Emotionally Immature Parents -Lindsay Gibson

28:41It's like that is usually doomed to failure because every time you take an emotionally immature system in that parent and you apply stress to it, and then you demand that they engage in emotional intimacy with you. That's another thing that emotionally immature people do not like and are kind of repelled from. Every time you do that, you're going to get a response that's very defensive and blaming. So the adult child goes to the parent trying to work it out and get that parent to understand so they can have a good relationship. because the adult child knows how well this works. Maybe they've been to therapy.

29:32Maybe they've had couples counseling. Maybe they have a good mate that they can work things out with verbally through emotionally intimate discussions. They know this stuff works. So they try to apply it in that relationship and end up, you know, things get worse instead of better.

29:51Hunter Clarke-Fields:because the emotionally immature parent can't accept responsibility it's the defensiveness it's yes it's like a like a small child like oh you're attacking me i guess that's exactly it you you're not it doesn't occur to them oh you're trying to connect with me you're trying to have something real with me which is how it's intended you're exactly right hunter they're saying oh why are you attacking me? And then they start thinking of all the reasons why they are good people. Like, I gave you this, I did that for you, I was there for you, you know, and they become very defensive. So it's really hard when people are trying to go at the relationship from the standpoint of let's improve this and make it more emotionally intimate.

30:45It works much better once they can accept that this has a negative effect when they're trying to relate to their parent in that intimate way. That usually has a negative effect. Once they come to accept that, they may learn that they can back up a little bit. And instead of trying to relate, they manage the relationship. They start setting boundaries about what they will and won't do. They start expressing their own opinion instead of being scared of the parent. And then if the parent gets upset and comes back at them, they hold their own. They continue to express what they believe. And then if it gets too hot, they may draw a boundary and say, this doesn't look like this is something that we can really discuss.

31:39I'm going to have to go now. Or if we can't talk about this calmly, maybe we ought to just stop talking about this right now.

31:47Hunter Clarke-Fields:I've done all of these. All of the above. All of the above. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry. Imagine it's hard to just talk about your work casually because everybody can relate to what you, I'm sure there are some people, but I imagine almost everybody can relate to this experience. Yeah, and it's so hard to, if you have developed in your emotional maturity to the point that you automatically have empathy for other people, where you're curious about why people do things, you are, like I said, self-reflective. you take responsibility once you've made it in terms of your maturation to the point where you're you have a strong sense of self and you can imagine that other people have a sense of self and they have emotions too and they're real too once you get to that point it's almost impossible to believe that other people don't get that far yes it's just inconceivable that they don't have the same resource or resources inside themselves to process, that's really the underlined word here, to process emotional issues in a relationship.

33:16But they don't. And you find that out when you try to pressure them.

33:21Hunter Clarke-Fields:And you don't want to give up on people, right? Like you don't want to give up on people. I mean, I don't know. That's what it feels like. It feels like you're giving up on the relationship if you do it that way. But see, what I'm suggesting is you don't have to give up on the relationship. You can keep trying. And I often say this because I don't know. I mean, who am I to discourage someone from trying? Because what if it did work? You know? I mean, I don't have a crystal ball. I can't tell. But managing with boundaries. managing with boundaries you want to get to the point where you can express yourself and be a person in the relationship with your parent uh i like to point out that the emotionally immature person really implicitly believes that they are the most important person in the relationship at the moment i mean that's just take that as your basis and then everything else makes sense from there.

34:22Yeah. Yeah. But if you recognize that that's their position and you say, but I'm still going to be myself, I'm going to say what I think. I may not keep talking about it, but I am going to express myself and I'm going to set my boundaries and then we'll see what is the optimal distance that we have to have to get along well enough. Maybe we don't go over there every weekend. Maybe we go twice a year for holidays. I mean, whatever the solution is. Max of four days visit. Exactly. Optimal distance. Yep. And time. Yep.

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36:32Hunter Clarke-Fields:When kids sleep poorly, the whole family can feel it the next day. Muzzle sleep tape is a simple answer. Go to muzzlesleep.com and use the code mindfulmama for 10 % off. That's muzzlesleep.com, promo code mindfulmama. It's so interesting. And you describe the ways different people react to emotionally immature parents. And I found this really interesting because my father is a big temper. He was traumatized as a kid. I get that from him. And you described kind of externalizers and internalizers. And I found myself not relating to either of these in some ways because I guess in some ways I might have been an externalizer because I was a fighter.

37:19Hunter Clarke-Fields:I wasn't like, whereas my brother would walk on eggshells around the house. I always like, I don't know where I got it, but I had a strong sense of self. And I fought back and I was like, no, you will not treat me like this. you will not spank me. And I mean, I remember one point, like, you know, I remember the point at 13 when or 12 or something when my mom, who is usually less, you know, less frustrated, I think I was a challenging kid. She whacked my leg with a wooden spoon and I took the other wooden spoon and I whacked her leg back, you know, so I, but I didn't, I don't. I love that. I didn't feel like I blamed them.

38:04Hunter Clarke-Fields:I don't know. Maybe I did blame them. But yeah, tell us about externalizers versus internalizers. And maybe I'll figure out where I fit in here. You know, it's interesting. Yeah, because we'll talk about it. And then maybe you can tell us what you think afterwards, okay? But I just want to say that I love, love your story. And who knows where kids get this from? I mean, where does that kind of sense of self and that self-possession come from in a family where it might easily be erased or might easily be subdued? I mean, to me, that's fascinating what innate qualities we have as little children.

38:46But, yeah, so, see, I compare what you're talking about to people that come to see me for psychotherapy or for coaching. And that has been like scared out of them. They would no more stand up like that or, you know, because they have been taught that if they don't toe the line, they are bad people. They're not lovable. And they take that in, and then they kind of work the rest of their adult life around not upsetting other people. And that's where we get codependent and type C personalities, that kind of thing. But anyway, let's go back to the two types because I think it's going to be interesting to see what you think.

39:34Okay. So the externalizer is the person who, when they look at life, they look at it in terms of other people, other things are happening to them. Things are coming from the outside. They don't perceive that they are responsible for or causing any of their own difficulties. They see it that these other people are making mistakes and they need to change, but I haven't ever done anything wrong. And that kind of quality makes for oftentimes a difficult life because if you go around always blaming other people for things, you never really get to the reality of cause and effect. You know, like how your own behavior may be contributing to something.

40:32So there's a sense of, you know, why do bad things keep falling out of the sky on my head kind of thing. And there's also, that would be sort of the more depressive sort of orientation to the externalizing. But it can also be that I look for all of my satisfaction, all my self-worth in the outside. Like what I do, what I succeed at, how much money I make, whatever. And so that becomes an external way of living your life. The internalizer, on the other hand, is somebody who takes stuff in and processes it. That's the biggest characteristic. They cannot help but process stuff. They think about it.

41:30They're curious about it. They like to learn. They like to get more information. They want to understand how reality really works. So they're very alert to learning things. The problem is that lots of times they will take responsibility for stuff and have insights that give responsibility back on their shoulders because they've processed it to the point where they've gotten back to themselves. And that can lead to a lot of anxiety and depression at times because they're blaming themselves. You know, I should have known better. You know, I should have watched out. You know, they get that kind of self-blame going on.

42:16And then they tend to be very empathic and charitable toward the other person who may actually be acting out and projecting stuff onto them. The internalizer can take all that into heart and over-identify with their point of view and then sort of say, Well, gosh, you know, I do remember that time when I told them what I really thought. And, you know, maybe I have a place in this too. And then, you know, then they lose sight of, you know, what's really going on in the dynamic. But those are quick sketches of the two. So did you resonate with either one?

42:59Hunter Clarke-Fields:I think I'm a mix of the two, Lindsay. I think I was frustrated and angry. I definitely saw, you know, but I was definitely processing things. I was in the bookstore looking for, finding my book on Buddhism at 16 or 17, trying to understand.

43:21Hunter Clarke-Fields:I don't know. Who knows what causes and conditions? I think those two things, I was in a bookstore and trying to understand, would definitely put you in the internalizer category. It's more like a process of elimination. Like, you're not going to find an externalizer. Okay, all right. I mean, I'm making a sweeping judgment. I'm sure there are Buddhist externalizers. Yeah, yeah. Maybe I was an internalizer, I guess. But I didn't blame myself. I think I had this sense of, you know, no. Like, I don't know. Yeah, see, that's what's so beautiful about your example, because you're describing that whatever it was that was going on didn't get into your soul.

44:07It did get into your self-image. And ideally, what you want in a situation like this is someone who is an internalizer enough that they can, you know, look for insight and be self-realized. but they also are not blaming themselves to the point where they lose that sense of self or they lose that connection with reality because what you're describing is I know this isn't right I know I shouldn't be treated this way and I can't see it otherwise that's that is a strength of yeah I would call that emotional maturity in a child because it's a sense of self

44:54Hunter Clarke-Fields:yeah and they're very connected to it yeah yeah I mean yeah you know I think I had a lot of wonderful supportive people in my life and I had some sort of a second family growing up that I spent a lot of time with that they loved my crazy quirkiness but was not so loved at home but also But my dad did love my creativity as well. And he, you know, he was a, you know, I was scared of his temper, but he also rubbed my back when I went to bed at night. So there was a mix of things. But I can relate to that idea of that instability and that walking on eggshells and that frustration with, you know, man, you should be going to the therapy.

45:43Hunter Clarke-Fields:Like, you would enjoy it. You have so much to talk about. I've had to hold boundaries around the talk. Anyway. Anna, you also use this term emotional loneliness. And I think I can relate to this term, an experience of adult children, of emotionally immature parents, where that you're carrying this loneliness inside. Can you tell us about what that is? Yeah, it's a particular kind of loneliness. this. And when I was writing the book, you know, it's always, as you know, it's always hard to find the place where to begin, you know. And so I was casting about for, you know, where's my entry point to this subject?

46:29So it's not too didactic, you know, too academic. And I thought, oh, it's the experience of my clients, you know, I mean, what they have described in this almost poetic poignancy, which is that they would feel lonely, even when they were in the middle of their family, you know, at times when they're, you know, from the outside, it would look like there's great camaraderie, they're not feeling the connection. And so that particular kind of emotional loneliness is when, yes, you are with other people, yes, you are talking to other people, but you're not feeling a connection. You're not feeling that you're hooked in with them.

47:21You can get that in a glance. You can see that in somebody's eyes. And that makes you conscious of your own emotional self and it makes you conscious of them. And when people do that, you get this release of energy between you that just feels wonderful. And we're made for it. Sure, yeah. I mean, somebody, I wish I could remember who it was, but somebody wrote about that saying that, you know, that's why humans took over the world is because they are like mutual energy generator beings where by interacting by loving each other by having fun with each other their energy goes up and they can do more stuff for longer and then when they run low on the energy they reconnect and here we go again you know i mean it's it's incredible we're rechargeable wait thank you

48:21Hunter Clarke-Fields:yes we are we are rechargeable yeah yes yeah okay um yeah and yeah it it's good i mean i think that probably dear listener like you you might be able to relate to parts of this or some of this or maybe all of this and you may have had a parent who wasn't able to meet your emotional needs in some way and things like that. And that can be, you know, and in the book, Dr. Gibson talks about grief and all practices and to connect with your own sense of worth and stability and all these wonderful things. I think it's important that we touch on, I mean, what about we don't want to raise kids, we don't want to be that emotionally immature parent for our kids, right?

49:15Hunter Clarke-Fields:Like, if we have experienced that from the child point of view, we don't want to necessarily recreate from the adult perspective and the parent-child relationship. So I guess, like, do you have any ideas that we could suggest for people about this healing journey and how to not have the apple fall far from the tree? Yes. And, you know, it's such a sad thing when people who have grown up with these kinds of parents sort of implicitly decide that they're never having children because, you know, they don't want to put their kids through what they went through, But also because they have been trained to not have confidence in their own good heart.

50:07Because that's what you need to raise children effectively, is a good heart. More important than almost anything. So if you have come to worry that maybe you are not a good person because you're, if you've come to worry that your emotionally immature parent has made you feel like a bad person for not doing what they want you to do, You can carry this sense of low self-worth or worry that you're really a selfish person because they've told you that in so many words, that if you're not treating me as being the most important person in the relationship, you're bad because you have a moral obligation to make me feel good.

51:00So a person could internalize that lesson and then be very afraid that they wouldn't be a good parent. Sure. So to me, that's so sad because if you're reflective enough to ask yourself the question, would I be a good parent? You know, I can almost tell you like, yes, you probably would be a good parent because you can reflect on your own behavior. And that's a lot of times what it takes to be able to not only work with children, but to be able to go in and repair things when things don't go well with kids, which happens all the time, you know, between parents and kids. Yes. Yeah, there's no escaping that.

51:40Hunter Clarke-Fields:Yes, yes, there's just no escaping. Yeah. Yeah. So reflect, repair. Yes. Be aware. You're pointing to awareness, like self-awareness. Absolutely. And, you know, if you're having those self-worth issues, like awareness of that, healing that, right? Like, I imagine, you know, pointing to a healing journey is for the parent is only going to benefit the kids. Yes. And I mean, I'm remembering right now a study where they did of kindergartners. And they were looking at the quality of the attachment of these kindergartners, you know, where they securely attach, anxiously attach, disorganize, whatever.

52:25And what they found was that they interviewed the parents. And the parents who had thought about their childhoods, who said the sort of thing like, you know, I remember what it was like for me growing up. And that caused me a lot of pain. And I had to do a lot of my own work to, you know, get better about that. Those were the parents that had the securely attached kids. And the parents who said, I had a great childhood. Yeah, my dad sometimes pulled out the belt on me, or my mom sometimes gave me the cold shoulder, but they were good people. They tried really hard. No reflection, no awareness of their own childhood history.

53:08Their children tended to have less secure attachments. So, yes, if you're doing your work on your own stuff, you're in a much better position to have children that are securely attached and able to get along in the world. Right now, I just am finishing up a new book of mine that's going to be coming out next April, so it's a little way off, but it's How to Raise Emotionally Mature Children. and the idea is that you're trying to give them the experience that you wish that you had had as a child and you're also trying to remember what it is that they need because they might need limits they might need guidance it's not just trying to make up for the love it's also doing all these things that help that child build up a sense of self and achieve their own kind of maturity So I came to the idea for that book because people wanted to know how to help their children not have the experiences that they did growing up.

54:16Hunter Clarke-Fields:Well, we'll just have to have you back on to dive into this issue more. Lindsay Gibson, it's been such a pleasure to have you on the podcast. We talk a lot about generational patterns here. So you're such a great fit. And I love your book. And it's resonated with people all around the world. It's sold more than a million copies and been translated into 39 languages for a reason. So just thank you for coming out and thank you for doing the work that you're doing to help all these people. Oh, thank you so much. It's been a real mission because I feel like I did that day that it came to me, like, why are these people in therapy?

55:06It's like I want people to know what's happened to them and why and to clear some of that up for them so they're not carrying around this distorted view of themselves based on what they have gotten from the emotionally immature people in their lives. If I could, you know, contribute to that, I'm a happy person. And thank you for having me on to kind of do that today.

55:38Hunter Clarke-Fields:Oh my goodness, this was such a powerful episode, wasn't it? I really, really appreciate her work so, so much. And like I promised, I'm going to share with you the email exchange that Dr. Gibson and I had after we recorded this. So I wasn't sure if I was, you know, an internalizer, an externalizer, and she, with her permission, I'm going to share what she wrote in her email. She said, I had another thought for you from 4.30 this morning when I woke up full of ideas. I think there's a difference between the externalizing defense system style and good reality testing. What I mean is that if you see other people doing something wrong or harmful to you and you assert yourself, that seems to me like someone who is responding appropriately to the facts of the situation, i.e.

56:31Hunter Clarke-Fields:you really do have something to blame them for. I think that it's a great combination that you described of being reflective and introspective enough to worry, to, sorry, to wonder about what's going on, yet clear enough to put responsibility where it belongs. I would see the externalizing style as more chronically distorting reality in the service of preserving one's ego by blaming others. I think that's different. She went on to say, I think in therapy, I'm trying to get people to do what you're describing. Hold on to the inner strengths of the internalizer while building a little more of the self-preserving assertion energy of the externalizer.

57:10Hunter Clarke-Fields:So I guess I'm a little of both. I don't know. Where are you on this? If you feel like sharing, I'd love to learn more. It certainly makes me feel less alone. So do let me know. Send me a DM. I'm at mindfulmamamentor. I would love to know. I'm sure Dr. Gibson would love to know what you think about this episode. And I'm sure you know people who could benefit from hearing this. I feel like it's so helpful and enlightening. And so yeah, share this episode with your friends. Share it with everybody on social. That would be great. you know, and tell them to, of course, subscribe and support the podcast.

57:58Hunter Clarke-Fields:Yeah, that's a lot, huh? It's intense. You know, it's so hard, so hard to be a human being. It's, I think, at every age and stage, it doesn't get easier. Oy, in some ways, different levels, different devils. Isn't that what they say? I don't know. I think, you know, we're so interconnected and our hearts are and yeah, it's just challenging. So anyway, hope this helped this episode and I'm wishing you some ease and peace and hugs this week and I will be back to talk to you again next week. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening. Namaste.

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