Season 3 Episode 7. More on Estrangement and how to heal it with Kreed Revere

Hello and welcome to The Storied Human. I'm Lynne Thompson and today I have a return guest Kreed Revere, she graciously offered to do another episode. And I'm so glad because I am really fascinated by her topic that she covers on her super successful podcast called the strange heart. She celebrated one year of the podcast on October 31, when she had 25,000 downloads. Clearly Her work has resonated with people. And she has helped a lot of people who find themselves estranged from a loved one. It's a deep and painful journey. And people often feel isolated. She is going to share more of her journey with us today. And in particular, I wanted to hear some of her really unique approaches to help you if you yourself are estranged, or if you know someone just really interesting and good takeaways for how to work on this problem. And I think that you'll find they're also applicable in other places like places in our lives where we might have shame. And I have found a lot of things that I hear on her podcast, helpful to me, and I'm not estranged from anyone. They're just, it's just really good advice. So welcome, and welcome back, Creed revere so glad to have you here. Thanks, LAN, it's a pleasure to be here with you. So I'd like to start like I know you do an amazing amount of things. I don't think we talked much about what you actually do full time now. And I think that's really kind of amazing that you do all of it, but it is relevant to to what you what you do on the podcast, it is my full time day job. I am a practice manager for a site, a large psychotherapy group practice. So I work all day every day with therapist who are doing phenomenal work in the mental health field. And because of the work that I have done with them, and I interact with them on, you know, on a variety of levels, not only am I their quote unquote, Boss, I'm I am learning from them every day, there's nothing there every time I have an interaction with them. Whether it's regarding a specific client, or just in general and their their position and job and things that they're doing, I am learning all sorts of new and interesting things when it comes to mental health. And so that has, has transferred over into my work with a strange man. In part, not only am I working with therapist, I also have trained because I once did all this myself, when the business was really small, I trained our client care team. And so our client care team is taking incoming calls from people who are seeking services. And I have finessed this this skill set of being able to listen to people in a way that I'm paying close attention because I am trying to find out their needs, so I can match them with a therapist that will be a best fit for them. And in that process I have you know, I've learned people call in for a strange moment, people call in for all sorts of things anxiety and depression. But in the the bottom line for all of that is there's pain, that people are in pain. And when we can get to the pain, we can work all sorts of quote unquote magic stuff that happens to heal. And so then I talked with the, with the therapist about, oh my gosh, you know, we got this call the other day from this woman who was you know, had this or that or the other thing and was looking for support. And the therapist is like, you know, when when I talk to clients about that, and then we just get into this conversation about what it means to sit in a room with someone who is there, they're just in pain there. They have immense heartbreak on a variety of levels. And that shows up in all sorts of ways. And so anyway, I've been able to transfer that over into my work as the you know, working with the estranged heart and working with estranged parents, specifically strange moms and their estranged adult children and being able to address their pain both sides of the coin. That is so cool. I love that you came to that so naturally, it's so it just evolved. You know, you just learn and you listened and you watched and you now you offer so much more And now how did you settle on a strange bit as your topic for your podcast? Is it personal? Is it? Yeah, very, very personal. I, I've been both an estranged adult child, and an estranged parents. I am reconciled and have been for many years with my parents, and I have reconciled with my children. Now we've been reconciled longer than we were estranged. Very personal. Yeah. So you've walked the path? Absolutely. I think that's really important. I don't think it's mandatory. But I think it really helps. I hear that, you know, it's interesting, Glenn, because I, I hear that more often than I hear anything else from people who reach out to me, whether they become my coaching clients or not, when they reach out, that's the first thing they say is, you get it? Yeah. You understand what it means to have your kid not talk to you, or you understand what it means to have to walk away from your parent? Because they're not listening to you. Yeah. And you know how that feels? Absolutely. Oh, my God, and you can't replace that? Yeah, you can't replace that kind of, they can relate, you can you can really relate. So I'm very struck when I listened to your podcast with how you have like a set of tools, you have, like a way of approaching estrangement, that I think really helps with other things, too. Can you can you tell me a little bit about like the sorts of things that you tend to bring up with people that sort of like the best, you know, five best things that you end up telling people or three best things or, you know, I'm sure that you have a set of things that you see recurring? Absolutely. I come at trauma through the lens, looking at it through the lens of trauma, estrangement through the lens of trauma. It is my belief, from my experience, my personal experience, my experience and being a human on this planet. And my experience of being an estrangement coat. We all, there's, there's few of us who've come out of life without some sort of trauma. And trauma isn't always, as a matter of fact, it's generally not intentionally imposed upon us. It's something that happens to us. During the course of living life, things happen, we don't know what we don't know. So in But in that process, we hurt other people. And we impose trauma upon people. And parents, a lot of times can impose that trauma on their child, if they have, and I don't know about you, but I certainly did not come home from the hospital with an instruction manual for my kid, right? Like, hey, this is what you do. And this is what you don't do. And all of those things. While there have been parenting books, and things like that, along the lines of, you know, this is what you feed them. And this is, you know, we talk about going to school, and this is what they need to do, there was little to nothing about the emotional side of parenting. And so I'm in my mid 50s, my, my children are in their 20s and 30s. At this point, and back when I was parenting, there was no, there was no talk of emotional anything. And so I completely neglected all of that. So I talk with parents, and come at this from that perspective of there has been trauma there has been hurt. You most likely did not. I've not met one parent yet, who has said, oh, yeah, absolutely did that on purpose. Not none of us do that on purpose. So I come at that from but we impose the hurt. It's still it's there, regardless of whether they're right. Or not, right? Yeah, it's still there. And so that's what we have to address, we have to get to that piece of things. And oftentimes, that means helping the parent, I try to work with a therapist, or my clients, generally, most of my clients are all in therapy. And so I, I call us the Dream Team, between the therapist and the client, right? Between the three of us we're kind of covering all aspects of things for for the client to be able to work through their own issues, their own struggles, their own traumas from their life. And how are we going to move forward? How are we going to change the relationship moving forward when we're back in communication and in relationship with one another? So come at it from trauma, the trauma perspective, looking at the pain, we've got to look at the pain if you're not ready to look at the pain, there's not there's not a lot that's going to change? That's just that's just how it is. I until we are able to take a good hard long look inside it, things don't generally change and it's up to the it's up to the parent. I hear this often from parents that, why should I change, they're the ones that walked away. Yeah. And I explained to them that there's, by default, there is a power differential. Within the relationship, I don't care if you're at and your child is 50, there's a power differential, you'll always be the parent, they'll always be the child. And it is up to the parent to lead the way, it's up to the parent to show the way, it's up to the parent to make, in my, in my opinion, and what I have seen that works. And the cases that I've been successful and how helping a parent reconciled with their children, the parent has made changes, regardless of whether or not the child has, which I find very, very interesting. And a lot of people don't believe that they think that both parties have to come to the table having been changed. And that wasn't the case with mine. I was the one who did the work, I was the one who, who went to therapy and really dug into my own stuff. And because I changed, then the relationship with my children change. That's so monumental. So you healed yourself. Because I knew encourage you encourage parents to heal themselves. And I bet some of them just aren't ready to hear that. That's different from what we maybe we picture, it's like a meet your child in the middle kind of that kind of thing. I think that's what we picture. But that's what you might do with a peer, you know, when you have a problems appear, but this is not going through my head so much is what some of the things I read about, you know, don't your child's not one size fit all fits all. And I think a lot of us, especially I didn't have kids young and I had kids older, but still had these issues of each kid is so different. Yeah, they're gonna they're gonna react to, to what you're putting out in their own way. And I remember reading something and somebody said, Well, why would you think that relationship would be any less complex, even if the child is very young than any other relationship, they're bringing their own stuff, their own personality, their own, right, you know, the way they hear you the way they react, right. And so that kind of blew my mind. And that's what you're reminding me of is that whatever that relationship was, there was a lot going on. And I know that, especially if, if I see people who've had children, young, a lot of times the parents parent the way they remember being parented. Right? And I always like to point out, some of us don't remember, until we were like, five. So what you're remembering and applying to a toddler. That's what I've said sometimes where people just, you're right, there's no, there's no handbook, we're doing the best we can. Really, what you want to tell people is they did the best they could. And you did the best you could and you cause pain. And so here we are, you'd have to the reality of it. Yeah. And that's the reality, what you're talking about, as far as I hear, and I was once guilty of this, saying, I love my children the same i parented them equally the same way. And that's not true. Yeah. And parents have suffered. And again, I everything that I say, about a strange moment, I'm like, I'm always raising my hand like I did this, I am not here to say that I am this, you know, perfect parent, I was so far from perfect. And when I finally realized, oh, my gosh, of course, I parented them differently. They are different human beings. Yeah. I just as I you interact with friends that you treat this way, or you respond that way and the others the opposite way. It's, it's human. I mean, that's just who we are, we cannot we cannot treat our children the same, we may think that we're doing that. But in the end, we're not because they are perceiving what how we are parenting them, or perceive it, that perception is different. Right. And that is, we have to get to we have to be able to see how our parenting affected them. And we can only know that by looking at their perspective. And honoring that and saying, I don't recall, you know, your childhood being this way. But if that was your experience, then I need to honor that. I need to say absolutely. I see where that would that was so hurtful to you. I I am so sorry. It doesn't mean that you are agreeing that you did this with an ill intent and all of these things. That's not what you're saying, you're acknowledging the fact that your child is hurting. That's what you're that's what you're acknowledging. So I would just a parent that wants a child to hurt. No, I love how you're getting to the core of it. But I can imagine that you get pushed back. And this is hard for people to hear. Some people are not ready. They're just not ready. Like, I've gotten there recently. And I'm older than you, you know, I've gotten there. And I've talked to my children. And I've said, you know, I really feel like I didn't do this, right. And I'm sorry, I didn't know back then, you know, and they forgiving me. And it's so powerful. So powerful. Or they say, Yeah, you didn't, you didn't do that, right. But it's just good to get it out there. It is. I didn't I wasn't there until recently, right? Wasn't able to say it. I have I have coaching clients that are in their 60s and 70s, that are just now coming to this. And they come to me, and they're like, I've listened to your podcast. I never thought about it. From this perspective, and I don't know what to do. I don't, I don't know how to do it differently. And I just, I just need somebody to talk to to help me to figure this out. Right. And that's where I start with most of my clients. Most of my clients. They they number one, most of them have never even heard of the term estrangement. Wow, I had never heard of the term estrangement that I recalled when I was estranged from my kids. I remember getting on Google. Why what happens when your kid won't talk to you? Right? I mean, that's I was like, I don't know what this is. I felt like I was the only person on the planet that this was happening to, I felt secluded, I had so much shame if my god if your kid won't talk to you, what kind of a human being are you? There's so much shame tied up in that we grow up with this. And as parents that like, you know, everybody in your life could walk away, your your spouse, your friends, all of those people can can leave your life, but your kids, your kids will always love you and your kids will always be there. And then when they're not. Oh, my Oh, my talk about turn your world upside down. It's true. That's, and it feels irreparable. And it feels hard. Yes. Yeah. And you're here to say it's not irreparable? It's not. It's not. It's there's work involved. I mean, you're really asking blueprints? Work? Yeah. Yeah. It's not there is no magic wand. And there is no, you know, you're just gonna go in and say, I'm sorry for whatever I did that hurt. You know, that's not that's not how this works. People wish, right? Yeah. Right. I mean, in that, you know, I did when that happened, I was like, What is wrong with these kids? Like, well, you know, I called them selfish and self centered. And they were, you know, it was all about them. And I point the finger, point, the finger, point the finger. And then I got myself into therapy, and really started looking at my childhood, and my parents, and that's when things started to shift in turn. For me, that's when I was able to start seeing, Oh my God, I know, my parents love me. But they caused me so much pain in my life. Now, I think I might understand where my kids are coming from. Yeah. And you carry that with you. Yes. It's so true. We all have our I always say like a hot button, right? Like something pushes your buttons. And it's good to look at why. Right, right. I mean, I was raised by two people in their 20s, early 20s. My mother was 21 when she had the early 20s And they left Pennsylvania they moved to Virginia where they didn't know anyone very young couple they lost both sets of parents in their 20s I look back now and I say I'm amazed they did as well as they did I have such a different perspective now that I'm older and and realize you know, no family around you lose both sets of parents you're struggling No wonder they had trouble and that together for us. I'm fascinated by how people hold it together. Parents really hold it together for their kids, they'll do anything for their kids. It doesn't mean they don't hurt them though. That's what I like about your message is like you didn't mean to like let's look at this pain. It's real. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I you know, I remember parenting my daughter's I was very young mom, I was younger than your mom. When I had my first daughter and and I know in my heart of hearts that all the things that I did to my kids that and that hurt them. I know that when I was doing those things, I thought I was doing it to protect them, to make them better people, to help them to understand their, you know, life is going to be hard. And you're going to have to figure out a way to, you know, muster up some courage and all sorts of things to be able to, quote unquote, get through this hard life, because that's what life was like for me. And this is, this is another piece to the work that I do is I see that so many parents parented their children in ways that they wanted to be parented. Oh, there's a nugget, oh, my gosh, it is so profound. We are living out the lives that we feel that we did not get through our children. So for instance, my mother, with me was super lacks. She had I could be, you know, off with this one, and that one and run it here, run in there. And my mom, I would tell my mom, I'm off with Susie, and I'd be with anyone but Susie, like I, you know, she just believed everything that I said to her. And let me just come and go and do as I pleased. When I had my children, I was the complete opposite. They couldn't go and do anything, because I was like, I know what you're doing. I know, because I've been there. I know these things. And so I what I what I wanted what as I'm parenting, my children was such strong, and on bending boundaries. I was looking for that from my mom. What a connection. Oh, my gosh. And I ended up in a career that enhanced that. So I was a police officer when my children were really young. And so I ended up in a career that enhanced me wanting to protect them, and make them toughen up. So they could handle this tough life that I saw every day when I went to work. Right? And so and so. So there's, there's a cross, and there's a mix there. But for most of us parents, I've had clients that were like, I was best friends with my, with my daughter, and now and now she won't talk to me. And I'm like, what was what was life like for you when you were growing up? And they're like, Oh, my parents, they hated us so that they never spent time with us. They never went here that they never did anything with us. And I'm like, do you think that maybe you were trying to get what you didn't get from your parents, for being a parent with your daughter and being super close with her. And then all of a sudden, you just see that, you just see this light bulb come on, have I never thought of that. Never, ever thought of that kind of thing. So it's a lot of connecting dots, it's a lot of back in order to be able to look forward and see how can I do things differently in the future, right, I tell parents a lot, a lot of them are like I can't, I just want to be able to change how I did things. I didn't mean to hurt them. And I want to go back and I want to fix it. And I'm like the fixing is then recognizing what you've done, making amends for that. And then changing course moving forward, you cannot go back and change the past. The past is done. What has been done has been done. But you can change how things look and feel moving forward. And that's the key with my girls. They've recognized I am a I've done a complete 180 I am no longer the person that I once was and they see it, they feel it. They recognize it. They also understand that I still make mistakes, just I mean, we've been running now five and six years, just the other day I was at my daughter's with my granddaughter. And I did something that I know my grant my daughter did not appreciate. And it's soon because I've done this for so long. And I've I'm such an advocate of doing the inner work. I immediately caught myself and I looked at my daughter and I said that was not appropriate. I should not have done that. And it was some it was a way that she she's parenting very differently than I did. And so one of the things that that that is is you know our kids, she says our kids don't make us feel anything. And so I went to leave and my granddaughter had had a sad face on and I said oh Honey, don't don't be sad. Don't don't that hurts GG, don't make GG hurt. And I went, oh, oh, no, wow. Oh, no, that's not. Nope, that's wrong. And I looked at my my granddaughter, and I said, that's I'm so sorry, Gigi and my granddaughter, I just mind you my granddaughter's one, she'll be to next week. So she's almost two, I looked at her and I said, I am so sorry. Gigi should not have said that you do not make Gigi feel anything. That's GGS responsibility. And I looked at my daughter and I said, I am so sorry. And she she touched my arm. And she said, It's okay, mom, it's okay. Because she saw that I was making this effort, to course correct in the moment. And that I was willing to go along with her and how she's wanting to parent, her daughter. I love that. And I noticed in my own work, that I catch myself sooner, that's all it's not like I don't do those things, you know, that I don't like to do. But I catch myself sooner. And I love that you caught yourself in the moment. Also, it just occurs to me that there's growth that your children experience when they see you grow. You know, this just is wonderful, like effect, no matter how old your children are, they're very affected by what you're going through. So there's like, you know, dividends and benefits. Yeah, that's it. And I'm in me being able to do take that that moment in time my daughter is seeing mom can be vulnerable. And mom can apologize. Yeah, mom doesn't fall apart. Mom doesn't grovel mom doesn't, you know, oh, my gosh, please forgive me and just go on and on. And on and on about it. I said, I apologized in the moment. And then that is showing her a way to do that with her daughter. Love that, giving her permission to do that with her daughter. It's wonderful. You know, I noticed that with my mom. I mean, she lived till my daughter was five. And my son was three. So it wasn't very long. But she interacted with them in a very different way. Because she had done her work. And she had become a therapist. And she had seen maybe, you know, as a young parent, some things that she had done. And so she was teaching me in that same way. Like I saw a different mom, I saw a different grandparent, I saw a different way different language. And I just loved it. I felt like it helped me be better. She also respected the mother I was. And she tried to support me which I just think I had a pretty enlightened mom later in my life, which is such a gift. And I think that that's sort of what you're helping people do is, you know, it's bigger than repairing the estrangement? Absolutely. Moving from that's another part of the work that I do is I talk with parents about moving from the manager role into the consultant role. Where I again, we never we never talk. Again, we don't get a manual on how to parent adult children. Right? No. So we do good point, we just kind of continue on with all the management that we do, which are little into these with these adults that are, you know, our children are now adults, and we're like still managing their lives. And that's where that's where they get angry. And they're like, I'm an adult stop. Yeah, me like a child. I've gotten a little bit of that, about being a consultant like you come in. And as a consultant, you're not just dishing out your advice, you people come and approach you and ask you for your input and your advice. And if they ask, you give it if they don't, you don't, you know, that kind of thing. And that was a huge thing for with my with my girls, because I would oh my gosh, she's when talking about somebody given their opinion. I was all over that all the time. And I have learned to not do that. I don't if I think I can think they're making the biggest mistake on the planet. And I I don't say a word. I might ask them. Yeah. So interesting. How did you how did you come up with that? That that thought process or that decision? I'm really curious. And I really am curious when when I especially when they're making choices that I think are I would probably wouldn't make that choice. I'm like, what, how did they come to this conclusion, right? I'm really sincerely curious about it. And so they'll tell me and I'll say, That's so interesting. And I don't say I really feel like this was a mistake, and I don't maybe you want to rethink that. I don't do any of that. None of that. That's amazing. I love that easy to read. member consultant, use the word consultant, I'm gonna go with that, I'm gonna go with that. It's a different framing of how to be a parent, I'm, I'm filled with a lot of thoughts, one of the things that came to me, I lost my dad a year ago. And he never, we all talked about it, he never knew what to do with us, once we got older, you just never knew like he focused on our children. Because he knew that and he was good at that was a great dad for little kids. But bigger kids, man, he just did not know what to do with us. And I think that, you know, that we should help people understand maybe I've been feeling the same way like, well, now what do I do, you know, right, empty nest and children leaving, and they ask you for advice, or they don't. It's just as complex, you know, and it's just, I love the idea of consultant that really helps me. Right, but in a different way. Here's the thing when your kids are leaving home, and it's empty nest, and they go off and have their own families. What is the and again, keep turning back to ourselves, you know, what is happening for us, we're going through a grief process, we are going through this time in our life, when most the majority of us really haven't sat down and really thought about what is life going to look like when I'm no longer daily parenting on a daily basis with our children. But and so what we tend to do is, that's when the manager role really comes out, because you're like trying to control because your life is seemingly out of control. Because you don't know what to do now. As a parent, who doesn't have a child at home and or your parenting on a daily day to day basis. So your world is kind of out of control. It's got a little bit kind of chaotic. And so how can I how can I? How can I lessen the stress that comes with that? Is Oh, just I'll just go over here and manage them. And I'll just keep doing these things. And then I don't have to focus on me because I'm focused on them. And so yeah, it really, this whole process is about turning around and looking at self. And when you can look at yourself and work through that. It really, it really can be very enlightening. An eye opening. That's so powerful. I found like I wasn't sure who I was anymore. There. They take up so much of your time, you know, raising children, so much of your attention and worry. And all of a sudden, like who am I now? You know, right. And I wrote an article for medium called, you have to fill the empty nest. Like that's how I finally dealt with it because I was I was concerned with myself, like the way I was grieving and how difficult it was. And I should say, I still have someone at home. But he's very independent. And he's going to fly soon. But it still feels very different. And I do I do treat him differently. Or I'm trying to like for me the process has been really difficult, like pulling back. And I think we need more resources for people. And I have seen some things. There's some good things out there about empty nester, who are you now and I also saw a great thing about the the periods of your life and we live longer now. So we, especially as women, we we have to take that last bunch of years very seriously, we could have a whole other life, a whole other career. You know, you spend so much time growing up and then so much time raising children and that if you have children and your career, and then the children leave and you have a whole section of your life. It's like our parents and our grandparents didn't teach us that, because they didn't live as long or they just accepted like I'm old now I'm not going to do anything over focus on my kids and manage them. Right. Right. It's it's really an opportunity. That's how I see it now. It's an opportunity to live that next chapter. And it is. And it's it is really interesting to see that right. It's totally it when I can see parents who have like you figuring out a way of how can I fill this nest without filling it with management duties and control duties all the way there, by the way, working on it. Right? But that's part that's a part of the process. You know, nothing. This is a thing. Nothing happens with flipping a switch in life, right? I mean, we even even if you look at something as simple as turning a light switch on in your home, there are things happening behind the scenes that make that light pop on when you flip that switch. There's always something else happening behind the scenes. Nothing is ever What you see on a surface, and this is what I talk with parents about when your child seemingly go is going off the deep end, quote unquote. There's something happening beneath the surface, when they have estranged. There's something that's happening beneath the surface. There's something else going on the behavior is a result is a manifestation of what was happening beneath the surface. So any emotional piece that really is a symptom at that healing is needed. And you're trying to show if you're willing to do the work, this is how you heal this. Yes, exactly. Yeah. So the introspection, I'm just like, amazed at what that can do for a parent to get brave enough. Right? It's, and it's not fun. It's not easy. I am not sugarcoating it by any stretch of the imagination. It is hard and difficult work. But on the other side of that is an I just met with my I have a bi weekly support group. This support group is running for recently reconciled moms. And so we're talking about what you know, because once you once you reconcile now we've got a whole nother issue that comes about because now it's like how do I stay in relationship with my child, and because there's fears and things that come up, because of the estrangement experience. But I was having this conversation with them yesterday, about this whole. My gosh, it was it was the whole group, in and of itself was so phenomenal. Talking about in the end, this was our topic of going from, from management into the consultant role. But when we are brave enough to look within, to stop for a moment and find support. That's a critical, critical piece of this work. I don't, and I have to stop just here for a minute. I am not an advocate of anyone doing this work without support. And I by support, I mean, someone who is not your best friend who's only going to talk to you in the echo chamber that you've been in, someone can that can get you outside of the echo chamber, and can help hold this space of these really big emotions that come up when you're dealing with this type of work. So I just want to say that that's really important. Yeah. And probably therapist in most cases, right? Yep. Yep. I again, this is why most of my clients, I insist, I need you to be in therapy. Because this is a piece of the work. I'm not I am not a therapist, I am not qualified to help lead you down that path of going through back through your childhood and figuring all this stuff out. I can give you things to think about and some things to get curious about. But that's the extent of what I can do. My work isn't moving you forward? And how can we how can we do that when you're ready after therapy, I love how you figured that out that you augment therapy. And I think that you do as a as your full time job is really those relationships that you have with therapists and what you learn from them, it's helped you see that, you can augment that, because they don't have that very specific experience. But they're good at plumbing those depths, you know, those psychic and psychometrics depths. So that's a wonderful recipe and also what I thought of as you were talking a little bit, none of us were taught this, like how to take a moment and really look at, we didn't see our parents do it. We didn't see our grandparents do it, or aunts and uncles. We just weren't taught this. And I think it's wonderful that you're teaching people this, because again, it helps with this strange moment. But I think it helps in many other ways, too. And I think a lot of fact, you're kind of you're kind of providing a service that's so so desperately needed. Yeah, yeah, figure stuff out. It's interesting, I talked to when I talk with people, they're like, Well, what kind of coach Are you and I? And I tell them I'm like, you know, I really think that what I do is like communication, coaching. I mean, it's in communicating with yourself, figuring out who am I, where, where did I come from? Where am I going, what is this? What is this all about? And then how to communicate with your child. And that has ripple effects. A lot of parents come to me and say, Well, none of us is going to do an ounce of good if they won't talk to me. And I'm like, that's not true. It's not true. You can do this work, with your spouse, with your friends with your neighbors. All of the things that the tips and tricks and tools that I'm teaching you can be done with all of these other people, so that when your child is ready to come back in entertain a relationship with you, you are prepared. You've been practicing this. It is not you're not having to go, Oh my gosh. Now what do I say? What do I do? How do I, you've been practicing those, you've become this person that now has ripple effects. I had a client, I just have to tell story real quick. I had a client that I went met with this past week. She said, soon as she hopped on Zoom, oh, crit, I have to tell you what happened to me. And I was like, oh, oh, my goodness, you know what happened to me. And she said, so I just met with with a family member, and learned they're estranged from their child. And I, I didn't know they were estranged. And they didn't know I was estranged from my child. And so I was telling them all about your podcast, and that they have to figure this out. And it's, you know, they've caused pain, but they can they can make them a she's just going on and on about all the things that she's learned through coaching with me. And I stopped her and I said, I want you to recognize this moment. This is a ripple out effect. This is what I'm talking about. You have changed how you are interacting with your family members. Your family members are looking at you going, Wow, something's different about her. She's not doing things the way that she's typically done them in the past. What is that all about? And either they're coming and asking you, or they're talking about it with other other family members and other family members are going, you know, I noticed that same thing, too. I wonder what that's all about. And then there's just this, this, again, this ripple out of fact, when they do find out what is happening? And they're like, Wow, how can I? How can I do some of that? Right? And because then she's so excited about the discoveries that she's making about herself and her relationship with her child. Now others are like, Hmm, I wonder about my relationship with my kid. Like, you know, that's great. I know. That's what I love about it. And I love that you say it's communication, because it's like a set of communication skills. That's part of what you're offering. And I love that idea that you're there is this ripple effect, people are going to notice, and there's, there's this, it's wonderful to that you say, Okay, you're not ready to talk to the person you're estranged from, but you can practice these skills, and you're going to become more ready when they're ready. Right. So that, that to me, I just think there's a lot of healing going on. And I love that, and it must feel so rewarding for you to do this work. It is it I'm very humbled, I am very humbled. And I get emotional every time I talk to these people. I gotta say, they're showing by showing you, I've known you for a little while. And I've watched a little bit of your journey. And I just am so in awe of what happens when the time is right. And the path is revealed. It was almost magical the way you just found it. You saw it, and you started walking that path. And of course, you're emotional, because you're, you're you're aligned, you're aligned with what you're supposed to do. And it was very clear to us because we would always chat, our podcast bunch, and we were like, this girl has it going on. You know, you just you could feel it. So I read the show notes from our last episode. And I had mentioned that you're going to probably have a memoir coming out. Is it this year? It's coming out? Because I would love to read that book girl. Yes. Yep, the end of this year, it will be it will be here. So I would like for it to be here by on my anniversary date of the podcast. That's kind of that would be so good. I was gonna say this should all be in the book. I was literally thinking that I was like, wait a minute, we'll be well, how can I thank you. I just feel like it's gold. It's nuggets of gold. I really do. And I also feel so honored that you shared it with me and my listeners. We may not even know how much we need it. And I just love when someone takes their own story. You know, this is my big thing. Take your own story and use it to help other people think to me, that's the highest goal. I mean, like I always say, why go through it if you can't share it, and help. If you learn something and you pass it that ripple effect is just to me such a sacred thing. Yeah, so it really is it's an opportunity to i Another thing that I hear, you know, not just in the estrangement world, but my friends and family and everyone says oh, I'm just one person. I can't change the world. And I'm like, Oh, but I beg to differ. Yeah, I beg to differ. In this ripple effect the you can when you can work on yourself and change the dynamics of your relationship with the world at large. And by the The world at large I mean, your community, your friends, your family, it is that ripple out effect that then goes and they go to talk to their friends and their family. And it's on and on and on. And it's because you opened your mouth. And you shared your story. You had the courage to become vulnerable. And and share it with with safe people. I don't encourage sharing it with people that you know you don't feel safe with. But when you feel safe enough to share that, and those people can say, Can I share your story with others, because I really, I think it's so important. And then they go on, they talk about it with other people. And it's just this beautiful thing that happens in life. And that is how we heal. That is how we heal we heal. One of the things that I love about your podcast when I'm such a huge advocate for sharing our stories. It It is life changing for so many people when they feel either inspired, and or I'm not alone. Yeah, I'm not alone. That's why I do it. I never know who it will touch. You never know who your story will help. You have no idea who's hearing it. I was out to dinner last night. And I want to interview the chef because she does these pop up dinners. It's like this wonderful space. And it's sort of changed our life. I mean, it's, it's not like going out to dinner. It's like an experience and it's almost healing to be with her in her space. It's like going to someone's house. Anyway, her son was there. And he goes, Oh, I really like your podcast. And I was like, like, I had no idea. He even knew it existed. And I said thank you. And I just thought everyone will find what they need, and hear what they need to hear. And I just love that about podcasts in general that we're more like, you know, sharing their personal things and the work that you do. I just I think of it as sacred work. I really do. I feel like it is I do. I don't take what I do lightly. Every story and every person and every heart that comes my way is it's sacred, and you have a big heart. So you're able to do this. So I can't thank you enough. I just really enjoyed talking to you. And I learned so much every time I do. Thank you, Lynn, thank you for having me on your show again for a second time and it's always a pleasure to spend time with you. Thank you. Thank you same here Hey, thanks again for listening. I wanted to let you know about Creed's how to get in touch with her and her special she has a coaching practice that you can reach through the estranged heart hyphen scheduler.as dot M E, and I'll also put that in the show notes. She has a support group. It's at. It's a Facebook group called a strange mother's support group. And look for her memoir to be published in 2023. And I'll see you next week. Thank you