Dr. Frank Anderson, world-renowned trauma expert, psychiatrist, and author, whose highly anticipated memoir, To Be Loved: A Story of Truth, Trauma, and Transformation launched on May 7, 2024 (Bridge City Books)
523: Heal Your Trauma
Dr. Frank Anderson
Chances are you may have some trauma from your childhood and you’ll do everything in your power not to pass it on to your children. You already know at some level that “every time we lose it, kids lose their safe parent.” So how do we heal our trauma? Hunter talks to world-renowned trauma expert Dr. Frank Anderson.
Ep 523- Dr. Frank Anderson
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*This is an auto-generated transcript*
[00:00:00] Dr. Frank Anderson: Everybody who absorbs trauma energy holds victim energy and we absorb perpetrator energy.
[00:00:13] Hunter: You're listening to the Mindful Parenting Podcast, episode #523. Today, we're talking about healing your trauma with Dr. Frank Anderson, and this is part of the “Stress and How to Cope” series.
Welcome to the Mindful Parenting Podcast. Here, it's about becoming a less irritable, more joyful parent. In Mindful Parenting, we know that you cannot give what you do not have, and when you have calm and peace within, then you can give it to your children. I'm your host, Hunter Clarke-Fields. I help smart, thoughtful parents stay calm so they can have strong, connected relationships with their children. I've been practicing mindfulness for over 25 years. I'm the creator of the Mindful Parenting course and teacher training, and I'm the author of the international bestseller “Raising Good Humans Every Day”, and the “Raising Good Humans Guided Journal”.
Yesterday I was on Zoom answering a question from a mom who had started a mindfulness practice and was struggling, and I realized how much I love that. I love connecting with people, love answering these questions, and I want to do more of that here on the Mindful Parenting Podcast. Starting right now, you can leave me a voicemail with your mindful parenting questions. If you have a current parenting challenge, If you're frustrated with some behavior, if you want to know more about mindfulness and how to get started, you can leave me a voicemail with your question. I'm so excited about this. The URL is MindfulMamaMentor.com/VM. That's MindfulMamaMentor.com/VM. If your question is picked, I'll let you know, and it will become part of the Mindful Parenting Podcast. Leave your voicemail now, MindfulMamaMentor.com/VM. Happy New Year! And welcome back to the Mindful Parenting Podcast.
I'm so glad you're here. Yay! It's a new year. It's 2025. We have an awesome series for you. We have the second in the “Stress and How to Cope” series. On the 31st of December, we had my interview, “Permission to Be Human”, and today I'm going to be talking to Dr. Frank Anderson, world renowned trauma expert, psychiatrist, author, and his highly anticipated memoir, “To Be Loved: A Story of Truth, Trauma, and Transformation”, came out last year, and we have a really powerful conversation. Chances are you might have some trauma from your childhood and you probably want to do everything in your power not to pass it on to your kids, right? And we also know on some level that like when we lose it kids lose their safe haven, they're safe parents. So how do we heal this trauma?
This conversation with Dr. Frank Anderson is so powerful I know you're gonna get so much out of it I really wanted to start the new year off with it because we have so much to learn.
And before we dive in I want to remind you that the “Raising Good Humans Guided Journal” is actually a really great place to do some deep diving into yourself to learn and grow as you write in a safe place for you to reflect. It's really helpful for us parents to get that stuff out and have. a place to guide you through it. So it really helps to help us increase our regulation, help us calm our reactivity, and communicate better and also understand ourselves better. So it really goes along with all the things we're talking about here today. Yeah, so let's get to it. Join me at the table as I talk to Dr. Frank Anderson.
Frank, thank you so much for coming on the Mindful Parenting podcast. I'm so glad you're here.
[00:03:57] Dr. Frank Anderson: It's great to be here. Thank you for having me.
[00:04:01] Hunter: Yeah I'm really happy to have you here. I love I love the talking about kind of the way patterns are replicated and like what we can do to interrupt harmful patterns. And sometimes it's recently, it's funny because someone was asking me something recently and I said, I think I had just like the right amount of trauma.
[00:04:21] Dr. Frank Anderson: I can't wait to hear more about that. That's great.
[00:04:25] Hunter: Because I had a lot, I had stuff to work with, like I had a dad with a bad temper, and I was spanked, and there was difficulties and things like that, and it made a profound effect on my life, but it wasn't so much that it was like just the right amount, so it made me some fodder to work with and then share this stuff with the world.
[00:04:42] Dr. Frank Anderson: I love that. And you know what? The reality is I think you are probably more the norm, honestly, because this idea of secure attachment, I don't, we'll talk about this, but I don't think secure attachment exists in total. I don't know anybody with secure attachment. We will dive right in, but there's ranges. I think we all have all attachment styles. is what I think.
[00:05:07] Hunter: That makes more sense to me.
[00:05:09] Dr. Frank Anderson: Who, who has no overwhelming life experience? Nobody I know, none of my friends, right? But we all have versions of avoidant attachment with parts of our parents. We have anxious attachment with other parts of our parents.
We have disorganized attachment when our parents give us mixed messages. And we have secure attachment when our parents are resourced and in a loving place. So for me, everybody has all of it. Nobody's one thing, especially in our parent child relationships.
[00:05:41] Hunter: Oh my god, that makes so much more sense to me whereas everything is a spectrum, literally everything on earth is a spectrum, and to, and the whole idea of you're, the way we've read about attachment, where you're gonna fall into this one category or the other, and it makes this huge, profound difference in your child's life if you don't fall into this one category, so you're freaking out when those first things happen.
Three years. Like you're like, oh my God, they're not gonna be securely attached. What am I doing? Yeah. It's a troubling kind of way we're thinking about it,
[00:06:11] Dr. Frank Anderson: on the other side, and here's what I thought. 'cause I had, I knew all this attachment literature when I was raising my kids. I was like, good, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do everything I can for the first three years and then I'm.
Done more than there's the cure, I'm good to go, they're good to go, see you later. As if that happens too, right? You know what I mean? It's oh my god, I've screwed them up, they have a mark forever, or, oh, they're good, no more needing to parent. You know what I mean? It's the extreme nature of that never made sense to me on either front, cause it's an ongoing thing and we all have all of it.
See the ways, my kids. Relate to me differently than they relate to my husband and I see the way they relate to different aspects of me because we all have different needs at different times and different types of relationship, I feel it with my parents. Same being.
[00:06:59] Hunter: Yeah. Yeah. And we're always growing and changing involving.
So are our kids. Yeah. That whole emphasis on the first three years. Can put so much pressure on parents and can be and, I propio It's funny because I want to get to your story, but I just wanted to share I, I thought I had messed up my daughter, which was one of the reasons I dove into learning so much about communication and mindfulness.
And then as the years went on, I thought, and she kept repeating these kind of and harsh communication styles with her sister and other people. I thought, oh, I, it really stuck when she was young, maybe I really messed her up. And then, just more time was on, and she's 17 now, and I just remember just somewhat recently, I had, I came in, I was really upset about, so I think it was with the dog, and her younger sister is normally more emotionally in tuned and, and, but she was a little upset.
And anyway, the older sister who I had worried about She said, Mom, do you need a hug? And I said, Yes, I do. She's Sora, to her sister, Mom's upset. Let's take care of her. It was so emotionally in tuned and loving. And I was like, Oh, I didn't totally mess her up from those first three or four years.
[00:08:12] Dr. Frank Anderson: We don't have that perspective as we're in the, we're in the, we don't know the longitudinal trajectory really. Like I was as a trauma specialist, as somebody with a profound trauma history, I was so preoccupied about traumatizing my kids. That was the biggest. goal for me is to not transgenerationally traumatize them.
And in some degree, my, my reactivity did have an effect on them, for sure. There's no doubt about it, and I've taken full responsibility with my kid, especially my oldest, who's in that developmental stage, to talk about it at 20. But, he also, he was like, I'm worried and oh my goodness and he's yeah you had a trauma history, I certainly didn't, I was never traumatized by my parents.
I was like, oh my goodness, that's this, back there, he's I don't have that kind of trauma history, I was like, oh my and he was just so matter of fact it wasn't even an issue for him, it was just a matter of fact kind of thing, do you know what I mean? Yeah. He had no idea, like, all the energy.
I had put into, doing whatever I could to prevent transgenerational trauma, and it's, nothing's 100%, but I loved his perception of his upbringing. And it never, it didn't feel like that every step of the way, right? They change and grow and evolve so much over the years. You've learned that as you go through it?
[00:09:33] Hunter: You share a lot about your story in your memoir to be loved. The story, a story of truth, trauma, and transformation. And that's generally like what, like where I like to start. So some of our conversations here is about, how were you raised, what was your childhood like and what's, maybe what's different then about how you're raising your own children.
But yeah, what was your childhood like?
[00:09:56] Dr. Frank Anderson: Yeah, my childhood was. Do you remember the Wonder Years? I don't know if people are old enough to remember that.
[00:10:03] Hunter: Maybe the listener doesn't,
[00:10:04] Dr. Frank Anderson: sorry. Oh probably they don't, that's why I said that exactly. It was this quintessential midwestern suburb of Chicago.
And the houses looked Roe, every house looked the same. Like when we would go into our friends houses, I knew where everything was because the houses were the same, like there were these subdivisions and all the houses were built the same and it was this like idyllic looking, Midwestern upbringing on the surface, right?
And it was, my parents were pretty conservative as many of the people around us were growing up in the early, in the 60s. And, what ended up happening, because of the times, is I got caught playing with my cousin's Barbie playhouse in the basement of, we were at my cousin's house, I got caught playing with the Barbie playhouse, Frankie, don't you do that, boys aren't supposed to play with dolls, and I got this shaming response, and then I was sent to therapy for six years, weekly, to be a normal boy.
I grew up in this very, it was like, and my mom will say now, in retrospect, we were trying to do what we thought was best, but now I see it was a form of conversion therapy. Like she will say that now. So I grew up like, something's wrong with me, I am a problem, I'm defective, I need to be something else in order to be loved.
That's the title of the memoir is “To Be Loved”, and it really was a set of trajectory for me. my whole life with a clear message, I'm wrong. There's something wrong with me. And I didn't know what it was. Nobody explained anything to me as a kid. I just had to go to the special meeting. My brother didn't, and I would observe my uncles.
I'd observe my brother, who was two years younger than me. I had to play baseball. You have to play baseball. You know what I mean? You have to do, I was, You have to shoot the gun. You have to go fishing. There was this programming, and I use that word, to be a certain way in order to be accepted.
And I was a, I'm a smart kid, and I was a quick study, so I did all the stuff. And then eventually after six years of therapy, it's like Frank Frankie graduated, like he, it's successful, he's acting like a boy now, you know what I mean so I lived a long chunk of my life not being me, not even knowing who I was, because it was really I was dis I was so disconnected from who I was, but I was smart.
Disconnected, but smart, because my smart was achieving a lot, if I get A's. He'll love me, and in the midst of that, there was a lot of physical and verbal abuse in my house. My dad was more physically and verbally abusive, and my mom was passive and accommodating, which is a common dynamic.
And so there was physical and verbal violence in the house on top of your wrong. So I spent so much of my life. Disconnect, like just really disconnect, like going through the steps and having no self awareness and self connection until 32 when I ultimately, I married a woman, I ultimately came out at 32.
So I've had a long, half my life was really being something I was authentically. So my life really started at 32 when I finally came out as gay and had a very different life. In a way that's authentic, that's connected I have a husband, we've been together for 25 years, we have two kids, 16 and a 20 year old, so it's, it was a tumultuous, to say the least, upbringing, that's why I became a trauma specialist no small surprise.
It's not only about helping people, which it is, but it's also, it was also the journey of who am I? What was this about? How do I heal this? And how do I, I'm just so happy. I have an amazing life right now with two incredible kids who have taught me an enormous amount of wisdom.
amount about trauma. Forget all my Harvard training. My kids have taught me so much more about trauma healing than any of my training did, I'll tell you that.
[00:14:21] Hunter: Stay tuned for more Mindful Parenting podcasts right after this break.
[00:14:45] Hunter: That's an incredible story to just think about. You're, and I'm sure there are so many other people, to be living a life that is not authentically you for that long.
And just yeah. And obviously you had gone to college. You had studied you had gone through high school, you had gotten married. That whole thing, and then to, what, was it, was there any, was it a series of things that made you realize, that made you, how did you come to the, realize who you were?
[00:15:19] Dr. Frank Anderson: It's a great question. Nobody's asked me that before. It's interesting. It was, and this is part of what was. The memoir is very raw, and it's very open and authentic in a way that sometimes I was like, oh my goodness, am I really going to say this? But piece of Truth and authenticity runs through this memoir.
It's like I'm not, I'm being honest and truthful about what happens from a loving, compassionate way because I've done a lot of healing. But the reason I preface that in that way is that when I was in college, So I'm with, I have a girlfriend who I eventually married and we're both chemistry majors, we both went to medical school together.
But we were on a study break once and I went into the bathroom at night, we were studying at one of these college buildings and this guy exposes himself in the bathroom and freaked me out. I had no idea what was going on, I was just totally panicked, but also intrigued and excited. And it was such a horrible thing.
It's oh, put it away, put it, I know how to, I know how to suppress things, so I suppressed it, put it away, right? Went on and finished medical school, or finished college, got into medical school, and then I was in Boston, my, my then wife was on call, and I went for a run on the Charles River, and again, another guy exposed himself to me in these cruising areas, gay men looking for sex, and I got freaked out.
It was another blip of oh my goodness. And in that point in my life, I was in therapy. As a psychiatry resident, they encourage everybody to go into therapy. And so I was in therapy at that time, and there was a lot of processing my own trauma history. So I spent a lot of time working on the physical and verbal abuse.
And I realized at that point that I couldn't have access to who I was. Until I processed my trauma. And I had processed enough trauma that it enabled me to start connecting with who I really was. And everybody's different around that. There's no right way to do this. But for me, I needed to process the trauma I was holding first to enough of a degree.
in order to be able to connect with my authenticity. And so at that point, I was like, I, this is who I am. I went, my wife and I, my then wife were in couples therapy. It's I'm gay. And this is, so it was a big process, but it was like these slow moments. It's these blips that I then pushed away.
These blips that I pushed away, because I knew how to push it. Like I was taught how to push things away. That's what the therapy was when I was a kid. So when I was processed enough of my trauma, my authenticity started showing up more. It was a gradual process over several years. I was in therapy.
As an adult for ten, five times a week for ten years. A really long time. It was like, and I was in Boston, so it's a big psychoanalysis community. So I was in kind of psychoanalysis and it was helpful. The therapy helped me release the trauma energy enough to access me, is the way I would say it.
[00:18:37] Hunter: You had to talk all that through, get that all out of being buried inside your system, and yeah, it's so fascinating I, yeah, I think I, I painted through my trauma. Yes. I processed all my trauma through paintings of angry, ferocious beasts.
[00:18:57] Dr. Frank Anderson: We have all different ways, right?
All different ways. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:19:00] Hunter: Yeah, oh my goodness yeah, I can, oddly in some ways relate so much to what you're saying about this, there's all of this inside and you learn the strategies to, you learn the strategies to get by, to survive, you learn the strategies to get through, maybe, your childhood I remember feeling okay, I need to get I need to get to getting the house and then you get those strategies and then you're like thrown into life, right?
And then you, life happens and it's to, yeah, to learn how, who you are, and to learn how those things affected you, yeah, this is the work of, maybe what can happen in your twenties, but that's, not everybody was. was gay and was told that they shouldn't be gay, but a lot of us were also dealt with the trauma of, violent households.
My, I never had bruises on me, but I was terrified of my father's rage. I remember cowering behind the door, and that was pretty normal for so many parents. Yes. And then we get into the parent child relationship and we're like, that's a hundred, a thousand percent not what I'm gonna do.
And then, for me anyway, that those patterns start to repeat themselves. And because I, and tell us about that I could see myself why that was happening. I started to understand it, but maybe you can tell us why this happens. And I, and maybe if you had some of that experience as well.
[00:20:34] Dr. Frank Anderson: A hundred percent. 100%. This is the thing. All the work, all the self awareness, all the therapy, I am, I'm an expert, and I do this for a living, right? You would think I'd be clean and clear when I scrub. It's right, but no. Exactly. And that was shocking for me. It really was because I had done a lot of healing work.
I found a very kind, gentle man. He was good. He's I need three or four years before we have kids. I've got to work on myself. And I'm like, great, go ahead. So he worked on himself before we had kids. We started the surrogacy process. So I thought I was good to go. He processed my trauma.
I met this lovely man. We were going to get married. It was legal in Massachusetts at the time. And So I was like, this is amazing. I am going to give these children everything I didn't have. So many parents. And like you say, you don't have to be gay to relate to I wasn't allowed to be who I authentically am.
So many kids. So many people grew up with versions of that. Don't, boys, don't be emotional. Girls, don't be tough. And, whatever version, right? We've all grown up with some version of, is it okay to truly be me, right? So I was ready to go with these kids and we had, and interestingly enough, I always say this, You get the kids you need, not the kids you want.
Both my husband and I so wanted a girl. We had the name picked out, we were like, Ready for a girl! We both had abusive fathers, we're like, We want a girl! And sure enough, we got two boys, and I can see in retrospect now, they really activated stuff in me that was very deep, that I was holding onto that got reactivated when I became a parent.
And it was mortifying. Mindful Parenting. To be reactive, to get angry, to yell at them at times. It was like, oh my goodness, right? And I know this now. I know this as a trauma specialist that Everybody who absorbs trauma energy, holds victim energy, and we absorb perpetrator energy. It's what happens.
It's what happens. We can't, we're not ever just, we're not ever just a victim. We also absorb the energy that was bestowed upon us, and we see how effective it is. Because we're the recipient of it, right? When my kids started misbehaving and fighting and all this kind of stuff, it terrified the younger part in me who was the recipient of violence.
So my perpetrator part came out to stop them from acting that way, so it wouldn't make My internal world's so scary. And this piece is what parents do with mostly no awareness. This is one of the things I teach over and over again is, there's this parents normalize losing it. And yes. We do lose it.
Parenting is very challenging. But for me, I don't want to normalize losing it. I want to, because every time we lose it, our kids lose their safe parent. Every time we lose it, kids lose their safe parent. And I just had a discussion with my son about this yesterday. It was fascinating. I've done a podcast with him, my oldest now, on transgenerational trauma.
When we lose it, It's our job and responsibility to understand what in us got triggered or activated. And what in us reacted and responded to our kid. Which is really about protecting our wounding. It's not about them. They're kids being normal kids. And I think too many books focus on kids behavior, not enough on parents behavior.
We've got to take responsibility for our bad behavior. Yes, it happens and, it is our responsibility to heal the underlying wounds that cause those extreme reactions.
[00:24:44] Hunter: Wow. Yeah. I couldn't agree more. That's such a profound statement. Every time we lose it, kids lose their safe. And everyone who absorbs trauma energy absorbs victim energy and perpetrator energy.
I want to learn more about that, but I think maybe before we go any further, we should stop and define what trauma is, because as a word, it's being used really frequently these days, so I'm sure we're getting it wrong in a bunch of places, so what is trauma and what isn't trauma?
[00:25:17] Dr. Frank Anderson: That's a great question, and it really is variable.
That's one of the blessings and the curses, based on temperament and perception. Like you can't have three kids in the same family, with the same behavior and they all respond very differently, same parental behavior. And they all respond differently because of their nervous system, because of their sensitivity, because of their temperament.
My brother, who's two years younger than me, he didn't have the same level of abuse that I did. He had a different kind of resilience, and he went, he's a big hunter, so he's I'm going to dominate and kill animals, right? That was an adaptive response for him, in our family.
I become this trauma specialist, but I had a sensitivity that my brother didn't in a certain kind of way. So each kid's experience is different and we have to take that into account when we think about trauma. But I think about intensity, frequency, and duration. The intensity of an event, the frequency it occurs, And the duration.
Those are important factors around an overwhelming experience. I think about trauma as an experience that happens to you. It's not who you are, because we personalize our trauma a lot. So it's what happened to you, and how do you react and respond to it. So I want people to differentiate, because a lot of people are like, I am trauma, or this is me, I am broken, I am bad, I'm a horrible person.
It's no, something bad happened to you, and you personalized it, and then you react and respond this way, because of what you're holding, when perpetrators don't take responsibility for their actions, Kids do a hundred percent of the time. Kids have to make meaning of a situation. Every time my dad yelled and screamed at me, and he said some pretty violent things frequently, he didn't do the repair apology thing.
And so what am I supposed to think? If I'm a useless piece of shit, I'm a useless piece of shit. That must be who I am. Because kids have this. need for parental authority to help them make meaning and sense of the world. And so when you have that and you don't have this is what happens with alcoholic kids who grew up with alcoholic parents.
There's the drunk parent yelling and streaming, doing whatever. And then there's the sober parent, which is like, Oh my God, I'm so sorry. I'll never do it again. And then it happens tomorrow. And it happens the next day. So That's not Authentic Repair. That's the daddy who apologizes and the daddy who yells and screams, which is so confusing for kids, right?
That's not
[00:28:20] Hunter: You're talking about the same person.
[00:28:21] Dr. Frank Anderson: I'm talking about the same person because that happens in alcoholic situations. Yelling and screaming when they lose it. or when they're drunk, and then this self loathing, I'm such a bad parent, I should have never done that, I'm so sorry, when they're sober.
That is not what I'm talking about with authentic responsibility and repair. I am wrong, Daddy is wrong, I shouldn't have yelled at you, that is my fault, here's the reason that I did that, it has nothing to do with you, I will do everything in my power never to do that again. If you see me do that, please let me know.
Because that is not your responsibility. There's a way to take full responsibility for your actions, not like pleading for forgiveness, right? So it losing it's important. But Eve, almost more important is how you take responsibility. For what you've done with your children, and my son, my oldest son, recently after writing this memoir, and he saw all this stuff, he's wow, I had no idea all this was, happened in your life, I loved my grandpa he's I had a great grandpa. But he, there was this he, at some point, And this was developmentally appropriate, he got really angry at me, he was like 18 years old. And you did this, and you were controlling, and you yelled at me, and you did, he like had this litany, text litany of lists of things that he was holding that I did wrong.
And I was like, you are absolutely right. I am so sorry. Let's talk about it. And he was dumbfounded. He was like, what? You took out all my thunder. And I'm like, yeah, honey, but that's the truth. If you are holding that, then it's true. And you are going to, your perception and experience of whatever, and there was no defending or, there was no, I, yeah, but I tried the best and he has a special needs brother.
And he's you neglected me because you spent all this time on, you're my brother. I'm like, yes, I am so sorry about that. I am so sorry. I think parents don't take enough responsibility. Because they try so hard, and they care so much, and they love so much. But, it's so important for kids to be validated in their experience, regardless of my parents sent me to therapy when I was a kid, and they were well intended.
I know that. They said, we did what we wanted was best for you, but it had a profoundly negative effect on my life. 32 years of suppression. Kids have a hard time holding both truths. So we as parents need to really work on that and model that for our children. And I think that's challenging.
[00:31:06] Hunter: Yeah, it requires a great amount of humility, but also a great amount of compassion for ourselves and our humanity that, yeah, we're gonna make mistakes and we're still okay people, even if we're, we make those mistakes, because we are going to make those mistakes. I really think that self compassion, really hinges on that, but You mentioned something earlier about this idea of that when we lose it, that there's these certain parts of ourselves.
There's this victim part of ourselves and the perpetrator parts of ourselves. And I don't know a lot about it, but I'm feeling this is the eternal family systems. The parts that I've heard about and people talking to me, but haven't studied up on. But, Yeah. Maybe you can fill me in, and the listener, about this this way of looking at our, our sense of self and psyche and all that.
[00:31:59] Dr. Frank Anderson: Yeah, so the IFS model of therapy, Dick Schwartz is the founder of that model, I'm a lead trainer of the, I teach the trauma training at the IFS Institute it's this concept that we all have different parts or aspect of our personality, like parts of us are normal. I just got off an email with the folks at Inside Out, the folks at Pixar, for example.
It's just like Riley in Inside Out. We all have different aspects of our personality. That's what the IFS model believes in. And some of those parts carry pain and wounding. And some of those parts have protective responses. And, our protective responses show up to keep our pain at bay. It's a relationship between those parts.
And we all have what's called self energy. Our soul, our wisdom, our source. You know what I mean? Our self, our, outside of our parts. And, so there's Riley, and then there's sadness, anger, fear, disgust on We. For those of you who have seen the new movie, and Anxiety. Go see it. It's great.
It's a brilliant movie. And, they do such a great job. When I did a project with them that never got funded, but the idea, they were very it's very important for them. They said, we want anything we do with you, Frank, you need to know that every single emotion has a positive intention.
That is a fundamental belief of internal family systems. Even your bad behavior, in quotes, has a positive intention. And that's important for people to understand. The yelling, the hitting, the screaming towards your kids has a positive intention. Not a positive intention towards your children. The positive intention of keeping your pain away.
We yell and scream because our trauma wounds have been activated. That's the responsibility I want parents to take is, we have the saying in IFS, when it's intense, It's yours. And most people think it's the kid.
[00:34:05] Hunter: Stay tuned for more Mindful Parenting podcast right after this break.
[00:34:41] Hunter: It's so interesting because you're saying we yell and scream because our trauma wounds have been Activated. Activated. And I, I just think about one of the things I tell parents all the time is that yelling is not your fault.
Like you didn't decide to yell. You didn't wake up in the morning and think, I'm going to scream at Frank at two o'clock. You didn't do that. No one does that. No one like is consciously making that decision. And it's something that's unconscious within us. And it's. It's these wounds have been activated.
This is and it's just so helpful to understand it more deeply and completely that, that yes, it really isn't your fault. It's something that's in you. That's trying to keep you safe,
And it's not something you're choosing. You're not consciously choosing this.
[00:35:24] Dr. Frank Anderson: And you need to move toward it instead of against it.
Get curious about it because normally this is the over remorse like, I'm such a bad parent. I can't believe what I did. I did the, like I, I write about this in my memoir. I became suicidal when I started act, when my perpetrator started showing up around my children. I was like, there's nothing worse than to do what was done to you in trauma.
So that's when I became suicidal in my life, I'm like, I'd rather kill myself than impose this trauma on my kids, do you know what I mean? And I really, I did, I felt that in those moments when I really lost it. And, there is, so it's the, that criticism is not what I'm talking about here. I'm like, really, like, why, what is going on here?
What did get activated in me? How can I appreciate positive intentioning of those responses, even though they've had a negative effect on my kid?
[00:36:25] Hunter: The way I understood it, As I was going through this, was, I would scream at my daughter, I'd feel terrible, I'd hear her crying, I'd be crying, and then I'd say, okay, what's happening?
What, what's happening in this moment? She's, I'm when she gets upset, it feels completely unacceptable in my bones. Yes. This is not acceptable because of my childhood,
[00:36:54] Dr. Frank Anderson: right? You acted like that, you would have gotten in big trouble.
[00:36:58] Hunter: Yeah.
[00:36:59] Dr. Frank Anderson: Yeah, exactly. So it's scary. It's terrifying when you're around that energy.
And so you're going to do anything you can. Your part is going to do anything it can to stop her so that your trauma doesn't keep getting poked.
[00:37:15] Hunter: Oh my gosh. I hope, dear listener, that you're having some insights here. Obviously, we need to heal this trauma, right? We need to make this less scary.
We need to be able to be, we want to be able to be steady when our kids have their big feelings so that we can help them emotionally regulate. We can't be doing that if we're, if we're all, losing it ourselves or we're all upset and etc. So how do we go about the process of healing it if all those years of talk therapy?
Didn't heal it.
[00:37:46] Dr. Frank Anderson: That's exactly right. It didn't work. There's, and I'll say a couple things like, now and the, so when we lose it, we're teaching our kids how to not regulate their emotions. That's the other. That's
[00:37:57] Hunter: true. Yeah. With
[00:37:59] Dr. Frank Anderson: my oldest son and now I am in a very different place, and I've been able to tolerate his anger without reactivity.
And I've been able to teach him healthy ways to be angry. And I can see those differences now. But when I was reactive, I was teaching him how to be reactive. And and it's because of the healing work that I've done. And there, there is a way. This is, IFS, Internal Family Systems, is one such model of therapy for healing trauma.
EMDR is another model of therapy. There's somatic body centered therapies, sensory motorcycle therapy, or somatic experiencing. So there's many different types of trauma therapy. So you have to find a type of trauma therapy that works for you to do the internal work. We spend so much time talking about trauma.
We Getting away from the pain, and you have to find a model of therapy that allows you to move towards the pain without reliving it, because when we relive our trauma, it's not helpful. And there is, for me, neuroscience helps us talk about going back, visiting the trauma, not reliving it, witnessing it, listening to the thoughts, the feelings, and the physical sensations that are associated with the part that holds the trauma.
The part needs to be witnessed fully. You, me, adult self needs to get it, fully get it, what the child part of me experienced. And then there needs to be a corrective experience, that's another important piece, is this part that holds the trauma needs to be loved and cared about in the way that it wasn't.
So it needs to share its experience, it needs to have a corrective experience, and that's what enables release to occur. Then it can let go of what it's carrying. So there is a process of healing trauma. Most people don't know about this. There is a process around healing trauma. And so that happens, we don't get triggered as much.
Once the wound gets poked, this is what happens, when my son gets angry, it's no longer a scary event for me about my history, it's about my son getting angry. And so I have the differentiation, I'm like, I know you're really upset, there is a different way to handle this, I'm happy to help you with it.
Versus, what are you doing, you I can't believe you're doing, you're so disrespectful, if, so without the reactivity, you with it. You can actually be there with kids in a way that they need. There's a new study that just comes out, and I've talked about this twice on National TV, around a study that just came out within the last week.
The way kids parents think they're providing support that kids need, only 20 percent of kids say they're getting the support they need from their parents. So it's like parents are giving this thing that they think is helpful and kids are not getting what they're needing and wanting. And it's a brand new study that just came out and there's this mismatch around
[00:40:58] Hunter: You're talking about like mental emotional kind of support.
[00:41:00] Dr. Frank Anderson: Mental and emotional. Yeah. And social needs. That's exactly right. Yeah. And you know Because When we're in our trauma, we're clearly not giving a kid what he needs and wants. And I'm not saying parents are in that all the time. I'm saying there's a mismatch and a lack of responsibility that parents don't take around this. And it creates a chasm. It creates a big chasm between your kid and your your kid and you. And, Gabor Maté and Gordon Neufeld wrote this book “Hold Onto Your Kids”, and it's a brilliant book because, and Gabor is a friend of mine, I really love his work. He talks about the attachment relationship that's eroding so profoundly in our culture and society. And this is, part of it is technology. And part of it is parents not taking responsibility for their history.
[00:41:52] Hunter: Dear listener, you can listen to both Gordon and Gabor talk about “Hold Onto Your Kids” on the Mindful Parenting podcast a few months ago. Yeah, it's so interesting. I think what you're talking about when I think about it through from the lens of mindfulness is the idea of. Yeah in, in my, in Mindful Parenting, in Raising Good Humans I talk about the work of RAIN- Recognizing, Accepting, Investigating, Nurturing with self compassion… like doing the brave work of being able to move toward that pain and listen and witness and that's when we think of, when I think about what you're describing about what our kids need socially, emotionally from us as far as that support they need. Yeah. They need us to be able to listen, too, to be able to stay and listen, not fix a problem, not tell them what to do, whatever it is. They need us to really listen to be that support for them.
[00:42:50] Dr. Frank Anderson: Much more so than telling them, they need us to listen. And you know what, I have this thing I call the Lose It Agreement with parents, and that when you lose it with your kid, leave, get away, take the space you need, let the other parent, if it's a co parenting situation, jump in and bring reality to the situation. Mommy or Daddy shouldn't have reacted that way. It was wrong of them to do that, not throwing them under the bus. What was going on for you when they did that? What was it like for you? What were you doing? So to have the non triggered parent Engage with the kid, so the kid doesn't lose a parent.
Then, have the triggered parent come back and repair. When they feel compassion for their kid. Because so many parents jump into repair prematurely. I'm sorry I did that, but you shouldn't have hit your sister. I'm sorry, but it's like when you truly feel passion for your kids, you're no longer in your triggered state.
[00:43:56] Hunter: Yeah don't rush that. Oh my gosh, Frank, I could talk to you about this for so long. I do have to respect your time. Dr. Frank Anderson's new memoir is “To Be Loved: A Story of Truth, Trauma, and Transformation”. Is there anything we missed that you want to share with the listener or where they also can find you and continue the conversation?
[00:44:17] Dr. Frank Anderson: Yeah, so the only thing I want to share is I have this everyone deserves to be loved. We all have harmed. And I want people most importantly to know trauma healing is possible. It's the reason I wrote this book. Trauma healing is possible. You don't have to continue to repeat these patterns even when you're very well intended. Because we all are well intended, so I want people to know that it's possible. And yeah, my website is FrankAndersonMD.com. All the information is there, all the workshops I do, all the books and courses I do, and Instagram. I'm on all the social media channels as we have to be nowadays, but @frank_andersonmd is my Instagram, which is probably the most active social media place I am. And I'm providing as much content as I can for parents and adults and kids alike to get this message of trauma healing out to the world because I think it's really important.
[00:45:23] Hunter: Thank you for doing that work for being, doing the work that you've done and sharing your story so openly. And honestly, I think that It's definitely making ripple effects around the world. And I really appreciate it. And I really appreciate you coming on the Mindful Parenting Podcast today.
[00:45:40] Dr. Frank Anderson: Thank you for having me.
[00:45:46] Hunter: Wow. It's so powerful to think about all this healing work that is happening, for Dr. Anderson, for me, for you, for all of us. We could there are so many things we can heal and grow and change And I think that is powerful and important work to do.
Hey, if you appreciate this episode and you got something out of it, please text it to a friend today. Tell someone who could use it and could also maybe do that healing work That really makes a difference If you liked this episode, I recommend you check out episode 422, “The Myth of Normal Parenting” with Dr. Gabor Mate. He walks me through some deep dives into my own childhood. It's pretty interesting. And you also might like Mindfulness and Attachment Styles with Josh Korda, episode 429. And this episode is part of the “Stress and How to Cope” series. Make sure you listen to last week's episode where Dena Faresh interviewed me and we're calling it the “Permission to be Human” episode. You might like that. And also coming up next week, we have Dr. Diana Hill: “How to be nicer to yourself”. And that will be the third part in this short series, “Stress and How to Cope”. And then we're going to go into another series about kids with different brains, but amazing kids. So that will be coming up really soon.
Yeah. I hope you like this episode. I hope it's supporting you. Please please help us continue to support the podcast by telling people about it. Maybe leave a rating and review. That makes a huge difference. And yeah, I hope that's watered your good seeds. I wish you a great year. I know that All the time, anytime we are ready, we can begin anew. So I'm always beginning anew. I always want to be a learner, someone who grows and, I hope you'll join me in just knowing that you can always begin anew. And let's do it. Let's water the seeds together. Water those good seeds in us. And don't water the weeds. Water the seeds. Let's make some beautiful, full flowers. And I'm wishing you a great week. And I will be back in your ears next week. Namaste.
[00:48:10] Mindful Parenting Members: I'd say definitely do it. It's really helpful. It will change your relationship with your kids for the better. It will help you communicate better. And just, I'd say communicate better as a person, as a wife, as a spouse. It's been really a positive influence in our lives, so definitely do it. I'd say definitely do it. It's so worth it. The money really is inconsequential when you get so much benefit from being a better parent to your children and feeling like you're connecting more with them and not feeling like you're yelling all the time or you're like, why isn't things working? I would say definitely do it. It's so worth it. It'll change you. No matter what age someone's child is, it's a great opportunity for personal growth and it's a great investment when someone's there. You can continue in your old habits that aren't working, or you can learn some new tools and gain some perspective to shift everything in your parenting.
[00:49:13] Hunter: Are you frustrated by parenting? Do you listen to the experts and try all the tips and strategies, but you're just not seeing the results that you want? Or are you lost as to where to start? Does it all seem so overwhelming with too much to learn? Are you yearning for community people who get it, who also don't want to threaten and punish to create cooperation?
Hi, I'm Hunter Clarke-Fields, and if you answered yes to any of these questions, I want you to seriously consider the Mindful Parenting membership. You will be joining hundreds of members who have discovered the path of mindful parenting and now have confidence and clarity in their parenting. This isn't just another parenting class. This is an opportunity to really discover your unique lasting relationship, not only with your children, but with yourself. It will translate into lasting, connected relationships, not only with your children, but your partner too. Let me change your life. Go to MindfulParentingCourse.com to add your name to the wait list so you will be the first to be notified when I open the membership for enrollment. I look forward to seeing you on the inside. MindfulParentingCourse.com
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