Let me see if I can understand that. So if you are an adult now and your child is upset that you did not cut the sandwich into fours in triangles, which I completely understand, we were the sticks with no crust at our house. How dare you do anything else. And your child starts to get overwhelmed and stressed. It then triggers this stored experience for you. So you are still in your 1976 body. Yeah. Are you now just repeating what you saw the adults do?

In a way. So I'm extremely inspired by internal family systems and Dick Schwartz's way of understanding the mind and our body. And what he really explains so well is when we have an experience as a kid, and many, not one, where we essentially learn this part of me, the part that gets overwhelmed and doesn't yet have the skills to manage those overwhelmed feelings, so they just explode out. Yeah. As a volcano. If that part is really what I would say is non-conducive with attachment, I don't get. It's not like I need my parents to say tantrum away, but I don't get presence. I don't get compassion. I just get yelled at. I need to develop, okay? And stay with me here, a different part of myself that shuts down that part. So I literally develop a different part that's like, Becky, you ungrateful kid. You are too much. Stop doing this. And that's actually called, in IFS language, a protector part. It sounds mean, but I think we all understand its function early on is to protect me. Because at least if I do that to myself and almost shame myself, at least then I don't get the wrath of my parent, or I don't get sent to my room, I don't get hit, or I don't get this awful punishment.

Right. And so it's helping me adapt. And so it's helping me shut down. A part of you. A part of me. Now fast forward to 2022, what a trigger really is, and by the way, not only with our kids, with a partner, with anyone at work, is I think we see a part of someone that we had to learn to shut down harshly in our self. And then that protector part in us, it really does. It comes to the COC of the board table. It's like, I got this, guys. I got this, right? And then our kid or our coworker, they become like a pawn in our game. We act out on them what we had to learn to act on ourselves.

And.

The most empowering shift, okay, is we often, when things trigger us, we look to shut down someone else and make them more like us. I would never have this explosive emotion. Or I would never... With a wine, why is whining so triggering to me? It just represents helplessness. And I grew up in a pull-up-your-bootstrap family, and I would never.

Be a puddle of- Big girl panties is my family.

Exactly. Then if you really want to work on your triggers, the question we have to ask ourselves is not, How can I make this person like me? But what am I seeing in someone else that I need to be inspired by, that I need to actually grow that part in myself?

Let's walk through some triggers. So let's take, you were talking about whining. Yeah. Which is a cry for help. So what is the exercise we go through for ourselves as adults to let these moments that are triggering us, become a moment to repair things or rewire things? Or what word would you use?

Great. Both of those. Because the truth is, with our trigger moments, we often think, yeah, I have to repair with my kid. I don't like that I yelled at them. But what you're onto, Melch, is so true is first we have to repair with ourselves. We have to do both. So probably my most popular workshop I do, shockingly, is called My Triggers Workshop. So it's 75 minutes with a whole step-by-step process, but I can get into some of it here. So the first step is in a calm moment, asking ourselves a version of, What is my most generous interpretation of this trigger event in someone else? We always come up with the least generous interpretation with the trigger. My kid's pathetic. My kid's so helpless. My kid's so annoying with whining.

It's easy to come up with this. What about anxiety? Because that's a big trigger for me. My daughter's, my son not so much anymore, but one of our daughters in particular is Little Mel. And there is intense coming at me. I am 15 texts in a row when she's nervous about something. And then the second I answer the question, it's, Well, you're not right. And then, Hang up.

And.

That is deeply triggering.

To you?

Yes.

So is it the text that are triggering? Is it the, you're not helping me that's triggering? Which is the worst part? Or the whole arc?

The whole arc of it is so like... It's just like this, I feel like a punching bag almost.

Yeah. So I guess the question I would ask myself there is like, okay, so what's my most generous interpretation of what my daughter is doing? Just so I can start to see my kid as a teammate so we can be against this pattern together that doesn't work for either of us. Instead of me looking at my child like they are the enemy and they are the problem. So I think, for example, you might say to soften it-.

You know what just got me there? Yeah. Is the word enemy. I feel like there was an experience as a kid that if I did something that upset my mom, I was the enemy. Yes.

I think that's for so many of our trigger moments. Actually, we can... When you ask yourself what's the most generous interpretation of someone's behavior, I think this is the big framework shift that I think is the most important in any relationship where there's conflict, is we go from sitting across from someone and looking at them like they're the problem to sitting on the same side as the table as someone and looking together at the problem.

So.

I always think about that, or I try to like, Am I looking at my kid like they're the problem? Or can I reframe what's happening so I feel like it's me and my kid against a problem. So can we be together against helpless whining? Versus, am I looking at my kid like a helpless annoying kid who's just bothering me? Can I look at my kid like, Wow, something is happening with anxiety, and it's tricky to figure out. It's tricky for us to figure out something that's going to be helpful. Versus, does my kid come and vomit her anxiety and then reject me? And that's just annoying. I promise as long as we're in that second mindset, nothing's going to be useful. Because we don't like our kid when we think about them that way.

I love the reframe of bring them to your side of the table. What do you do if you're a kid that grew up with somebody who is wildly controlling? What shes for? How you dress? Go hug your uncle? No, you're doing sports.

What would I say to that kid?

Like, if you're now the adult- Yeah.

Who was that kid?

Yes. Because what I want to focus on are the top experiences that you experience as a child. So one would be overly sensitive like I was, overly worried, overly needy, like I was just a super sensitive kid. And when you're a super sensitive kid that feels separate and unsafe emotionally and you don't get those needs met, it develops into a certain type of adult. When you are a kid that is controlled by a parent. You develop into certain types of patterns as adults. When you have a parent that is emotionally abusive, either weeks of the silent treatment or struggling with their own mental illness, or they're not there for long periods of time, that develops certain coping mechanisms as a kid. And what I love about what you're saying is so many of us have experiences inside our emotional life of being separate. Yes. And what I would love to hear you help us with is, as you're starting to realize, as we listen to you and dig into your work, Dr. Becky, that this is very, very normal. And it's also a huge opportunity for you to take control of your adult life and your adult experience, which then completely changes how you parent and how you love another adult and how you show up at work.

I'm sitting here thinking, one of the biggest things that a lot of women write into me about in the work landscape is just feeling terrified about speaking up. And that's directly tied to you being shut down as.

A kid. I mean, 100 % now this is my favorite topic to talk about is, especially for women, our relationship with desire. All tantrums are and meltdowns are explosions of desire. That's what they are. You want something badly and your parents and something gets in the way of having it. I wanted my grilled cheese cut in a way. And what we so often do as a parent is we shut it down. We're like, You're being ridiculous. But what a kid learns is my desire is unsafe, my desire. I actually think about this a lot. I have two boys and one daughter. I think about all of them, but I think about it a lot with my daughter. How can I help her learn regulation skills while preserving access to desire? I think that, yeah, desire in terms of asking for a raise, desire in terms of sex, desire in terms of am I allowed to want things for myself? That's what I think all of us adults are trying to reclaim. Am I allowed to want things even when it makes someone else upset? Is another, right? And most of us, me too, early on learned to, quote, be a good girl, which just means I have learned that I had to, for my survival, to be adaptive, pay more attention to what others wanted of me than what I might want for myself.

So what's the process of reclaiming that?

Can I ask one more question before we go into reclaiming? Because this is a huge area. Because we're now also stepping into people pleasing and stepping into perfectionism. All of it. And stepping into overthinking and questioning yourself and the inability to take risks.

And.

This is particularly true for women and this fear of being seen. And I see exactly what you're saying, that it is tied to a deep, seeded belief that you don't deserve to be seen or that the stuff that you want doesn't matter.

Well, because you learned early on that whenever you were most in contact with your want, with your desires, it endangered your relationships.

Can you give us just a couple examples that really bring it home for people that are like.

Wait, what are you doing? Here's a great example, because I also think we do this black and white thing where we're like, Oh, so I just let my kid have the tantrum. We give ourselves buckets. Let's say you're in the toy store. It's your kid. I think it's a perfect example. And you're like, We're just going to store to get a birthday present for your cousin.

Something.

Like that. And you're like, Okay, this is going to go well. And then, of course, it doesn't go well. Your kid is a meltdown because they want the Lego set. And you don't want to get it for them. It wasn't your plan. So when we say to our kid, What is wrong with you? I told you we're here for your cousin. Can you ever focus on someone else? My kid doesn't learn anything except wanting things for myself is bad and wrong. Period. Now, the opposite isn't good either. Oh, okay. I guess we'll get you that Lego set. And that's okay. I mean, if you want to get the Lego set for your kid, obviously get the Lego set. But if your plan wasn't to get it and you didn't want to get it, actually, that's another tricky message for your kid. A kid learns my wants and needs are so overpowering to me. But, wow, they just made my sturdy leader become not so sturdy and changed their mind. That's actually also dangerous. Here's where that in between is, it's so hard to be in a toy store and see all these fun things and not get anything.

Of course, you want that Lego. It's normal to want things. It's actually awesome that you know what you want. You know you want this Lego. Here's the thing. I could take a picture of it. There will be a time, whether it's Christmas or Hanukkah, your birthday, that something's coming up. We're not going to get it today, sweetie. It's just not one of those days where we're going to buy you an extra thing. I know that's so hard. And so what my kid learns there is my parent sees the want under the meltdown. I didn't become a bad kid. I became a kid who's a good kid, who wants something for myself. And that's just a hard thing to want something and not have it. I'm preserving access to my desire while I still have a very boundaried, sturdy leader.

How do you, as an adult, reclaim that access to desire and repair this?

I think starting. I think for anything we're trying to shift, it's actually hugely helpful to our circuits, to our body to just start with... The things that I struggle with today, they were all adaptations. That's actually why I don't like diagnosis as a psychologist, is why I don't love the word symptoms. I think it's this cool thing we do to people that we're like, Yeah, wow, you were really crafty as a kid and learned to adapt. Now we're going to slam back a label that is pretty mean on you. What's wrong with you? I do feel like there's something in our body that's like, Hey, can you recognize everything I did for you? Okay, maybe I don't work for you anymore, but I need some credit. It's like anything else in life. You have to say to an employee at your table, That's a great idea. We're going to hold that for next quarter. And if you only say to them, No, no, no, they just get louder and louder. They want to be seen, too. They don't.

Necessarily- Or.

They shut down. Or they shut down, and it comes out in another way. Right. So I think actually there's something to saying. There's not something. There's so much to saying. I have a phrase I always use for myself, Thank you for your years of service. I think when I'm struggling with something, so if someone's now like, Yeah, I have this time, and I'm trying to do stuff for myself and figure out what I want, and all that happens is I have a panic attack. It's so hard to know what I want. Just to put your hand on your heart and even say to that feeling, this must have been adaptive early on to actually not know what I want. And it's frustrating for me now. And still, I appreciate the way that you helped keep me safe for probably 18 years. That was really meaningful. And then I could continue. I'm going to try little experiments here and there. You're going to resist. You're going to tell me I'm being selfish. You're going to tell me this is stupid. You're going to tell me I'm not good at things. That's okay. That's your role. But now that I know that, I'm going to show you over time that we're safer now to try different things.

If someone's listening, being like, Do you actually mean I should say that to myself? I literally mean you should actually put your hand on your heart and say those words inside your head, or actually just say them out loud. If you start tearing, that would be completely normal. Or if you're tearing now, completely normal. I often think these tears we have, they're like tears of relief from an inner child in us that's been waiting to hear a certain message. We have to honor the things that hold us back in the way that they used to help us before those things are willing to a little bit release themselves.

How do you start to figure this out? Do you start with the triggers? Like, wherever you feel that alarm or that discomfort in your body?

Yeah. I think that's a great place to start, especially if you have a visceral reaction, right? Because often what we do after we have a trigger is we blame ourselves. I'm a horrible person. I messed up my kids forever. I'm an awful person. I'm a monster. So what we do is we actually repeat the pattern that got us there. We add aloneness and self alienation and self-blame. And that's actually the experience of shame. Shame used to be an adaptive emotion when we were kids. Shame stops us in our tracks from being in a part of ourselves that would have been met with distance.

Yeah.

So it's trying to help us out. But shame really does it. It's a freeze state. So every time now we add on shame and blame, we add a frozenness. And most people I know want to change are like, yeah, change isn't conducive with freeze. It's conducive with movement. You have to... It's interesting people say, especially after you yell at your kids or something like, oh, but I feel like if I treat myself with compassion or something, I'm letting myself off the hook. If you want to let yourself off the hook for change, shame and blame yourself because that will make it impossible to change. Impossible.

Well, it's interesting what you're saying about the fact that when you pile on after you've been triggered and you make yourself wrong for having this stored, memorized, adaptive reaction, whether it's to withdraw or to yell or to blame or whatever. That when you said the piece about you're alone, I think this also contributes to why so many of us feel lonely and feel separate the older we get. That we have spent so long, and it sounds like almost from childhood, adapting to situations that we didn't quite understand, and then we continue to do it and continue to do it and continue to do it. And so you feel like just isolated with yourself. But what we really want is love. I know that your whole premise is we are all good inside. I believe the same is true. I always say, first of all, anybody is capable of changing. And second, just assume good intent. Before you freaking pile on something, just assume good intent. Easier said than done.

And about yourself, assume good intent.

That's probably the piece I missed. That's hard.

I didn't want to yell at my kid. I didn't want to yell at my daughter. Nobody, I don't know any parent who's like, You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to eviscerate my child. No one wants to do that. And then it doesn't make it, quote, okay, that you did it. But I always think we just ask the wrong questions. People are like, So it's okay? It's like, No, it's not okay or not okay. It happened. Now we just have a choice of if we want to be effective in change, period. It's not about evaluating it is okay or not okay. The thing already happened. Is it okay that a car crashed? No one would say that. You're like, Well, the car crashed. Okay, now what? Right? And, yeah, I think assuming positive intent about ourselves actually leaves us on the hook for change because we can see we're a good person who did not a good thing. And then we actually have the energy to be curious. Right? And I think that's where we change and we're curious. Okay. So I yelled at my kid. Okay. Something happened. My kid complained about the dinner I made.

But I think a question we often have to ask ourselves about a trigger is not, where did the pathway end in a trigger? But where did that pathway start? Right? Do I have any time to myself? Where do I practice meeting my own needs? Do I need more help at dinner time? I can't wait till I get to the point.

Until- Let's just take this because we're getting close to you needing to blaze to go teach everybody about mom rage. Doctor Becky, here we are. This conversation is required listening, whether you have children or not, because this is not a parenting conversation.