn't My Partner, it's interchangeable) because these are the questions we hear over and over again in our offices. We believe these questions lead to the GOLD of relational healing and the answers under these questions will bring us deep into the skills at the heart of deeper relational intimacy, greater health, and fulfillment. Share your questions with us at: https://whydoesmypartner.com/ (whydoesmypartner.com)! If you want to dive in deeper, consider registering for our online Essential Skills Relationship Bootcamp. Open to individuals, couples and therapists. Learn more at http://whydoesmypartner.com/ (WhyDoesMyPartner.com) This podcast is not a substitute for therapy with a licensed provider.

Today’s guest, Dr. Rick Butts, cofounded the https://www.healingourcoreissuesinstitute.com/ (Healing Our Core Issues Institute) (HOCII) with Jan Bergstrom, a past podcast guest. Rick and I discuss how the nature of the child —to be imperfect and human— is linked to how we humans come to know ourselves as we mature. We explore the woundings, teachings and adaptations that shape us in our formative years and become how we present in the world. And we examine the tasks of recovering our sense of self which comes when we can see and accept ourselves as human in all areas of our life. These teaching have opened many inroads in my own healing journey and I hope this episode helps you, wherever you are on your journey. SHOW NOTES: HOCII based on the Post Induction Therapy (PIT)/Developmental and Relational Trauma Therapy (DARTT) model developed by http://www.piamellody.com/ (Pia Mellody). Mindfulness- to be in the present moment, consciously aware experiencing reality with no judgement. Being present as a witness for another person is healing. Unconditional positive regard (Carl Rogers) - the ability to hold such space is sacred work. Attachment- Understanding early connection, leading to a person's way of viewing the world. Healing begins with understanding how early connection leads to forming one’s view of the world. Reflecting on how things were growing up in your family Somatic Experiencing- There can be a lot of non-verbal memories that are stored in the body. Where do you notice that in your body? Tuning in mindfully to figure out “where am I carrying this in my body and how am I holding it?” As a society, we get messages that we’re supposed to be a certain way, and we have trained ourselves to unconsciously tune out from what we're feeling. Birth Rights- what every little one deserves, but often not what they get. The purpose of therapy is to get their story straight and to understand how this has influenced the way that they live their life. Developmental trauma leading to relational trauma. 1. Self-Esteem/Loving The Self Each child born into this world has inherent worth just because. It is in that system where they learn if that is true or not true. It can be true with certain people and not certain people. Most people do not have a sense of inherent worth. No matter where you come from, no matter what the story is, you can begin to practice and have a sense of self. Insight- the moment of knowing I am enough and I matter despite my imperfections. 2. Boundaries/Protect The Self All children deserve to be protected because they are vulnerable. Children, who have the least power in the family dynamic and in the world, need the most protection. Helping people to understand the impact of how they were and were not protected, as an adult. Whether boundary violations are intrusive or neglectful they occur when we don't see people as inherently worthy. 3. Reality/Knowing The Self Every child’s birthright is to be imperfect. Many of us did not have opportunities to make mistakes. There is a pressure to present in the world a certain way. Often we learn, as little people, that we have to contort ourselves to meet other people's expectations so that we can survive. In doing that repeatedly as we grow, we don't have an opportunity to learn who we are. Questions from La Shanda Sugg: “Who taught me that? Where did I learn that? Who benefits from me believing that about myself?” Trauma- "my experience of being wounded" to be wounded, in the moment, leaves a deep impact on people trying to figure out how to survive within their systems. “Our parents teach us who we are, and how we are supposed to be treated in the world.” —Pia Melody The beginning of the sense of self. This is our historical self and we learn how to adapt. The trauma tells me how to present myself. The knowing of self is strongly linked to our wounding. The impact that trauma has in terms of influencing how we know...

We need relationship in order to survive. If you were raised without a secure base you likely learned early on to modify yourself. In this episode I am talking with Kelly McDaniel, LPC, NCC, CSAT, author and psychotherapist, about the complex trauma of chronic loneliness and how to heal from the toxic stress of disconnection. Kelly McDaniel’s first book Ready to Heal (2008) was written for women healing from addictive love and sex. Her new book Mother Hunger arrives July 2021 from Hay House. For full show notes click here. Resources:  kellymcdanieltherapy.com Find Kelly on Instagram: @kellymcdanieltherapy connectfulness.com Supporting Your Relational Self | Begins February 2021 6-week-online-course focuses on your relationship to Self, other intimate relations. Cultivate practices to sustain during these chaotic times. Essential Skills Relationship Bootcamp | April 24-25, 2021This is an authorized presentation of Terry Real's Essential Skills Relationship Bootcamp. Open to individuals, couples and therapists. A combination of lecture, role-play, small group exercises and personal work. Jules, Vickey and I are seeking listener questions to fuel the production of our upcoming podcast at whydoesmypartner.com This podcast is not a substitute for counseling with a licensed provider. After listening, we invite you to deepen into the discussion with us on instagram and please support the show by sharing and reviewing the episode.

So often in the journey of relational healing we discover parts of our Selves have been disowned — the parts of one's spirit which allow spontaneity and imperfection and cultivate abundance and joy. In this episode we explore the creative process as a way to bear witness to these parts of Self. My guest, Chris Zydel, The Wild Heart Queen, works with people using creativity and artistic expression as a way to get in touch with the deeper aspects of who they are. Chris says the ‘creative juice’ is our ability to meet the mystery of what we don’t know within ourselves and within each other. Join us on a reclamation of trust in our deeper knowings and permission to reshape how we see ourselves and develop new cultures, together.   Resources: creativejuicesarts.com connectfulness.com Essential Skills Relationship Bootcamp | April 24-25, 2021This is an authorized presentation of Terry Real's Essential Skills Relationship Bootcamp. Open to individuals, couples and therapists. A combination of lecture, role-play, small group exercises and personal work. Supporting Your Relational Self | Begins February 2021 6-week-online-course focuses on your relationship to Self, other intimate relations. Cultivate practices to sustain during these chaotic times. We’re seeking listener questions to fuel the production of our new podcast at whydoesmypartner.com This podcast is not a substitute for counseling with a licensed provider.

Sexuality is a part of who we are and we all deserve to learn about it in a way that is safe, comfortable, and judgement-free. Learning about positive sexuality is transformative for individuals and society overall. My guest, Elizabeth Greenblatt, strives to support young people develop the skills to navigate their sexuality in a healthy and fulfilling way and believes young people must be at the center of this work. Elizabeth says “we must understand that young people are the experts on their lives and listen to them. We must be willing to listen without judgement and provide support that helps them to make healthy decisions and think critically about their choices. And we must talk about pleasure. Only talking about sex within the context of disease and pregnancy prevention does a disservice to young people and doesn't help them build skill in prioritizing healthy and pleasurable experiences.” Being listened to is huge, it teaches us how to listen to (and know) ourselves. Knowing the Self is such an important starting point. And yet, generations upon generations of parents pass down their own not knowing. One of the biggest ways we can change this narrative is through listening. These skills are building blocks for health romantic relationships and communication. Listening is a huge part of having consensual conversations.  With the holidays approaching and COVID on the uprise around the country I hope our conversation about how sex education can be done well also may shed light on how we can navigate necessary but often challenging conversations around public health, consent and differences in risk tolerance while tending to ourselves and listening to one another. If there’s a silver lining from the pandemic it’s that we have daily opportunities to practice talking about consent, risk, our differing comfort levels, and develop conversational skill around bodily autonomy.   RESOURCES: Elizabeth Greenblatt has been teaching about health and sexuality for over 25 years. She currently works with Sex Savvy Hudson Valley to support and provide comprehensive sexuality education to students, teachers, administrators, and staff. Elizabeth also provides community and online workshops parents/caregivers, adults, and young people. Learn more about her upcoming online sex-ed program for 3rd-5th graders at sexsavvyhudsonvalley.com/events Learn more about Rebecca’s practice and upcoming online offerings at connectfulness.com Essential Skills Relationship Bootcamp | April 24-25, 2021This is an authorized presentation of Terry Real's Essential Skills Relationship Bootcamp facilitated by Rebecca Wong, Victoria Easa, and Juliane Taylor Shore, Certified Relational Life Therapists. Open to individuals, couples and therapists. Through a combination of lecture, role-play, small group exercises and personal work, this workshop will help you to attain the relationships you want in your life.  Supporting Your Relational Self | Begins February 2021 6-week-online-course focuses on your relationship to Self, other intimate relations, and will help participants cultivate practices to sustain during these chaotic times filled with pandemic, uprising and beyond. Based on the teachings of Pia Mellody, we'll explore core issues that affect us all in relationships and the skills that will expand your Self & relational care practices. This podcast is not a substitute for counseling with a licensed provider. After listening, we invite you to deepen into the discussion with us on instagram and please support the show by sharing and reviewing the episode.

We’re excited to bring Juliane Taylor Shore, LPC, LMFT, SEP (AKA Jules) back to the podcast — last time she joined us, on episode 18, Jules introduced us to the brain science around how to stay relational when our protective systems are activated during times of chaos, like these. In this episode we’re talking about how your relationship can help you heal…and the brain science behind why and how it works. Expect lots of delicious neurobiological explanations around how healing occurs in the subcortical system. Jules says that healing trauma means what was, is not what always will be. Think about it like this, you were born into this world with vast and varied needs: to be safe, heard, seen, soothed and to matter. Your early life experiences installed a kind of knowing around what to expect, how to react to increase wellbeing, increase safety, increase justice, or decrease suffering. But in order to cultivate the recipe for this healing experience, you need to stay inside your unique "window of tolerance". In other words, how much sympathetic nervous system charge your system can tolerate before flipping into a state of dysregulation. When you’re scared, in a state, of warning, fight, flight or a collapse you’re already outside the window of tolerance. Your brain has to be safe enough, to be in the experience of whatever the emotional knowing is without flipping your lid. Through cultivating a healing space within your relationship you can create a lasting corrective emotional experience through a process of memory reconsolidation, which is created in a magical moment when your limbic system detects a mismatch between what your experiencing in the present moment and the original experience. This episode features a brief overview of a process which we suggest undertaking with professional guidance. Consider joining Jules, Rebecca, and our colleague Vickie Easa, for a RLT Essential Skills Relationship Bootcamp this October 24th & 25th 2020 — it’s open for both couples and individuals. Therapists can also attend either on their own or with a partner. Everyone is a participant to the degree they choose to be. Learn more and join us here!   RESOURCES MENTIONED: Juliane Taylor Shore, LPC, LMFT, SEP (AKA Jules) specializes in trauma recovery and relational health. She has worked with couples and adults in her private practice in Austin, TX since 2009. She teaches Interpersonal Neurobiology to her interns, at local universities, and privately. When she's not working, Jules spends time in the hill country and with her husband, daughter, and dog. Learn more about her clinical work at ipnbaustin.com. Also be sure to visit Jules’ new site cleariskind.com (will be live very very soon) to learn more about her interpersonal neurobiology teachings. Dr. Dan Siegel's hand model of the brain Bruce Perry's work on how to repair the natural rhythms of the brain Bruce Ecker & Coherence Therapy The Power of Discord: Why the Ups and Downs of Relationships Are the Secret to Building Intimacy, Resilience, and Trust by Ed Tronick and Claudia M. Gold Rebecca’s practice and upcoming online offerings: connectfulness.com Essential Skills Relationship BootcampOctober 24-25, 2020This is an authorized presentation of Terry Real's Essential Skills Relationship Bootcamp facilitated by Rebecca Wong, Victoria Easa, and Juliane Taylor Shore, Certified Relational Life Therapists. Open to individuals, couples and therapists. Through a combination of lecture, role-play, small group exercises and personal work, this workshop will help you to attain the relationships you want in your life.  Supporting Your Relational SelfBegins November 2020 6-week-online-course focuses on your relationship to Self, other intimate relations, and will help participants cultivate practices to sustain during these chaotic times filled with pandemic, uprising and beyond. Based on the teachings of Pia Mellody, we'll explore core issues that affect us all in relationships and the skills that will expand your Self & relational care practices. This podcast is not a substitute for counseling with a licensed provider. After listening, we invite you to deepen into the discussion with us on instagram and please support the show by sharing and reviewing the episode.

In this episode, La Shanda Sugg and I talk about a generational healing, a topic that truly affects us all. And if there is one message we want you to walk away from this episode with, it’s that generational healing is possible! Trauma can be caused, and passed down generation by generation, in many ways. Often we didn't even notice because it became woven into the fabric of who we think we are and what is our ”normal.” When something triggered a lack of safety — could be a physical, emotional, social, or moral trigger — we do what we’re wired to, avoid and disconnect from the pain, that's why we respond this way. But we have a choice. Generational healing resides in the power that comes from reshaping how we seeing ourselves and rightfully updating the stories and perspective that tells us what we can and cannot do and how we can exist in this world.   RESOURCES:  Find La Shanda online at thelaborsoflove.com Learn more about Rebecca’s practice at connectfulness.com and explore her upcoming online offerings:  Essential Skills Relationship BootcampOctober 24-25, 2020An authorized presentation of Terry Real's Essential Skills Relationship Bootcamp. Open to individuals, couples and therapists. Through a combination of lecture, role-play, small group exercises and personal work, this workshop will help you to attain the relationships you want in your life.  Supporting Your Relational SelfBegins November 2020 6-week-online-course focuses on your relationship to Self, other intimate relations, and will help participants cultivate practices to sustain during these chaotic times filled with pandemic, uprising and beyond. Based on the teachings of Pia Mellody, we'll explore the 5-core issues that affect us all in relationships and the skills that will expand your Self & relational care practices. This podcast is not a substitute for counseling with a licensed provider.  

Shena Tubbs, Relational Trauma and Love Addiction Expert, Coach, and LPC joins us to talk about how early trauma manifests in our adult relationships, recreating a cycle from childhood. As Shena shares, healing begins with getting the language and words around family trauma and what did/didn’t happen. Persistent love addiction/love avoidant adult relationships are often a recreation of early trauma, of seeking out people that would do the same, in hopes that it will turn out differently. Shena is the host of the Black Girls Heal podcast and the founder of Black Girls Heal, an online community dedicated to helping women of color break the cycles of unavailable relationships & love addiction, heal unresolved childhood trauma and improve their self love to make way for the love they want.   RESOURCES: Find Shena Tubbs’ Podcast, Recovery School, Self-Love Intensive, and Mini Program 'The Healed and Loved Woman', online at BlackGirlsHeal.org   Learn more about Rebecca’s connectfulness counseling practice at connectfulness.com/work-with-me and explore her upcoming online offerings:  Essential Skills Relationship Bootcamp October 24-25,2020This is an authorized presentation of Terry Real's Essential Skills Relationship Bootcamp. Open to individuals, couples and therapists. Through a combination of lecture, role-play, small group exercises and personal work, this workshop will help you to attain the relationships you want in your life.  Supporting Your Relational Self 6-week-online-course focuses on your relationship to Self, other intimate relations, and will help participants cultivate practices to sustain during these chaotic times filled with pandemic, uprising and beyond. Based on the teachings of Pia Mellody, we'll explore core issues that affect us all in relationships and the skills that will expand your Self & relational care practices.   This podcast is not a substitute for counseling with a licensed provider. Join our conversation on instagram & leave us a review on apple podcasts.

This episode highlights helpful ways to tend to our selves, reclaim power, and perhaps help us soothe our selves when we don’t have the power to change our situation. My guest, Dr. Jane Tornatore is a Therapist & Speaker Seattle, WA. A recovering perfectionist, she knows the pain of being bogged down by old beliefs and never quite measuring up to expectations. She supports people in converting outdated patterns and stress into more freedom, joy, and authenticity that come from being gentler with the self and living more from the heart.  We recorded this episode in February 2020. I’ve been holding onto it given all that’s been uprooted in the world. Contextually, the world was different when we recorded this episode and I wonder how a world filled with pandemic and uprising might have altered the core our discussion.    RESOURCES: Find Jane online at EveryDayLove.me and at DoctorTornatore.com  Grab a copy of Jane’s book Everything is PERFECT, Just not ME!: A Roadmap to Self-Acceptance   Learn more about my connectfulness counseling practice at connectfulness.com/work-with-me.  Supporting Your Relational Self is a 6-week online group for women starting later this month. Our focus is on your relationship to your Self, your other intimate relations, and we’ll explore core issues that affect us all in relationships and the skills that will expand your Self & relational care practices.  You also may recall that just before quarantine I gathered with Terry Real and fellow Certified Relational Life Therapists for an in depth training. I’m now an authorized Relational Bootcamp Facilitator and this fall I’ll begin offering 2-day weekend Relational Bootcamps. I am planning my first Bootcamp Workshop for the Fall of 2020 online via zoom (so you can join from anywhere you have internet). I’ll post more information on my offerings/events page and you're welcome to send me a note if you want me to reach out with details when available.   This podcast is not a substitute for counseling with a licensed provider.

Systemic racism is real and deeply rooted in society. When we center our society around whiteness but don’t discuss it we’re ignoring the problem of racism. Distancing ourselves from the problem of racism is to perpetuate it by allowing countless more injustices to be committed. When we become conscious we can take responsibility and change course. The opposite of being a racist is not being not-racist. The opposite of being racist is being antiracist. In this episode, Robin Mallison Alpern, the Director of Training at the Center for the Study of White American Culture (CSWAC), joins me for a conversation about the work involved in de-centering whiteness and being anti-racist.  It’s important to acknowledge that we’re two white woman having this conversation. Listening to this episode, allow yourself to open to new information.   RESOURCES:  Visit the Center for the Study of White American Culture (CSWAC) at euroamerican.org for books, workshops, and trainings.  SURJ: showingupforracialjustice.org The Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture The Culture of White Supremacy Healing Your Thousand-Year-Old Trauma by Resmaa Menakem CSWAC offers this book database for a deeper dive   RELEVANT PAST EPISODES: Mending Racialized Trauma: A Body Centered Approach with Resmaa Menakem Peeling Back the Layers of Multicultural Competence with Sonya Lott, PhD Liberation-Focused Healing: A Call to Action With Shawna Murray-Browne   Learn more about Rebecca’s connectfulness counseling practice at connectfulness.com/work-with-me.  This podcast is not a substitute for counseling with a licensed provider. Join our conversation on instagram & leave us a review on apple podcasts.

In this episode relationship therapist and host, Rebecca Wong, talked with Emily Nagoski, New York Times bestselling author of Come As You Are & Burnout. It goes without saying that we’re all living in a deepened state of stress in this pandemic time. Emily helps us to understand how stress affects sex and learn more about what we can do to reclaim confidence and joy and transform our sex lives.   Resources: Emily Nagoski’s mission in life is to teach women to live with confidence and joy inside their bodies. Learn more about her work at: emilynagoski.com Learn more about Rebecca’s connectfulness counseling practice, intensives, and our collective for therapists in private practice at connectfulness.com/work-with-me. This episode is brought to you in partnership with Coronavirus Online Therapy, a volunteer-based, nonprofit organization developed to connect essential workers across the United States with free or low-cost online therapy during the coronavirus pandemic. Learn more at coronavirusonlinetherapy.org.   This podcast is not a substitute for counseling with a licensed provider.

I'd like to introduce you to TMI Project, a nonprofit near and dear to my heart, that uses writing and true storytelling for social justice movement building, to ignite human connection and as a healing modality for personal transformation. I have gone through the workshop as a participant and became a trained facilitator of their methodology. I recently sat down with Eva Tenuto, the co-founder and executive director of TMI Project, to talk about how storytelling can enhance connection and resilience during times of social isolation.    Resources:  Eva Tenuto is the co-founder and executive director of TMI Project, a non-profit organization offering transformative storytelling workshops and performances in which storytellers divulge the parts of their stories that they usually leave out. Since 2010, Eva has brought TMI Project from her living room to a host of performance spaces, high schools, colleges, detention centers, mental health facilities, theaters and the United Nations. Eva is the editor and director of multiple solo shows, one of which was awarded Best Comedic Script of 2014 in the United Solo Festival. Her directorial film debut, Vicarious Resilience, a docu-short, celebrated its world premiere at The Woodstock Film Festival in 2018. Her essays have appeared in assorted anthologies and at Longreads.com.​ Learn more at evatenuto.com and TMIproject.org   While these discussions will guide you into the Connectfulness Practice, the podcast is not meant to be a substitute for counseling from a licensed provider. Reach out. Initiate the ripple.   Learn more about my connectfulness counseling practice, intensives, and our collective for therapists in private practice at connectfulness.com/work-with-me.    This episode is brought to you in partnership with Coronavirus Online Therapy a nonprofit organization with pending 501(c)(3) status whose mission is to deliver free or low-cost online therapy by licensed professionals in all 50 states to essential workers during the coronavirus pandemic. If you’re on the front lines seeking a referral, if you’re a therapist who’d like to join the initiative, or if you’re interested in getting involved in another way, go to coronavirusonlinetherapy.org.   Please support the show by sharing and reviewing the episode.

Juliane Taylor Shore, LPC, LMFT, SEP (AKA Jules) joins Rebecca to discuss the impact of being quarantined at home, experiencing isolation, fear and grief. How these experiences work in tandem with our implicit memory systems, and the effect it all has on our relationships. It's such a quick process, we can’t preempt it. Instead the focus shifts towards slowing down and coming into enough relationship with ourselves that our brains hook back on. In order hold this level of fear and grief, we need to practice a lot of grace around how often we all will be flipping into protective systems — into neuroceptive danger — it’s constant right now. Jules breaks down Polyvagal Theory for us, a theory of the evolution of the autonomic nervous system and she’s shared a PDF so you can follow along (click here to download). Jules is a therapist and trainer of therapists in Austin, Texas. She specializes in applying Interpersonal Neurobiology to the healing of trauma and the creation of relational health with the people who comes and see her from all over to do depth work in a brief format. To date, all of Jules’ trainings have been offered in person, but she’s planning to offer online trainings within the year.  If you want to join her mailing list email Jules@IPNBaustin.com with the subject line “mailing list” and she'll be happy to make sure you know about offerings once a quarter or so. Find Jules online at IPNBaustin.com Learn more about my connectfulness counseling practice, intensives, and our collective for therapists in private practice at connectfulness.com/work-with-me.  This episode is brought to you in partnership with Coronavirus Online Therapy, a collective of thousands of experienced, licensed, private practice therapists who provide free/reduced cost short term online therapy to those serving on the front lines in all 50 US states. If you’re on the front lines, or a therapist who’d like to join the initiative, go to CoronavirusOnlineTherapy.com to learn more. The podcast is not meant to be a substitute for counseling from a licensed provider. Support the show by sharing and reviewing the episode.

Dr. Shideh Lennon, a clinical psychologist and Somatic Experiencing practitioner, joins us to discuss how to embody resilience during the current COVID-19 pandemic. We're talking about simple practices that we can use to bring ourselves back into our bodies. We’re still going to feel it all, but these tools may help increase our capacity by being our biggest, best selves so that we may bear and be with all that's arising. Resources: Dr. Lennon’s website: slennonphd.com While these discussions will guide you into the Connectfulness Practice, the podcast is not meant to be a substitute for counseling from a licensed provider. Reach out. Initiate the ripple. Learn more about my connectfulness counseling practice, intensives, and our collective for therapists in private practice at connectfulness.com/work-with-me.  This episode is brought to you by: Therapy Notes is a simple, secure, EHR platform that keeps you organized and creates a container for all details that run a private practice -- so you can tend to what really matters. Use the promo code connectfulness and get two months free when you sign up at therapynotes.com   Coronavirus Online Therapy is a collective made up of thousands of experienced, licensed private practice therapists who provide free/reduced cost short term online therapy to those serving on the front lines in all 50 US states. If you’re on the front lines, or a therapist who’d like to join the initiative, go to CoronavirusOnlineTherapy.com to learn more.  

Dr. Rebecca Jorgensen, or Becca, joins me to discuss how to avoid common pitfalls and achieve more secure relationships. Becca shares from the EFT (Emotionally Focused Therapy) perspective that, being human, we all need to feel secure. Our initial insecurities often develop into defensive, protective strategies born from the pain of trying to be seen and heard. The thing is, these strategies makes it difficult for people to come close to us, or for us to maintain connection. When we feel sensitive and insecure, we automatically put up our guard up, go behind a wall, or get critical of others and push them behind a wall, and when we do, we block ourselves from having what we need the most, secure connection. We block ourselves because our insecurities have hardwired into us ways of coping with that inadvertently increase our pain and loneliness. This is where the work of secure relationships comes back to developing self awareness. I hope this conversation helps to cultivate a safe sacred space for you to develop awareness and deepen your security in relationship.    resources:  Dr. Rebecca Jorgensen is certified by the International Center for Excellence in EFT (Emotionally Focused Therapy) as a Therapist, Supervisor of Therapists, and Trainer. She trains therapists and psychologists (nationally and internationally) to do effective couple therapy and work with especially difficult cases. Dr. Jorgensen works and co-presents with Dr. Sue Johnson, the Emotionally Focused Therapy originator and developer of the Hold Me Tight© Relationship Enhancement Program. She’s also the cocreator of the Building A Lasting Connection Premarital and Newlywed education program and Connection System. And regularly works with couples who want to heal affairs, sexual addiction, couple distress and childhood trauma. Learn more about her work at: drrebeccajorgensen.com and buildingalastingconnection.com. And find her on social media at: instagram.com/eftdoc and facebook.com/eftdoc.   While these discussions will guide you into the Connectfulness Practice, the podcast is not meant to be a substitute for counseling from a licensed provider. Reach out. Initiate the ripple. Learn more about my connectfulness counseling practice, intensives, and our collective for therapists in private practice at connectfulness.com/work-with-me.  This episode is brought to you by Therapy Notes. Therapy Notes is a simple, secure, EHR platform that keeps you organized and creates a container for all details that run a private practice -- so you can tend to what really matters. Use the promo code connectfulness and get two months free when you sign up at therapynotes.com   After listening, we invite you to deepen into the discussion with us on instagram and please support the show by sharing and reviewing the episode.

The family system is the first filter children experience the world through, it informs the senses and creates the meaning from which each of us understand the “me”, our unique “who I am.” It’s up to parents to reach in and help the growing child navigate their reality —but that‘s not what usually happens— usually parents try to make the child become what the parent needs the child to be so that the parent is comfortable.  In this episode, my teacher, Jan Bergstrom, LMHC will help us understand how the Self exists in relation to our own perceptions, our own thoughts, our own experiences, and our own souls. Jan is an expert in field of codependency, developmental and relational trauma in the lineage of Pia Mellody, a pioneer in treating the affects of childhood trauma in adults. We'll go into depth about the 5 Core Practices for Becoming Your Healthiest Self. After all, that’s the journey each of us is on —to discover the Self— it’s the crux of our lives. How do we know the Self? How do we know who we are? What creates a sense of Self, protects a sense of Self, gets in the way of developing a sense of Self, and what practices help to bring us back to our sense of Self. Resources: Jan’s book “Gifts from a Challenging Childhood: Creating a Practice for Becoming Your Healthiest Self” is available on amazon. Jan’s clinical practice Healing Trauma Network is a directory that can help you to locate a trauma healing professional that utilize Pia Mellody’s Post Induction Therapy (PIT) model. Healing Our Core Issues Institute (HOCII) trains therapists to work effectively with developmental and relational trauma using Pia Mellody’s integrative Post Induction Therapy model. Pia Mellody   February 27-29th, 2020 I’m hosting a 3-day intensive trauma healing workshop, “Reclaiming Our Power,” based on the treatment model developed by Pia Mellody. It will be facilitated by another of my teachers, Kim Ploussard, LMHC, I’ll be assisting. To register or for more information send us a message at hello@connectfulness.com space is limited.    While these discussions will guide you into the Connectfulness Practice, the podcast is not meant to be a substitute for counseling from a licensed provider. Reach out. Initiate the ripple. Learn more about my connectfulness counseling practice, intensives, and our collective for therapists in private practice at connectfulness.com/work-with-me.    This episode is brought to you by Therapy Notes. Therapy Notes is a simple, secure, EHR platform that keeps you organized and creates a container for all details that run a private practice -- so you can tend to what really matters. Use the promo code connectfulness and get two months free when you sign up at therapynotes.com     After listening, we invite you to deepen into the discussion with us on instagram and please support the show by sharing and reviewing the episode.

This is a powerful discussion about the ways each of us dances with power and privilege. How the very ways we are oppressed have possibly become how we oppress others, and also ourselves. And the liberation that begins when we remove the blinders and really see ourselves in each other. I’m talking with Dr. Sonya Lott, a licensed psychologist in private practice with a specialization in complicated grief, the host of the Reflections on Multicultural Competence podcast, and the founder of CEMPSYCH, LLC, (Continuing Education in Multicultural Psychology). She's on a mission to transform the narratives created about ourselves and others through the socialization process and our experiences with power, privilege, and marginalization based on our many intersecting cultural identities. As Dr. Lott says, “It's messy, trying to connect, to be in relationship — it's about being a relationship with oneself first and then with other people. Being able to show up in this vulnerable way. It's not you have a problem. We have a problem. How can we transform ourselves? And the work we do is with other people, by holding each other. Holding safe, sacred, brave spaces. We can't transform what comes up if we don't sit with it.” Resources:  Visit Dr. Sonya Lott's website for more information about her clinical practice at: drsonyalott.com Learn more about CEMPSYCH, LLC, Continuing Education in Multicultural Psychology at: cempsych.com Listen to Dr. Sonya Lott’s podcast: Reflections on Multicultural Competence podcast While these discussions will guide you into the Connectfulness Practice, the podcast is not meant to be a substitute for counseling from a licensed provider. Reach out. Initiate the ripple. Learn more about my connectfulness counseling practice and our collective for therapists in private practice at connectfulness.com/work-with-me.  This episode is brought to you by Therapy Notes. Therapy Notes is a simple, secure, EHR platform that keeps you organized and creates a container for all details that run a private practice -- so you can tend to what really matters. Use the promo code connectfulness and get two months free when you sign up at therapynotes.com   After listening, we invite you to deepen into the discussion with us on instagram and please support the show by sharing and reviewing the episode.

This is part 2 of Unraveling The Survival Knot with Hedy Schleifer. If you haven’t already tuned into part 1 of this series, we recommend you begin there. We’re diving even deeper into the process of being a host/visitor and opening ourselves to each others deepest truths, to our own deepest truths, on a level where we may not have exposed ourselves to that in the past. Hedy Schleifer is an internationally renowned relationship builder and motivational speaker who guides, counsels and teaches couples, partners, business associates, therapists and families about relational maturity. Hedy is the founder of the Encounter-centered Couples Transformation approach (EcCT). An integrative and interdisciplinary model that lies at the intersection of philosophy, clinical theory, organizational methodology, and relational neurobiology and memory reconsolidation. Hedy guides partners through what she calls the “Art of Connection,” teaching them how to turn their relationship into a living laboratory for the development of relational intelligence: how to fill their partnership with creativity, wisdom and generosity of spirit. Relational intelligence puts partners on the path to relational maturity and is at the core of having successful relationships both personally and professionally.  Resources:  Hedy’s training for therapists (and their partners) in Durham NC Jan 10-12, 2019 Hedy’s website: hedyschleifer.com While these discussions will guide you into the Connectfulness Practice, the podcast is not meant to be a substitute for counseling from a licensed provider. Reach out. Initiate the ripple. Learn more about my connectfulness counseling practice and our collective for therapists in private practice at connectfulness.com/work-with-me.  This episode is brought to you by Therapy Notes. Therapy Notes is a simple, secure, EHR platform that keeps you organized and creates a container for all details that run a private practice -- so you can tend to what really matters. Use the promo code connectfulness and get two months free when you sign up at therapynotes.com   After listening, we invite you to deepen into the discussion with us on instagram and please support the show by sharing and reviewing the episode.

I’m joined by Hedy Schleifer, an internationally renowned relationship builder and motivational speaker who guides, counsels and teaches couples, partners, business associates, therapists and families about relational maturity.  Hedy is the founder of the Encounter-centered Couples Transformation approach (EcCT). An integrative and interdisciplinary model that lies at the intersection of philosophy, clinical theory, organizational methodology, and relational neurobiology and memory reconsolidation. Hedy guides partners through what she calls the “Art of Connection,” teaching them how to turn their relationship into a living laboratory for the development of relational intelligence: how to fill their partnership with creativity, wisdom and generosity of spirit. Relational intelligence puts partners on the path to relational maturity and is at the core of having successful relationships both personally and professionally. Hedy believes that world peace begins with the human family, and she teaches how to honor the sacred relational space between us. The philosophy behind her approach is based on a saying by Martin Buber, “your relationship lives in the space between you.” When we don’t know how to hold the relational space as sacred, we pollute it. And so, this is what we dive into throughout this two part interview: how to make conscious, intentional steps towards creating sacred relational space, and how to remember (to become a member again) of the human family. As we begin, Hedy mentions that in his book “The Tipping Point,” Malcolm Gladwell says when 3% of the population does something it can become an epidemic. Hedy proposes that if 3% of the population around the world knows how to hold the space between us as sacred in a conscious intentional way it will become a positive epidemic, and our planet becomes covered with sacred space.  The guiding principle to Hedy’s teachings is this, every couple has a survival dance and the survival dance will always disconnect you. It doesn’t matter who’s right, you know the saying, “you can either be right or married.” The survival dance will always disconnect you. What will connect you are three invisible connectors:  The 1st invisible connector is the consciousness that we are responsible, each one of us, for the sanctity of the space between us. Hedy says “the space between the couple is the playground for the child”. Knowing how to honor and sanctify the space between.  The 2nd invisible connector is the bridge between the couple. “Only incompatible people fall in love with each other.” We see those parts of ourselves that we’ve disconnected from and we fall in love with those parts in our partners to fall back in love with our own wholeness. Getting to know one another’s worlds. One partner hosts, the other visits. As we learn each other’s language we can come back to our potential and our wholeness. The bridge helps couples become bilingual and learn each other’s languages.  The 3rd invisible connector is a deep presence, a being with, the zone of the encounter between the host and the visitor. It’s through these three invisible connectors that Hedy teaches when you honor the space and you cross the bridge you create the conditions for the encounter in an intentional manner so you’re not an accidental tourist. Hedy has an exceptionally playful way of teaching couples the distinction between process and content so they can step out of the content and observe their survival dance. And in this way, they develop the relational muscle that says STOP to the survival dance. Through humor and adventure, Hedy guides couples into curiosity while simultaneously setting boundaries in their work. As Hedy says, “partnership is not a problem to be solved, it’s an adventure to be lived!” And this is what she shows us how to do using 3 metaphors: The Art of Hosting: It’s taking someone into your world and being transparent and truthful. Often we don’t know our own truth, in hosting we explore our truth in the most vulnerable way, it’s a contradiction to how we’ve learned to be in the world: I can be myself with you and I can learn who my Self is with you. I can explore and find myself with you. As a host, you explore your truth as needed and eventually express your truth in 5 words or less. It’s challenging and you’ll get better at this with practice. The Art of Visiting: Visiting requires leaving the world you know, crossing the bridge as a new person in the NOW. Learning to be truly present in the present and allow your own world to be the past once you cross the bridge. Visiting requires one to learn to be truly present in the present and allowing your own world to disappear.  Neighborhoods: Each person is like a big, big world that’s expanding — our world is filled with neighborhoods that we can host and visit with our partners. This episode is infused with Hedy’s story of how she’s both taught and used these techniques in her work and personal life. Unraveling the survival knot occurs when couples already know how to visit each other’s various neighborhoods, only then can they go to each other’s toughest neighborhoods. In the toughest neighborhood you are most triggered by each other. The unraveling is a 6 hour process of memory reconsolidation. Hedy’s purpose is for the couple to show up with a completely new brain at the end of that journey. A reconsolidated brain in which the old beliefs have actually been erased and a new understanding of “who I am,” “who you are,” and “what relationship is” is actually wired into the brain. But Hedy doesn’t do the unraveling with every couple, because it takes a certain foundation. As Hedy says “every couple is capable but not ever couple is ready — the readiness is what we’re working on.” Hedy begins guiding her couples into their precious neighborhoods, and then into a neighborhood of challenge. It’s harder to visit a neighborhood of challenge than a precious neighborhood. So Hedy is watching how ready couples are to go into the unraveling while they explore their first 2 neighborhoods. “If being witness is still challenging, if I don’t yet explore the depth of my truth, if I don’t let yet let in completely, if you can’t… then we need to continue and visit other neighborhoods.” Hedy also shares with us how she guides couples to visit neighborhoods of childhood —using a 21st century time machine— and it’s profoundly moving. A consciously created sacred relational encounter full of archetypal story medicine in where partners become the heros the champions “and say the very things that have lived inside their partner, the partner that’s a child, for such a long time and has never been able to be pronounced.” It changes the narrative from one of isolation and walls towards one of intimacy, in-to-me-you-see… In part 2 we’ll talk about how to create the encounter zone in the toughest neighborhood, stay tuned! After listening, we invite you to deepen into the discussion with us on instagram. Support the show by sharing and reviewing the episode.   Resources:  Find Hedy online at: hedyschleifer.com While these discussions will guide you into the Connectfulness Practice, the podcast is not meant to be a substitute for counseling from a licensed provider. Reach out. Initiate the ripple. Learn more about my connectfulness counseling practice and our collective for therapists in private practice at connectfulness.com/work-with-me. This episode is brought to you by Therapy Notes. Therapy Notes is a simple, secure, EHR platform that keeps you organized and creates a container for all details that run a private practice -- so you can tend to what really matters. Use the promo code connectfulness and get two months free when you sign up at therapynotes.com  

In this month's episode I'm joined by Maya Luna, a Feminine Mystic and a Poet exploring the Tantric Path and Feminine Embodiment. We muse about our collective hunger for deep acceptance of who we really are. Our fear of letting go, of surrendering, and of softening into the moment. The masculine conditioning that’s taught us we have to keep doing, and controlling, and making life happen, and if we don't we're going to die. The deep feminine is the soulful nourishment of being we are craving. All our doing is an attempt to experience fulfillment. And the truth is that the feeling of fulfillment and satisfaction is available unconditionally in every moment no matter what. We experience it through the technology of slowing down, opening the body and surrendering. By meeting what’s actually here — even when it’s pain and discomfort — by actually letting the moment in, to experience it and be penetrated by it’s nectar. There are so many gifts and delicious nuggets tucked into this episode, be sure to listen to catch them all!   Resources:  Find Maya’s online course Holy Fire: Resurrecting the Deep Feminine at: deepfemininemysteryschool.com Find Maya’s poetry: depravedanddivine.com Find Maya’s spoken word album: mayaluna.bandcamp.com While these discussions will guide you into the Connectfulness Practice, the podcast is not meant to be a substitute for counseling from a licensed provider. Reach out. Initiate the ripple. Learn more about my connectfulness counseling practice and our collective for therapists in private practice at connectfulness.com. This episode is brought to you by Therapy Notes. Therapy Notes is a simple, secure, EHR platform that keeps you organized and creates a container for all details that run a private practice -- so you can tend to what really matters. Use the promo code connectfulness and get two months free when you sign up at therapynotes.com  

“Healing from white-body supremacy begins with the body — your body. But it does not end there. In order to heal the collective body that is America, we also need social activism that is body centered. We cannot individualize our way out of white-body supremacy. Nor can we merely strategize our way out. We need collective action — action that heals.” — Resmaa Menakem, My Grandmother’s Hands   Rebecca is joined by healer, author, and trauma specialist, Resmaa Menakem. Resmaa helps people, communities, and organizations find strength and healing that’s both holistic and resilient. He’s authored 3 books and today’s discussion is centered around his most recent: My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies. Resmaa shares that in order to mend racialized trauma we need to move the conversation from race to culture and cultivate a somatic abolitionist mindset and community. And a big part of that work lies in doing our own reps to learn what to pay attention to and then doing the reps with each other’s nervous systems so we can create a culture that knows what to pay attention to. Otherwise it’s just strategy. As you’ll discover, the wisdom within the book is ancestral, it has always existed and was both nurtured and drawn out of Resmaa by his elders over a long period of time, through repetition, through admonishment, through being held, and loved, and corrected.    This interview was recorded in July 2019, before the shootings in Gilroy, CA; El Paso, TX; and Dayton, OH.   Resources: Connect with Resmaa: resmaa.com While these discussions will guide you into the Connectfulness Practice, the podcast is not meant to be a substitute for counseling from a licensed provider. Reach out. Initiate the ripple. Learn more about my connectfulness counseling practice and our collective for therapists in private practice at connectfulness.com. This episode is brought to you by Therapy Notes. Therapy Notes is a simple, secure, EHR platform that keeps you organized and creates a container for all details that run a private practice -- so you can tend to what really matters. Use the promo code connectfulness and get two months free when you sign up at therapynotes.com     And if you’re local to New Paltz, NY and are interested in the deep community work Resmaa guides us into in My Grandmother’s Hands, contact Rebecca so we can coordinate local meetings. 

   Rebecca is joined by John Eric Baugher, a scholar, writer and teacher exploring the transformative possibilities of contemplative end of life care. His book, Contemplative Caregiving offers encouragement to show up in the fullness of life. This is an in-person (one microphone) interview and it’s a long one.    In this episode ... John asks us to contemplate questions like “would you be without your grief?” and Rebecca shares her own contemplations.  In regards to measuring quality of life, we discuss the power of mining life’s suffering, because this is often where contentment, joy, meaning comes from. End-of-life care introduces us to the natural cycle of life. There is no giving without receiving. We explore “reciprocity of care” through illustrative stories regarding end of life care. This is also a conversation around relational equality, dignity and mutual vulnerability.  The word Hospice, implies both guest and host. The founders of the hospice movement, meant it to be a transformational space. Perhaps this is what we’re missing in today’s culture. Don’t we need to be thinking more about the mutual reciprocity of relationships in our life? Reverence: a sense of awe for what is.  The discernment and attunement required in the process of being with and caring for another.  ““This is where he ended, and I needed to begin.”  Tom, in an interview with John. John and Rebecca discuss the profundity of Tom’s insight into his very first patient he was caring for. The caregiving became a path of self-illumination. Symbolic acts that get coded as “care”. Care can sometimes be driven by our incapacity or inability or unwillingness to recognize that a loved one is exiting soon.  What’s an appropriate response today might not be an appropriate response tomorrow.  Hospice caregiving in prison: when caregivers, who are also prisoners, apprehend their own humanity.  Caregiving is a privilege that can transform a life.  John discusses the power that anger can have, and the sickness that can come with it when we try to bypass the fullness of our grief, which can include anger. Radical compassion and having more healthy encounters. Loving our imperfect care, rejuvenation and depletion, and seeing our own mind and our own heart as we’re caring. Hearing “That’s her baseline” as a euphemism, and the ensuing fear and feeling of powerless. Reflecting on changing the language. To care is what makes us fundamentally human. We are connected by suffering. Listen to the entire episode to discover your own valuable insights and understanding on this topic and share it with loved ones!   Resources: Find out more about John’s work at https://johnericbaugher.com/   John’s Book: Contemplative Caregiving: Finding Healing, Compassion, and Spiritual Growth through End-of-Life Care   Thank you to our sponsor, TherapyNotes. Therapists, you can get two free months of TherapyNotes and a free data import after signing up for a free trial by going to www.therapynotes.com and using promo code: connectfulness   Learn more about Rebecca’s relationship therapy practice and intensive couples retreat experiences in NY at connectfulness.com   Root in with Rebecca’s Connectfulness® Collective for therapists in private practice at: connectfulness.com/collective   We’re calling together 6 women for a deep collective, Wisdom Within, process group with Rebecca. We begin September 2019 in New Paltz, NY.   Follow us @connectfulness on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.  

In this episode we’re reframing how to prepare parents for parenthood and dispelling the myth that you can't prepare for parenthood.  Our last few episodes have been about why relationships are difficult and inherited family trauma and as we dive into this content, we keep coming back to how significant the first 3-5 years of a child’s life and if we’re not preparing parents, it’s rippling … and so, we’re talking about creating a movement, a seed planting movement that literally prepares people to become parents. Rebecca is joined by Elly Taylor, perinatal relationship expert, author and founder of Becoming Us™ and Barb Buckner Suárez, health educator, writer, presenter, couples coach and Becoming Us™ facilitator and mentor. With Elly’s based in Australia, Barb in Portland Oregon, and Rebecca in NY, we’re literally holding a round-the-world, round-table discussion. Rebecca leads us into the framework for this round-table discussion with a reading from Elly’s book, Becoming Us: 8 Steps to Grow a Family That Thrives:  "I discovered this: becoming a family pulls apart that structure of a couple’s partnership; the transition tips them into a new life stage as individuals and a new relationship stage at the same time. Parenthood affects both mother’s and father’s sense of identity and self-esteem; it can change the balance of power in between them and also disrupt their sense of connection." The Becoming Us™ model harnesses the neurological changes that primes parents for bonding with the baby to create an opportunity for couples to more deeply bond with each other. The model also helps parents learn skills that will help them as they cycle through each transitional stage of life to come. And understanding these stages and planting the seeds may potentially have an impact on the legacy of future generations.   In this episode; Elly, Barb and Rebecca discuss:   How the 8 stages of Becoming Us™ prepare parents for the normal challenges and changes of becoming a family. Debunk the notion that nothing can prepare people for parenthood and we talk about what can. How we're setting expectant and new parents up for failure. Statics show that 92% of couples report increased conflict and differences on the other side of having a baby yet most couples think something is wrong with them! Reframing expectations around how to prepare parents for parenthood and becoming a family. How significant the first 3-5 years of a child’s life are and why. What a secure attachment bond is and how to create that with your child, and how parents are biologically primed to be more securely bonded as a couple as they become parents. The Becoming Us™ model harnesses the neurological changes that primes parents for bonding with the baby to create an opportunity for couples to more deeply bond with each other. The model also helps parents learn skills that will help them as they cycle through each transitional stage of life to come. We break down the 8 stages of Becoming Us™: preparing parents for parenthood, building a nest, managing expectations, setting up base camp, embracing emotions, identity and self-esteem, navigating differences and repair, and intimacy Real life expectations we may have of becoming new parent and how to manage them. Getting support through your community instead of the “system” and why that’s important. Learn the difference between “visitors” vs “helpers” as a new parent. Defining self-care as it directly relates for you, your parenting and your relationship with your partner. How becoming a new family/parent(s) can affect your self-esteem and balance of power in your relationship. Seed planting brings expectations in line with reality. Elly’s vision is to help professionals who work with expecting or new parents to plant seeds and create community to help parents reset their expectation of new normal.   Listen to the entire episode to discover your own valuable insights and understanding on this topic and share it with loved ones!   Resources:  Elly’s Book: Becoming Us, 8 Steps to Grow a Family That Thrives Find out more about Elly’s work on the Becoming Us Family website: https://becomingusfamily.com/ Elly is heading over to the US for a seed planting workshop tour, catch her LIVE trainings in Denver, Chicago, New York, Atlanta, Texas, Portland, and a handful of stops through-out California: https://becomingusfamily.com/live-events Find out more about Barb’s work at https://bbsuarez.com/ Learn more about the upcoming Becoming Us Retreat   Thank you to our sponsor, TherapyNotes. Therapists, you can get two free months of TherapyNotes and a free data import after signing up for a free trial by going to www.therapynotes.com and using promo code: connectfulness      Learn more about Rebecca’s relationship therapy practice and intensive couples retreat experiences in NY at connectfulness.com Join our Connectfulness® Community connectfulness.com/community Follow us @connectfulness on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Root in with Rebecca’s Connectfulness® Collective for therapists in private practice at: connectfulness.com/collective  

Have you ever said something like “I’m just wired this way” in response to someone asking why you can’t just relax and go with the flow more? Maybe you’re scared of certain smells, places, uniforms, noises and other common things found in everyday life without knowing where you developed that particular aversion. As we discussed in our last episode, our brains hold onto the negative experiences for survival -- they become a reference guide to navigating life. But what if we don’t know why we’re reacting negatively towards the mere thought of these scenarios?   Recently, I sat down with Mark Wolynn and dove into the topic of inherited family trauma and the science behind epigenetics. You won’t want to miss this discussion as I am sure you’ll be just as fascinated as I was with what Mark shares in regards to where our fears and stress triggers come from and what we can do about breaking the pattern for ourselves and loved ones.   Mark Wolynn is the director of the Family Constellation Institute in San Francisco. He is a leading expert in the field of inherited family trauma. His book It Didn't Start With You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle  is the winner of the 2016 Nautilus Book Award in psychology, and has been translated into 15 languages.   In this episode, Mark and I discuss:   What happens during a trauma. What it means to have inherited family trauma. What an inherited stress response is. How we can understand what, if any, stress response or trauma response are actually really our own. How our own language can affect our personal body response to trauma. Breaking down verbal and nonverbal trauma languages into what Mark calls Core Languages. How the relationship between ourselves and our parents affect our current relationships. The scientific research and studies behind inherited family trauma. What an epigenetic tag is & how we can benefit from epigenetic changes. “Trigger ages” and “event triggers” that may shed light on your own triggers. What this means for people who were adopted and do not have access to their family of origin’s medical/health records. How brain development is impacted starting in utero and grows throughout childhood. How the amygdala, prefrontal cortex & hippocampus develop & process trauma and what that means for us. How we can heal as person(s) suffering from inherited family trauma. Tips on how to break the cycle of inherited family trauma. Combining our breath with sensation and awareness, we can then weave in meaning and are able to integrate more positive experiences. 70% of couples problems have nothing to do with partners. The work of opening is YOUR responsibility.   Listen to the entire episode to discover your own valuable insights and understanding on this topic and share it with loved ones!   Resources: Find out more about Mark’s work at https://www.markwolynn.com/   Mark’s Book: It Didn’t Start With You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle   Read Rebecca’s personal story “Liberation: a love story (and a reckoning)” on how inherited family trauma has showed up in her life, recently published on Longreads.com!       Thank you to our sponsor, TherapyNotes. Therapists, you can get two free months of TherapyNotes and a free data import after signing up for a free trial by going to www.therapynotes.com and using promo code: connectfulness       Learn more about Rebecca’s relationship therapy practice and intensive couples retreat experiences in NY at connectfulness.com   Join our Connectfulness® Community connectfulness.com/community   Follow us @connectfulness on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.   Root in with Rebecca’s Connectfulness® Collective for therapists in private practice at: connectfulness.com/collective  

If you've ever wondered "why are relationships difficult?" you'll want to catch this episode with Dr. Stan Tatkin. We start with an exploration of how our species’ survival relies on an inborn negativity bias and how this same mechanism makes relationships difficult and more challenging to sustain under stress. Everyone’s experienced some form of relational loss and developmental trauma. And so, with this in mind, we’re also discussing how early development shapes each of us and our ability to self-regulate and foster safe, secure, adult romantic relationships. Stan Tatkin, PsyD, MFT, is a clinician, teacher, and developer of a Psychobiological Approach to Couple Therapy. He is also the author of several books on aspects of love and relationships, with his most recent one being We Do: Saying Yes to a Relationship of Depth, True Connection, and Enduring Love. Through his clinical practice in Calabasas, CA, workshops, couples’ retreats, and the PACT Institute, Stan and his wife, Tracey, train psychotherapists to use the PACT method in their clinical practices.   In this episode, Stan and I discuss: What the Psychobiological Approach is. The inability of people to act and react quickly and properly before they launch into a “fight or flight” response---or a collapse For the purpose of helping us understand, Dr. Tatkin simplifies how our neurobiology works down to the two areas of the brain: the ambassadors and the primitives For optimum arousal, we need all systems online at the same time, which takes alertness and relaxation Why we aren’t all set up for adult love relationships How we learn to self-regulate to prepare for adult relationships Why so many people don’t know how to get to a safe, secure place Stan’s “foxhole” illustration: are couples at war with each other in the foxhole or protecting one another How a dangerous environment makes people put aside their differences and work together How people manage relationships by learning to work together How a couple has to live by agreements that are good for both, like, “We protect each other in public and private” How memory perception and communication can get us into trouble The difference between co-dependency and interdependency How our trauma approach can lead to PTSD----and hugs, massage, and acupuncture can help much more than talking How people can ease into eye contact with each other The importance of play, which comes from feeling safe and secure Why people might have trouble with play “The window of tolerance” and what it means for couples Things that can compromise and narrow the window of tolerance How we miss much of the language used when we communicate in ways that don’t include eye contact, like phone calls, texting, and email Why experiencing trauma in life means a lot of re-regulating will need to take place Why most everything we suffer from is interpersonal Resources: www.thepactinstitute.com  Find out more about Stan’s practice, resources, books, retreats, and workshops We Do: Saying Yes to a Relationship of Depth, True Connection, and Enduring Love   Thank you to our sponsor, TherapyNotes. Get two free months of TherapyNotes and a free data import after signing up for a free trial by going to www.therapynotes.com and using promo code: connectfulness   Learn more about Rebecca’s relationship therapy practice and intensive couples retreat experiences in NY at connectfulness.com Join our Connectfulness® Community connectfulness.com/community Follow us @connectfulness on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Root in with Rebecca’s Connectfulness® Collective for therapists in private practice at: connectfulness.com/collective

Cyndi Darnell is an internationally renowned sex and relationship therapist. Her approach spans the clinical to the esoteric. She’s spearheading progressive sex & relationships seminars and workshops for adults and clinicians that deeply change people’s lives. Cyndi’s on a mission to eliminate stigma from discussions around sex, erotisim and pleasure and changing our fears and transform it into freedom.   In this episode: How the sexual revolution missed the boat to discuss pleasure (especially womxn’s pleasure) that center on what each individual’s motivation is.  Permission to own your motivation. Understanding the story that you’re holding onto that’s holding you back and causing you pain.  Cyndi shares her distinct definitions of love and sex (much like chocolate and red wine). Sex changes over time and so we continue to learn about ourselves.  The more we experience ourselves the more we understand our motivations.  Internal motivation is vital, know why you want things to change. Sex can be an opportunity to live a more visceral and colorful life. Erotic pleasure relates back to early childhood before we had stigmas, values and judgements placed upon us and receive the smiling gaze of another.  Societal misconceptions: the body is inherently dangerous and the intellect is superior.  How we participate in keeping myths alive by cutting ourselves off from our own bodies. How to reconnect the body through a daily practice of tuning into the body. Mastrubation as a way of intergrating erotic pleasure into your life,  “Erotic Self Care” Consent Culture and Sex Ed that goes beyond Abstinence, Reproduction and even Consent and includes Pleasure. Tea and Consent video made an assumption that everyone likes tea: oversimplification of consent being yes vs no The real question is ‘what kind of sex do you like?’ Cyndi says this is where the wheels come off for most people. Making a practice of talking about sex and erotism. Cyndi’s erotic awakening story. Coming back to the body, that’s where the wisdom is.    RESOURCES: Find Cyndi Darnell online at www.cyndidarnell.com Purchase Cyndi’s video series: The Atlas of Erotic Anatomy and Arousal If you long to know more about erotic desire, passion, what your turn-ons are and how to communicate them with your partner/s – then join Cyndi for The Desire Series. While these discussions will guide you into the Connectfulness Practice, the podcast is not meant to be a substitute for counseling from a licensed provider. Reach out. Initiate the ripple. Learn more about my connectfulness counseling practice and our collective for therapists in private practice here.

Mercedes Samudio, LCSW is a parent coach, speaker, bestselling author, and founder of the Diversity in Parenting conference who helps parents and children communicate with each other, manage emotional trauma, navigate social media and technology together, and develop healthy parent-child relationships. She started the #EndParentShaming movement and coined the term Shame-Proof Parenting — using both to bring awareness to ending parent shame. Mercedes is on a mission to empower parents in believing in their innate ability to guide and raise healthy, happy children.    In this episode, Mercedes Samudio and I discuss: Mercedes and I go back about 4 years and we’ve witnessed transformations in one another. As I’ve watched Mercedes root into all that she is professionally today her message has stayed consistent, how she embodies and delivers that message, however, has deepened and matured. Her confidence has evolved as she’s shed layers of who she thought she was suppose to be to become who she is.  Her passion, wanting to help families, is deeply tied to her own healing and her ability to reconcile healing her inner child and how not being scared to discuss her own healing has enabled her to feel more connected to and assertive of her overall message. Healing our own inner children is a critical topic that seems to come up in every episode of this show. Dispelling the myth that once you become a parent you’re something/someone else. Parents come with their own internal struggles to heal their own childhoods and it floods back in parenthood and how we don’t tend to give parents the space to heal, which is the same space we heal intergenerational traumas.  Parenting Identity is all the stuff that comes with the term parenting that you’ve created and held throughout your life: the parents you had, the people you watched parent, what culture and research says about parenting, what society says about parenting… and why it’s so important to reckon with these messages. The ongoing struggle to sit with our own imperfections, to-do lists, navigate parenthood and hold it all everyday and how to manage the complexities of deepened awarenesses.  We’ve bought into the myth that parenting has to mean something and the guilt, shame and fear that comes with that.  Her book, Shame Proof Parenting, and the journey that writing the book has taken her on. There is no A-Z process of raising a human because there is no A-Z process to being a human. And how the book is starting to shift mindsets.  Representation — the parenting world is predominately made up of White women and many modern parenting methods require you to be a part of a culture that sees you. When BIPOC, Adoptive, LGBTQ and Special-Needs mothers try to enter popular modern parenting realms, she may be the only one there, and the only one in her family/community that’s doing it and it can be really difficult to continue on in a space where there is no one else there that looks like you/understands your struggle.  We talk about how frustration fueled Mercedes to create the Diversity in Parenting Conference and what the conference is all about: if you’re a parenting or mental health professionals who is looking for more skills in how to work with diverse parents and family populations.  Deeper messages about why representation matters to help everyone feel validated and seen.    RESOURCES: Find Mercedes at shameproofparenting.com  Learn more about the Diversity in Parenting conference September 13-14, 2019 in Anaheim, CA at diversityinparentingconference.com (early bird tickets available through March 2019). Join Annie Schuessler and I for the Signature Retreat April 25-28, 2019 at Menla Resort in NY, learn more at connectfulness.com/signature-retreat Root in with my Connectfulness® Collective for therapists in private practice at: connectfulness.com/collective Learn more about my relationship therapy practice and intensive couples retreat in NY at connectfulness.com Join the Connectfulness® Community connectfulness.com/community Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook

Dr. Stephen Snyder is a sex and relationship therapist, Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, and the author of the acclaimed sex and relationship book, LOVE WORTH MAKING: How to Have Ridiculously Great Sex in a Long-Lasting Relationship.   In this episode, Dr Snyder and I discuss:   The nature of desire and why you don’t need it.  Why we make ourselves crazy trying to cultivate desire instead of a-tuning ourselves to our long term partners through mindful moments of inspiration.  Why frustration is a good thing in relationships. Why your goal should be to get dumb and happy with your partner (according to Dr. Synder, this is the ticket to keep a long term erotic connection simmering). How to be seen, speak up, and find your voice.  Selfishness + making it easy.  Focus on wanting to consuming your partner — eroticism is about taking selfish joy in the other person’s existence inside the bedroom. And outside the bedroom, being able to assert what you need, think and feel even when the other needs thinks and feels something different; this is what creates the core of the couples confidence and creativity together.  Why pressure tends to make the erotic mind rebel.  Dr Synder says “given that our erotic selves are ultimately such small children, what we really want to do is be good parents to our erotic children.”  And we also touch on setting limits for ourselves in the 21st century, especially when it comes to enactments.    RESOURCES: Find Dr Snyder online at loveworthmaking.com and sexualityresource.com Sometimes a change in surroundings can make all the difference. Come away with your partner and combine the core elements of a spa retreat with a personalized deep dive into Connectfulness® couple therapy, and return home restored and deeply aware of your relational patterns. I’m booking one Private Couples Intensive Retreat Experiences per month. Learn more at connectfulness.com/intensive Learn more about my relationship therapy practice in NY at connectfulness.com Join the Connectfulness® Community connectfulness.com/community Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook  

Susan Piver is a New York Times bestselling author of 9 books including her latest, The Four Noble Truths of Love: Buddhist Wisdom for Modern Relationships, and a renowned Buddhist teacher.  Susan joins me to talk about how to survive the inevitable discomfort of relationships and how she discovered what she’s called the Four Noble Truths of Love during a rough patch in her own marriage while thinking they might be through and not knowing where to begin. Which is when a voice whispered to Susan “begin at the beginning, at the beginning are four noble truths.”   In this episode, Susan Piver and I discuss: How to work with discomfort. Discernment is the byproduct of awareness, provides a sense of guidance and clarity. “I spent too many years trying to be a different kind of person.” --Susan Piver Awareness is an operating system that can help us to accept one another and make room for differences. I read and we discussed this passage from Susan’s book The Four Noble Truths of Love: Buddhist Wisdom for Modern Relationships, “Love seems custom made to evoke the deepest woundings and thereby forces you to choose over and over between you puny fearful self and your heroic genius self. The closer you get to another person the louder your sorrows shriek, the more frightened you become. The more you scare each other. All resulting in some very weird battles that have nothing to do with what’s actually happening.” The Four Noble Truths of Buddhism Life is suffering.  The cause of suffering. Grasping. The cessation of suffering. This condition can be alleviated. The path to no suffering. The noble eightfold path will lead you out of suffering. The eight steps are: Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, Right Concentration Susan’s Four Noble Truths of Love: The truth: Relationships are uncomfortable. The cause: Trying to make them comfortable is what makes them uncomfortable. The cessation: Meeting the discomfort together is love. How to work with it all: The eightfold path Compassion helps us to not see others behavior as a threat. Relationship suffering exposes everything about you.  How to soften into self and let yourself be as you are.  The importance of working on ourselves as individuals, how our minds mix, and why the way you talk to yourself is likely to bleed over into the way you talk to others.  “The more human I am, the more genuine I am, the less likely I am to weaponize my way of being against someone else.” --Susan Piver This is not a way to fix the mess, rather a a way to enter the mess.  What happens when we feel our feelings of unworthiness, stop fighting the feelings and relax with it and why doing so can help us to be more effective.  “Root of fearlessness is curiosity. Everybody knows how to be curious. Everyone can be fearless.” --Susan Piver Being really human in relationship with another person while you tolerate the discomfort, while you learn to soften and be kind towards yourself and one another even when you’re having all the big feelings. Susan’s Open Heart Project virtual mindfulness community.    RESOURCES: Find Susan online at susanpiver.com. Root in with Rebecca's Connectfulness® Collective for therapists in private practice at: connectfulness.com/collective Learn more about Rebecca's relationship therapy practice and intensive couples retreat in NY at connectfulness.com Join the Connectfulness® Community connectfulness.com/community Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook

Welcome to the Connectfulness Practice Podcast. Here we settle in to the murky, tangled, and freaking hard parts of life to restore our relationship with the self, so it can ripple out to the people we love, the work we do, and the world around us. We can’t fix what’s wrong if we can’t talk about it. We can’t move the conversation forward if we’re not willing to be real about where we are now. And unless we push the edges of what it means to connect, nothing will ever change. I’m your host, Rebecca Wong. Every month I invite a fabulous, big-thinking guest to join me to talk about what it means to be human together. We’ll have deep conversations about the big stuff –– life, love, and legacy –– and how you can foster connection for yourself. Let’s start to reconnect the world, one conversation at a time.   What to expect in future episodes:   We’ll be exploring how we talk to ourselves affect the world we live in and the relationships we have and stories we tell ourselves make up who we are how we show up in the world and how we continue to show up and the choices we make. They make up the biosphere, the air we breathe. How to soften our own edges and create space for growth and intimacy. I share a story about lobsters and how discomfort precedes growth, vulnerability, strength, confidence and intimacy.. I outline themes and topics we’ll be exploring in future episodes including the deep work of looking at ourselves in relationships, remembering who we are, exploring how do these ideas of who we are get formed, transgenerational trauma, epigenetics, neuroscience and creativity. My vision is to create a community to learn together, you’re invited to join the connectfulness® community. Expect new episodes to be released once-a-month. Write me and let me know what you’re thinking about and want to hear in future episodes.   RESOURCES: Learn more about working with me at connectfulness.com Join the Connectfulness® Community connectfulness.com/community Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook   MY GRATITUDES: Christy Haussler and my behind the scenes podcasting team. Sarah and Chris Faris and Kidneystone Studio for our delicious soundtrack music. Cover-art design by Blue Rabbit Studios, photo by Craig Strahorn.