In this enlightening episode of The Fresh Start Family Show, listeners are welcomed to an insightful conversation with Wendy and Dr. Lynyetta Willis, who shares her wisdom on transforming intergenerational dramas and embracing new parenting and partnering methods that differ from our past experiences. 

The discussion illuminates the intricate ways past family dynamics can affect our current relationships and how we raise our children. Dr. Willis discusses the ‘Four Horsemen’ mindset—pain, blame, shame, and avoidance—as prevalent yet harmful tactics often used in parenting. 

Far from settling for stable misery, she stresses the importance of recognizing our triggers, modifying our internal narratives, and developing new tools for healthier interactions with our loved ones. With her two children as inspiration, Dr. Willis shares her personal journey of applying these principles and advocating for joy and self-empowerment in family life.

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Episode Highlights:

• Intergenerational dramas can be transformed by recognizing and changing the stories we tell ourselves and the tools we use in relationships.
• Emotional awareness is key; learning to understand and befriend our body’s responses to stress can guide us in making better decisions.
• Identifying practical steps to easily identify intergenerational traumas is pivotal for healing and improving parenting and partnership practices.
• The ‘PATHS’ process coined by Dr. Willis is instrumental in developing habits that can positively transform our most sacred relationships.
• Viewing parenting and partnership as a spiritual practice can offer a deep, empowering journey toward self-improvement and legacy building.

Resources Mentioned:

Stable Misery Free Roadmap: www.healingstablemisery.com

Follow Dr. Willis on Instagram

Want to follow along? Here’s the transcript!

0:00:02 – (Wendy): Well, hey there, families. And welcome to a new episode of the Fresh Start Family show. I am excited to be here today with Dr. Lynyetta Willis, who is going to be chatting with us about how we can transform intergenerational dramas and how we can parent and partner differently from our past. Welcome to the Dr. Lynyetta. Hello.
0:00:24 – (Dr. Lynyetta): Hello, hello. So excited to be here. Me too.
0:00:27 – (Wendy): As we were chatting before we started recording, Dr. Lynyetta and I have been putting this podcast interview together for, I think, we think almost two years we’ve been chatting and we met each other somehow through the interweb worlds. And I was like, ooh, I admire your work. And you were like, yeah, let’s have a conversation. And then I think Covid hit. And then you broke your foot. And then I think I had to reschedule at one point because my kids needed something and I just love how we stuck with it and we get to spend the hour together. And I’m really excited because I really admire your work and your voice and all the things you do in the world. So thanks again for being here.
0:01:07 – (Dr. Lynyetta): Yes, thank you for having me. I’m so excited for this conversation. It’s going to be epic. It has to be because just been building for so long. That’s what all that means. It’s going to be epic.
0:01:18 – (Wendy): It better be, right?
0:01:19 – (Dr. Lynyetta): I. I love, love it.
0:01:19 – (Wendy): It. Well, before we get into this topic, which I know our listeners are just going to soak up, will you tell us a little bit about your story and how you became so passionate about what you do and how you serve and support parents and so many people in the world? Tell us a little bit about your family, what part of the world you live in, all that good stuff.
0:01:40 – (Dr. Lynyetta): Yeah. So I live in Georgia, USA, and I have two kiddos at this point, they’re ages ten and 14. Can’t believe it. Slow down. What is happening? And I am a psychologist and a family coach and I absolutely love what I do. I always tell people, like, I’m not interested in helping parents to get their kids to eat peas. That’s not what interests me. Not that peas aren’t important. Super important. That’s just not where my interested lies.
0:02:14 – (Dr. Lynyetta): I really love helping parents to help themselves to shift how they’re showing up and who they become, especially in those tensed and stressful moments with their kids or even with their partners. I always say how we are as parents, as children of our parents, as partners. There’s a lot of overlap. And when you shift one relationship, all the relationships are going to shift, because it’s how you show up.
0:02:49 – (Dr. Lynyetta): And so I have been in this field for almost 20 years, and I find that really helping people to gain that deeper awareness and to really feed that deeper desire to do relationships differently than was modeled for them or how they have in the past to raise their kids and sometimes themselves differently than they were raised or what was modeled for them is something that I really think is extremely important.
0:03:16 – (Dr. Lynyetta): Really. And I don’t say this lightly or to be witty, but for the future of our planet, literally. Right. Like, really up leveling or evolving how we show up, I think is really important. And being able to reflect on what was taught to us, what was modeled for us, and making that courageous, brave decision to say, okay, I’m going to be the one. I’m going to be it, and I’m going to be the one to shift these legacies against all odds.
0:03:51 – (Dr. Lynyetta): And I work with parents and couples every day, and I am so in awe of every single one of them for taking on this work, because it’s not super easy, but it is more than worth it. Yeah.
0:04:03 – (Wendy): And so fulfilling. Right? If you can fall in love with the journey of learning, growing, breaking painful generational cycles, having the courage to go first, all the things it really is, the end result is so fantastic. Let’s see if I can pull this quote out. I forget who it was, but I recorded a podcast episode with one of my head coaches the other day, and it was like, when it comes to change, I got to remember now, but it was like, in the beginning, it’s uncomfortable as hell.
0:04:33 – (Wendy): In the middle, it’s very messy. And then in the end, it’s just glorious. It’s glorious because you get to that endpoint where you’re like, wow, that was really worth it. Which I think represents so many of us doing this work and that are committed and fall in love with this journey. And by the time we end this planet, we leave this planet, we’re just going to have such a legacy, and it’s just going to be the life we will have lived will be so important and full of intention and purpose and all the things.
0:05:06 – (Wendy): I love it. And tell me a little bit. So you said you lived in Georgia and your kids are ten and 14, so that means. Let me see if I can get this right. Is that like fifth grade and eigth grade?
0:05:18 – (Dr. Lynyetta): Well, 7th. He’s actually 7th grade. He started school later with his birthday and all that stuff, so, yes, fifth grade and 7th grade. And, yeah, we just moved to a new school that’s more rigorous than the previous one, so that’s quite a journey. But we’ve made it. It’s almost the end of the school year, and we’ve made it. And it’s amazing to watch how proud they are of themselves. One of the things that I’ve talking about transforming intergenerational dramas. One thing I’ve been very intentional about is it matters less what I think of you and how proud I am of you. It’s more important for you to tap into what you think of you and how proud you are of you. Because one day, I won’t be here to hate it when I get morbid like this, but I’m like, what the hell? I’ll be here, right?
0:06:11 – (Wendy): I won’t be looking over your shoulder. At least I won’t be sitting with you when you interview for a job or when you get the job.
0:06:19 – (Dr. Lynyetta): Exactly. Even though my husband swears I will be like, yeah, when they go to college, you’re going to move with them? You’re going to move. Oh, my God. He’s like, I already see it. I’m like, no, I won’t. I don’t think I will. But being able to, because I didn’t necessarily have that, a lot of what I did, a lot of what I accomplished, I think a large reason I have a PhD is because I knew that it would gain a sense of pride and acceptance from my family.
0:06:47 – (Dr. Lynyetta): More so than just the fact that I was like, I’m dying to get a PhD. I mean, yeah, sure. But there was definitely that piece around. This will bring my family so much joy, and it makes me wonder how many of us do things in our day to day life not because it makes our soul sing, but because someone else said, no, you need to do this because it will make me smile. Or you need to do this because this is the way it’s always been done. Or you need to do this because.
0:07:17 – (Dr. Lynyetta): Fill in the blank with anything that has nothing to do with you or your happiness or satisfaction. Yeah. And that leads to a lot of frustration and sadness and another phrase that I use a lot in my work. Stable misery.
0:07:32 – (Wendy): Yes, I love that we decided not to talk about stable misery today, but I love that term. And I know you have resources for parents if they kind of realize I’m stuck in stable misery, whether it’s marriage or parenting.
0:07:46 – (Dr. Lynyetta): Yes.
0:07:47 – (Wendy): But, yeah, it is so true. We call that in my work here at first start family. Like learning how to use encouragement versus praise. Right? Like that classic where you want to raise kids who are pleasers. Like, you want to train your children to please you, and it’s like, well, actually, we don’t. We want our kids to be inspired by themselves. One of the phrases over the last five years or so that I’ve undone in myself is I’ve kind of taken out the word proud. So, not that it’s not like a bad word or anything, just like I’m saying I’m sorry is not a bad word, even though I choose to say, like, thank you for your grace instead. But with proud, I’ve just changed it, too. I’m so inspired by you, and I hope you feel inspired by yourself, because you did this. You showed up. You had the courage. Like, right now, Stella’s in an honors math class, and it’s a kick in her butt a little more than she thought. In last semester, she got a c right at the end, and she was heartbroken because she just missed turning in an assignment. It was like the timing, and then she just misunderstood, and it just dropped it right down.
0:08:53 – (Wendy): And at the end, it was like, I know this is disappointing, and I hope you’re inspired by yourself, that you had the courage to at least register for that class. A lot of kids would just not up for it, and you at least had the courage to do something new and challenging. So you got to look at that, and then you can make decisions about how you’re going to make sure it doesn’t drop down next time, if that’s.
0:09:12 – (Dr. Lynyetta): What you want, 100%.
0:09:14 – (Wendy): Well, I love that. And so you’ve been doing this work for 20 years, and so I imagine this has just blessed you in your motherhood journey, so you’re able to help all these other families. But being someone, I mean, it’s always different with our own kids, right? Like, those of us who are educators or incredibly well educated and versed in your field, like you are. How has it been different when you go to apply this stuff with your own kids?
0:09:41 – (Wendy): Maybe just speak to that for a second, and then we’ll get into our meat, our topic of the day.
0:09:45 – (Dr. Lynyetta): Yeah, well, first of all, my kids don’t give a flip about my brand. That’s for darn sure. I’m like, dudes, if this were being recorded, I would not look great right now. So I’m going to need you to read the script. Right. My kids, what you’re supposed to say.
0:10:02 – (Wendy): They think I’m the uncoolest person in the world. They’re like, so embarrassed that I have this big company. I’m like, you know, other people think I’m freaking cool, and they’re just like, mom, this is so just. Can we just talk about something else?
0:10:14 – (Dr. Lynyetta): Okay. Sorry.
0:10:15 – (Wendy): Back, Mike.
0:10:16 – (Dr. Lynyetta): Back to you. So true. I know. So, it’s been an interesting journey, because part of the reason why I started on this is because growing up in my family, I was raised, as many of the listeners, I’m sure, were, with what I call the four horsemen mindset. And back then, for many legacies in my family, the four horsemen are pain, blame, shame, and avoidance. Pain, blame, shame, and avoidance. And these were the four tactics that are often used to keep kids in line.
0:10:46 – (Dr. Lynyetta): One doesn’t work, pull out another, whether  fit be spanking or shaming or. Let’s just not talk about it. What happens in this house stays in this house. Or stop crying before I give you something to cry about. Or all the oldies but goodies. And I have a sister who’s 20 years younger than me. I have no idea what my mother was thinking, but, yeah, when I was younger, I was the cool sister. And one day, she had said something to me. She’s probably about two years old. She was still in a high chair at the time, but she said something to me, and it just set me off.
0:11:17 – (Dr. Lynyetta): And I looked at her and I said, I’m so angry I could smack you right now. Yeah. And I remember she just looked at me and just put her head down. And it was this sense of like, oh, okay. There was literally nothing she could do to stop me from doing that if I wanted, if I chose to. But I will never forget the look on her face in that moment. It was transformational for me because I was like, I will never say that to a child again.
0:11:49 – (Dr. Lynyetta): What just happened? Are you kidding me? Yeah. I have the power to be able to do that if I wanted to, but it does not feel good to threaten to use it. And I never would have, I don’t think. But just the fact that I would say that to her, to try to keep her, I realized, like, oh, that sounds familiar. I heard those same things. Right? And so, with my own children, it’s really interesting you set these.
0:12:20 – (Dr. Lynyetta): I actually worked with parents before I had my own kids. I called them, like, the bravest souls on the planet. I’m like, why did you even let. Okay. But I did. It was so easy with them. It was just like, oh, do this and do that and tell them this. And it was wonderful. Right? And then I had my own kids, and I’m like, what the heck? This doesn’t work. The same way with them triggers. I know. And that is what I really started to notice. When it’s somebody else’s kid, there are no triggers there. I have to worry about that.
0:12:50 – (Dr. Lynyetta): But with my own, they were bringing up a lot of my stuff. And in my calmest, most centered moments, I could see the blessings in that because it’s like, hey, you’re helping me to see on a deep level what it is. I still need to heal within myself. But in the moment, all it was was, I love that little thing. Your kid’s not giving a hard time. They’re having a hard time in those moments. No, they’re giving me a hard freaking time.
0:13:17 – (Dr. Lynyetta): They’re giving me a hard time. Right. And so it’s one of those things where, for me, I’ve really had to practice what I preach. And it’s not always perfect.
0:13:30 – (Wendy): Because like.
0:13:30 – (Dr. Lynyetta): I said, they don’t know the script. They don’t know what they’re supposed to say and do, so they just don’t. Or maybe they do and they just choose not to. I don’t know. But they’re humans. And so for me, this whole process has been such a delightful journey. And I have a parenting program called triggered to transformed that parents who want to raise their kids differently than they were raised and who struggle with triggers are in. And it is so beautiful to watch them, the parents in that program, talk about the things that set their kids off and how they react and how they respond. And the beauty of it is I find that I can have so much grace and so much empathy because I’m like, I know. I’ve been there. And I promise you, you can get through this.
0:14:14 – (Dr. Lynyetta): You can truly transform how you show up. It is 100% possible. Just keep going. And month after month after month, I see their wins. I see these forms they fill out, and they’re like, I haven’t yelled at my kid in two months. Or, oh, my gosh, my kid and I, we’re so much kinder each other. My kid hasn’t told me he hates me in three weeks. And just being able to see that is so beautiful because I’m like, it’s not the big things. Sometimes we think it’s like, oh, I’m going to have this major mountain man on top of the mountain epiphany experience, and it’s going to shift everything. And then my kids are going to shift, and my husband’s. It’s the tiny things.
0:14:55 – (Dr. Lynyetta): It’s the micro steps that stack on top of each other. It takes a whole lot of little rocks to make up a mountain. That’s all a mountain is, a whole bunch.
0:15:03 – (Wendy): Yes.
0:15:04 – (Dr. Lynyetta): Right? And so it’s those tiny wins that are really shifting how we show up and ultimately shifting the legacy.
0:15:13 – (Wendy): I love that. And it is so true that as an educator, coach, psychologist, whatever, you really are challenged to practice what you preach, which freaks a lot of people out if they are thinking about ever becoming a coach or going down this field. Right? Because you’re like, oh, you need to be perfect in order to help parents. And I have a program called become a parenting coach where parents can actually become a coach to help other parents. And a lot of them get hung up with that. And I always tell them, no, trust me, dude.
0:15:40 – (Wendy): A. It’s going to strengthen your family so much because as you’re going through, like, as you’re way more triggered by your own kids, because you’ve preached it that day to somebody else, you’re going to hold yourself a little bit more accountable, be reminded of the concepts, and then fail. Try again, fail. And then all of those air quotes, failure, which is just unfinished success, you get to use to then help others. And people like relatability.
0:16:08 – (Wendy): There are some people who can teach from a PhD perspective where they’re just like, hey, and like you said before, you had kids, I don’t know if you had your PhD yet, but it does work. And then I find a lot of parents, they just really enjoy hearing from someone who’s had the moments, and a lot of them, like me, it sounds like you teach in the same way or support in the same way, and it’s just so much more meaningful when you can have gone through it yourself.
0:16:37 – (Wendy): So, yeah, our kids provide us plenty of examples to do the work, actually, with our own family. And that’s beautiful.
0:16:44 – (Dr. Lynyetta): One of the biggest things I hear from the people in my program and the people that I work with one on one is you’re so relatable. And I love it when you tell me stories that lead me to realize I’m not alone. It’s not, oh, my gosh, I love how brilliant you are. Oh, my gosh, I love that you know all this stuff, right? It’s not that. It’s, oh, my gosh, you too?
0:17:10 – (Wendy): Even you?
0:17:12 – (Dr. Lynyetta): Yes, even me, who threatened a two year old in a high chair? Yes, even me. I have my moments as well. Right. And that’s why I don’t think parenting was ever meant to be done in isolation, ever. If you go way back, even to caveman day, people lived in little caves altogether. It wasn’t until industrialization and all this. And the only reason I know this is because I’ve been helping my son with social studies.
0:17:38 – (Dr. Lynyetta): But there have been different inventions and things like that that have led us to separate, not because we wanted to as a species, but because whatever happened led us to do that. So I truly believe that part of that communal ability, yes, it’s so that you have help with your kids and all this other stuff, but it’s also, there’s so much wisdom in community, which is why I have this parenting community.
0:18:04 – (Dr. Lynyetta): I am in awe of how much, like, on the calls that we have, I sit there and sometimes I don’t say much at all. They’re just cross helping each other and going around, and I’m like, that was freaking brilliant. Like we’re sitting around a campfire and we’re just sharing wisdom with one another and sharing support and guidance and being there and just sometimes just nodding, given that knowing nod, like, yeah, that’s so.
0:18:32 – (Wendy): Cool, lineette, because your program and my program sounds very similar. And it’s funny because I get the same feedback, right? It’s relatability and vulnerability, which is the superpower, I think. And then, of course, it’s like the effective tactics and strategies, for sure, tell us we want it to work, right? If you’re telling me connection works and empathy works, they really get excited when they see it work. But those two things, and then the community aspect, it’s just so beautiful. I always feel like shame drips away faster when you learn in community, right? Because when you’re private, privates are great. You can get along, like one on ones. And individual therapy, it’s fantastic.
0:19:14 – (Wendy): And I just find that the shame melts away faster when you learn within community because you see that you’re not alone, that you’re not the only one who threatened to smack your kid last night or smacked your kid. Or I’ve written articles, like, not proud of them, but I have an article called I left bruises one night when I grabbed Taryn’s arm so tight that the next day I saw fingerprints in the bathtub and I lost it. I was just like, who am I? But parents, in a weird way, they love to hear that story because so many people are sitting in their house, like, shaming themselves to death.
0:19:48 – (Wendy): They’re never going to tell anybody they saw a fingerprint mark on their kid’s arm. And then they hear someone say it and they’re like, oh, all that shame that I’ve been holding on to is just bs. It doesn’t help us not grab the wrist too tight tomorrow.
0:20:04 – (Dr. Lynyetta): No.
0:20:09 – (Wendy): Avoidance.
0:20:10 – (Dr. Lynyetta): Yeah.
0:20:10 – (Wendy): I love that you have a community like that too.
0:20:13 – (Dr. Lynyetta): Yeah, it’s so important. It’s so important.
0:20:16 – (Wendy): Awesome. Okay, well, let’s get right into our subject matter. So transforming intergenerational dramas. I love this. It’s like a cool different use of words because I often say ending painful generational cycles or you hear generational trauma, but this is like intergenerational drama because I feel like people are like, oh, I don’t know, trauma. They have a hard time accepting or admitting. There’s big traumas, there’s little traumas. There’s a lot of trauma. Especially those of us who grew up in the autocratic homes where you’re threatened with shame, pain, harm, humiliation, intimidation, aggression around every corner if you mess up.
0:20:57 – (Wendy): Mistakes are dangerous. Like all the things. But they still calling it trauma. It feels too dramatic. But everyone can agree that there was so much freaking drama in a lot of our homes. Oh my gosh, I remember having these huge fights in our home. And then never resolution, never making amends. You’d wake up the next morning and it’d be like breakfast time. Like, do you want bacon with your pancakes? And you’re like, are we going to freaking talk about what happened last night?
0:21:27 – (Wendy): Everyone freaked out. You ran around, threatened to spank me and ran around the fireplace with the wooden paddle and never caught me. I don’t know. Just like that’s drama.
0:21:37 – (Dr. Lynyetta): We’re not going to talk about that. No. The avoidance horseman has galloped in and taken over the moment and that is how this is going to go down for sure. By the way, the avoidance horseman is the most insidious one, I truly believe because it doesn’t leave actual marks and it is something that minimizes. Like it trains us to minimize our pain and trains us to, in some ways, self gaslight, right? Like, oh, that didn’t happen. That wasn’t important.
0:22:08 – (Dr. Lynyetta): Everything’s fine. I didn’t hear that. I didn’t see that. That sort of thing. So that’s just a sidebar.
0:22:15 – (Wendy): That’s so interesting. That word insidious. I don’t know what a synonym for that is, but it’s like creepy. Like you don’t really toxifies. It’s like black mold, right? Like you kind of don’t really know. It’s in your walls. But holy smokes, can it jack you up for sure. So interesting. Okay, so when it comes to shifting toxic parenting and partnership patterns modeled for us growing up, so we can live and leave a new legacy with those we love. Talk to us about our first takeaway, which is let’s explore how intergenerational drama impacts our families. And I chatted here for a second about one of them, but tell us a little bit more about how we can at least bring awareness to how it does affect our families.
0:22:58 – (Dr. Lynyetta): Absolutely. So I use the word drama very intentionally, because if you think about a stage play, right. And there’s a lot going on on the stage, but if you were to take away all the sound, you would start to notice that some characters move close to each other, some characters move away from each other. Some characters go off stage at different points. There’s almost a dance to it. And whenever we’re talking about things that were passed down from generation to generation, there’s a dance there, too, but we’re not always aware of it.
0:23:31 – (Dr. Lynyetta): And so becoming aware in the moment of how do I move in the world? Because sometimes if you ask somebody, what are your intergenerational traumas? A lot of us can’t tell you. Right. Like my intergenerational traumas. Whether you’re listening or watching, I’m a black woman, so they go all the way back, slavery, all that stuff. I don’t necessarily have a lived sense memory of any of that because this was, like, well over 500, 400 years ago. Right.
0:24:04 – (Wendy): So I don’t have a list, but your cells do.
0:24:06 – (Dr. Lynyetta): Right, right, my cells. And also the patterns that have been passed down the drama, like up the dance that you would see on stage, there are aspects of that that still live. Like spankings are an example of that. Least in the african american culture, we talk about whoopings and beatens. Right. And that sense of that’s what happened to keep slaves in line. That is what happened. And that is what a lot of my ancestors did to keep kids safe. It was literally like life was on the line.
0:24:40 – (Dr. Lynyetta): Literally. If you don’t do what you’re supposed to do, you could die your kid. Yes. So it’s one of those things where it’s like this idea of this is the way that you keep kids in line. This is the way that you teach them. This is the way passed down from generation to generation. I don’t have a lived experience or a lived memory of that trauma, but the drama absolutely has played out in my modern day life.
0:25:07 – (Dr. Lynyetta): So one of the first things that I encourage people to do is look at what are the helpful and unhelpful patterns that you experienced growing up and that you may even play out in your own marriage or with your own kids, right? What are the things that you have this vision? Like, oh, my kids were going to connect with each other, and my husband and I were going to be great. What are the things that get in the way of that?
0:25:31 – (Dr. Lynyetta): And can you look at that and say, like, these are the patterns that don’t quite make sense, and I’m not entirely sure where they came from. So when we’re talking about looking into, what are these intergenerational things, sometimes it’s about really becoming an explorer and exploring different aspects of us. One of the things that I have created is called the paths process, and it is an acronym, paths that I created, that really outlines the five core habits that we all have to develop and sink into in order to truly transform and shift how we show up in our most sacred relationships.
0:26:13 – (Dr. Lynyetta): And the thing that I love about path so much is it functions in so many ways. But when we talk about intergenerational traumas and dramas, one of the things it does is it really helps us to explore on a deeper level, like, how does who I become during stressful moments or even joyful moments, how is that maybe impacted by my past? Or what aspect of those do I want to shift? So, for instance, the p of path stands for perspective.
0:26:46 – (Dr. Lynyetta): So that perspective has to do with the stories in our head. What stories do we tell ourselves? What stories do you tell? What are some core beliefs that you go through your life carry? I actually just had a client this morning who I was talking to, and she was saying how in her mind, she’s like, I have this core belief that. What did she say? She said, pain has to be honored. Pain has to be honored. You cannot let go of pain for joy, because we were talking about her getting a deeper sense of, like, where is your joy?
0:27:26 – (Dr. Lynyetta): Where is it? Where does it live? That sort of thing? And she’s like, pain has to be honored. And I said, we’ll say more about that. And she specifically said that, I don’t think that’s mine. I think this comes from a different generation. And the more we dived into it, she realized this was something from more than likely her father, grandfather, and she was able to reflect on just from this belief that she had this idea that pain has to be honored. We can’t move on from pain until it no longer exists.
0:28:02 – (Dr. Lynyetta): But at the same time, we can’t really go close to it either. So how it’s supposed to go away, I don’t know, but it’s this idea that she was able to look back and see, like, oh, growing up, there was this sense that joyful things, fun things, were a waste of time. They were fluffy, she liked to say. And it wasn’t something that was really necessary or something that really needed to be indulged. And she realized, like from her grandfather’s generation, there was like this primal survival reasoning behind it, given how he was raised, where he was raised, that sort of thing.
0:28:39 – (Dr. Lynyetta): But that drama was playing out in her life, in her mind, and impairing her functioning. Even though this idea that I have to honor pain, if she doesn’t honor worship at the feet of pain, she’s fine, she’s not going to die, right? But it still tracks down. So being able to get a clear understanding of what are the beliefs that I’m carrying into my relationships with my kids or with my parent. Is there a belief that I have to beat my kids in order to keep them in line? Where does that come from?
0:29:14 – (Dr. Lynyetta): Right? Is that yours, or did that come from someplace else? Is there a belief that I’m not good enough? Is that yours, or did that come from someplace else? Is that a belief that I’m all alone, nobody can support me, whatever it is. And sometimes we can have a visceral reaction to whether or not a belief is ours or whether or not it’s something that’s more of a drama that was played out in our lives in some way and passed down to us on that level.
0:29:40 – (Dr. Lynyetta): So really getting that core belief on the stories that we tell ourselves as parents, as partners, that can be the first way that we can start to get a deeper understanding of what are some of these dramas that maybe need to be shifted and transformed. And there’s four others, too, that I can go in, but I want to pause.
0:29:59 – (Wendy): Well, which, it’s so beautiful because it’s like awareness is such the first start, right? Like in our work here at for short family, we always tell students, you got to have the awareness, which often happens pretty fast for very open hearted people who are humble and want to learn and willing to do the work. The awareness goes way up. They’re like, oh, I see all the drama. I see all the things that I’m doing. But then there has to be this acceptance side, too, this self compassion, right? Which is like, oh, this makes sense, right? This has been something that’s been handed down in my family. I’ve witnessed this, and I also probably have it in my cells.
0:30:38 – (Wendy): I am not a PhD holder like you are, but it’s so fascinating to learn about the trauma being passed down in cells and how that really does affect you. Like, all the things, but just the compassion on yourself. Like, no wonder I’m in this pattern of yelling or hurting or harming or shaming, whatever it may be. So it’s like those two things together, they have to be kind of that first step to realize, like, okay, now with that together, then we can actually create some positive change. But I was chatting down some of the things that I see in a lot of my students, and it’s experienced in my own life, too. As far as these core beliefs or these thought patterns that you’re like, oh, dang, that’s creating some major drama. But the idea of instant obedience, that is so heartbreakingly mistaught, especially in the christian community, that’s what godly children and families have.
0:31:33 – (Wendy): People pleasing.
0:31:35 – (Dr. Lynyetta): Right?
0:31:35 – (Wendy): Like, bending and not going for what you want. Intimidation, aggression as power, like threats as a way to get what you want. And it’s not a big deal. Like, we talked about the non repair, like, never making amends, never knowing how to face that uncomfortableness of apologizing or repairing their relationship. Here’s one that came up the other day that I thought was so fascinating with a student. Was that in her religious.
0:32:05 – (Dr. Lynyetta): She grew up in this very, I.
0:32:08 – (Wendy): Don’T know, interesting religious. Almost felt like a cult. But that therapy and emotional literacy work is like that. That’s actually the cult. Right? Jesus heals immediately if you’re doing it right. If you’re doing religion right, then Jesus is going to heal you. And if you’re playing around with therapy and emotional literacy stuff, it’s dangerous and it’s not effective. Right?
0:32:36 – (Dr. Lynyetta): You don’t have enough faith.
0:32:37 – (Wendy): You don’t have enough faith. And then another one I heard you said, and I was like, oh, I have that one. If I want it done right, I have to do it on my own. And then just the classic, like, where do we get the notion that in order to make kids behave better, we must first make them feel worse? But those are just some of them that I’m like, dang, that’s freaking drama.
0:32:56 – (Dr. Lynyetta): It is. And when we stop to question them, it’s very easy to start to see these unfold. Right? And like you said, so the a. The great lead in for path is awareness.
0:33:09 – (Wendy): Yeah.
0:33:10 – (Dr. Lynyetta): Right? Yes. And so it’s that sense of a lot of us were raised in environments that teach us that our feelings and body sensations are not important. Right? So what’s wrong with you? Why are you crying? Nothing’s wrong. Stop crying. Before I give you something to cry about, which is kind of the assumption that I’m crying for no reason. So it’s easy to get to that point of, oh, what I’m feeling is not right, it is wrong.
0:33:44 – (Dr. Lynyetta): And all of these icky body sensations and all these icky emotions are pointless and they’re getting in the way, so I just need to push them down. So a lot of times when parents come into the group, they’re very vibrant from the neck up, but the neck down in terms of their relationship with their emotions and their body sensations, if anything. And I get it, because in some ways, feeling emotions and body sensations can be a liability.
0:34:13 – (Dr. Lynyetta): It can lead to some really unhelpful reactions and responses from other people in your life. So being able to become aware not just of the way the drama cycles are playing out, but also starting to befriend your body, starting to befriend your emotions and using them as the signposts they are, that was one of the biggest challenges for me. I used to hate difficult feelings like, they were just evil.
0:34:42 – (Dr. Lynyetta): I didn’t like them. Tears were horrible. They needed to be abolished and made illegal. I probably would have signed that petition in a heartbeat because they were just bad. But the problem is that when we start to minimize all that, it impacts in other ways. Right? Like, I had a mentor that used to say, nothing likes being buried alive, and that includes feelings. And so being able to be aware of what’s going on inside of us helps us then to be more aware of what’s going on outside of us. If I know that when I get a warm, tight sensation in my chest that’s usually tied to anger and it often predates my yelling, then that sensation in my chest can help me to create that pause that I need to do something different.
0:35:38 – (Dr. Lynyetta): So just having an awareness can be helpful. And in terms of intergenerational dramas, realizing. And this kind of goes back to what you were saying, like, the people pleasing and all of that stuff, often those are, we often notice certain emotions. Like, there were people in my family when they would yell at me. I was talking about this the other day. No matter how old I was as an adult, I would regress. I would almost become like this five year old. Physically, my body would change.
0:36:09 – (Dr. Lynyetta): Emotionally, I would start to numb. I would get really intense and then start to numb. I would be smaller. My voice would change. And being able to recognize those shifts helped me to then connect. Like, wait a minute, what is this connected to what’s going on within me? Right. And then allowed me to start shifting some of those patterns in those relationships in powerful ways that awareness works on. I say that’s like our superpower.
0:36:43 – (Dr. Lynyetta): We have to be everything. Like, being aware is so key and it’s not as hard as we think.
0:36:51 – (Wendy): Yeah, I know for my own journey, becoming more aware of my body, like the embodiment piece. So I’ve been doing this for I think 13 years now, something. And it’s just like the last few years that I’ve started to just really have my mind and my body become connected where I’m thinking not just about my head, thoughts and what’s happening, but really checking in, like, oh, that’s interesting. This is tight right now or my breath is shallow or oh, my heart’s beating out of my chest.
0:37:22 – (Wendy): It’s so interesting how you really do need to fall in love with the journey and the joy of learning continuously because that was like after twelve years of doing life coaching and parenting work, which is so deep, right? But it is so important. And talk about intergenerational drama, things that have been passed down. Again, we have so many listeners who love God and would associate being with a Christian, but don’t are just like, hell no, I’m not doing it the way so many kind of toxic circles teach it. But one of the teachings is like, oh no, you can’t trust your heart, it’s wicked. Jeremiah 719 19 and it’s so used to like, oh my gosh, it drives me nuts. But it’s like.
0:38:05 – (Dr. Lynyetta): But it’s told to guard our hearts, which is interesting. Okay.
0:38:09 – (Wendy): But it’s literally taught, like, do not trust your feelings, do not trust your body. That is where wickedness come. But it’s not taught. Like, oh my gosh, I could go on and on, but I know, but again, don’t get me started, but it gets handed down. And then all of a sudden it takes someone lovingly bringing it to your attention. Sometimes in a coaching or a therapist appointment, like you said. Is that your own? Do you really believe that or are you willing to see that the heart is the center of all of emotions? Like, yes, there’s temptation and greed that probably lives there, and then there’s joy and forgiveness and it’s all there.
0:38:48 – (Dr. Lynyetta): And you can’t lock out one emotion and then fully experience and embody another. So if you’re locking away all the difficult ones, you’re also locking away all the beautiful ones that you’re dying to experience. So there’s almost this muted and again going back to stable misery. I think that’s part of the reason why people get stuck, because it’s like, it’s not worth the difficult emotions or the sensations that I may experience.
0:39:13 – (Dr. Lynyetta): I would just much rather dampen it all. And it disempowers our ability to live a truly joyful life. I don’t believe that’s how God wants us to live. Like, in a space where we’re like, this sucks. Where everything is, like, gray and I know.
0:39:33 – (Wendy): Yeah. And that is something that’s been passed down, is just that those hard emotions are not what you want. When we really get rid of them, when they’re all beautiful. Like, sadness shows how much you care. Courage and bravery is on the other side of anger. It’s where justice is born. Like, man, I want to be brave and courageous, but you got to feel scared first or, like, hurt. Shows how tender our hearts are, how much we love.
0:40:01 – (Wendy): It’s so beautiful. And so many of us grew. The generational cycle was like, no, don’t be sad. You’re fine. Get up. You’re not even bleeding. Be scared. It’s not even dark outside. There’s nothing to be scared of. And don’t you dare freaking be angry with me, because you will learn so fast. Right. It was definitely, the message was like, happy is good. Everything else is not. So we’re changing that, but realizing that the drama that that’s created has got to go.
0:40:34 – (Dr. Lynyetta): Exactly. And you can transform that habit. And so the t, because our next.
0:40:40 – (Wendy): Thing is practical steps to easily identify your intergenerational traumas. And maybe the t. Is that so? Talk to us more.
0:40:47 – (Dr. Lynyetta): Yeah. So all of these are. So the P is really getting clear on what are the stories that you’re carrying? Are they yours? And the best way to get a hold of those, because sometimes if you just tell somebody, sit down and write all your stories, the best way to get a hold of those is when you are in those tense moments. What story are you telling yourself in that moment, especially with your child. Right. Because I know even to this day, when my kids do something that I’m just like, what?
0:41:18 – (Dr. Lynyetta): I could still hear the voice. You can’t talk to me like that.
0:41:23 – (Wendy): I would never be allowed to get away with that.
0:41:25 – (Dr. Lynyetta): Exactly. And there’s that old voice, like, yeah, if you did it like they did in the old days, you wouldn’t be experiencing this right now. But you want to do your new parenting. Good luck with that. Right. That’s being aware of that voice, getting in touch with our emotions and body sensations. That’s the second habit that we can start to form to really transform those dramas. Because now we’re having a different relationship with our body. We’re not. And our emotions, we’re relying on what they provide to us and where they’re guiding us, as opposed to what we’ve been told about our body sensations and our emotions. We’re now engaging and having a relationship with them, which is definitely a habit. That’s one of the reasons why I start with thoughts, because that’s often much easier for people to connect with.
0:42:10 – (Dr. Lynyetta): When you’re, like, body and emotions, they’re like, at least that’s what I did. But the t stands for tools. Now, I say, you’re always using a tool in a relationship. The question is never am I using a tool. Is the tool I’m using helpful or unhelpful? Is it skillful or unskillful? And so many of the tools that we rely on. So when your kid says, I hate you or throws something or whatever, what you tend to do in response to that, when your husband rolls or your wife rolls their eyes and walks out of the room, what you tend to do in response to that, all of that are tools. That’s all leading you into insight into the tools you tend to go to when crap hits the fan.
0:42:58 – (Dr. Lynyetta): And so being aware and starting to track, like, what is the habit? What is the action oriented habit that I tend to go into or slide into in these moments? What do I tend to do when my husband or my wife does that thing, when my kid does that thing? So getting clear on that and then setting intentional steps to shift what that habit can be or what that habit is. Because really, when we talk about our behavioral habits, we’re really talking about who we become.
0:43:31 – (Dr. Lynyetta): Who do you become in that moment? Kind of like the Hulk. Who do you become when. Don’t make me angry. Doesn’t work, right? Who do you turn into in that moment? And again, is that something you learned? It’s something that was modeled for you? Is it a protective stance or a protective tool that you gained in order to survive different experience? Sometimes it’s not necessarily my parents modeled shaming. Sometimes it’s. And I see this a lot with the parents I work with where their kids. Well, I’ll speak about a specific client. I had a dad who their son, as kids often do, preferred mom and was, I want mama to read my story. I want mama to.
0:44:19 – (Dr. Lynyetta): And I swear it was interesting how he would like, I would say, well, what do you say when he does that? And what do you notice in your body and what do you tend to do? And everything he described, it was like, well, basically he was like, I know you are, but what am I? And, fine, I didn’t want to hang out with you anyway. And I was like, so basically you.
0:44:40 – (Wendy): Become a six year old, right?
0:44:43 – (Dr. Lynyetta): Basically. And he was like, yes. And I was like, what happened when you were six? What happened at that age? And what ended up unraveling was the fact that in his home, he was basically neglected. If he had a tough emotion, if he had a need, if he had anything, it was like, no, not important. Your needs don’t matter, whatever doesn’t matter. And he was pushed away. So it wasn’t that the snarkiness was nested. I know you are, but that wasn’t modeled for him. But what his child was bringing up in him was that young child who was rejected.
0:45:20 – (Dr. Lynyetta): And so when his child was like, I don’t want you, I want mommy. Now all of a sudden, he’s like, all those reactions and all that pain that was never honored comes up, and the tool that he chose to use to deal with that was shaming. And he didn’t use that with his parents. He didn’t shame his parents when they did that. He just sat in a corner and did what he was supposed to do. So sometimes the tools we use are in response to, like, this sense of that will never happen to me again.
0:45:48 – (Dr. Lynyetta): You are not allowed to reject me. No, that’s not okay. And I’m just going to make you feel bad, like I feel bad right now. Right. So sometimes those tools can be a little tricky. But tapping into how do I tend to show up, what do I tend to do and where does that come from? Can be really helpful. And what can I do in place of that can be really helpful as well.
0:46:12 – (Wendy): That is deep, Dr. Linieetta. And when you talk about the tools, I’m always. And the practice or the habit of just bringing awareness and just realizing when I’m triggered what is the tool that I’m using and knowing that we all are using tools.
0:46:26 – (Dr. Lynyetta): Right?
0:46:26 – (Wendy): So it’s like I always think of the egg. To crack an egg. To crack the shell of an egg, to get the egg out. You could use your hand and crack it, or you could use a hammer. It’s just which tool are you going to use?
0:46:41 – (Dr. Lynyetta): Right.
0:46:41 – (Wendy): So it’s, parenting for me is so similar.
0:46:44 – (Dr. Lynyetta): Yeah.
0:46:44 – (Wendy): We all have tools we’re using. And how is that working for us? What is the effect? What is it creating? Is it creating drama when you have a million freaking eggshells in your scrambled eggs? Or is it creating the result that you want? So it’s kind of a silly analogy. Well, that’s beautiful.
0:47:04 – (Dr. Lynyetta): Okay.
0:47:05 – (Wendy): And then last point we have, Dr. Lanetta, is making, transforming intergenerational dramas, turning our parenting and partnership into a spiritual practice. What do you mean by this? Tell us more.
0:47:20 – (Dr. Lynyetta): Well, the paths process, part of the way that I developed it is I realized, I looked and I said, okay, if you look at. Let me back up. First, I realized that triggers are really just an ingrained habit. It’s just these subconscious ways of being in response to something that happens. Right. And it’s like we get triggered to do this. We get triggered. It’s just a habit. So then I started wondering, how do we change habits? And there’s a lot of research and things on that, but I’m like, one of the areas where habits have been developed and evolved over thousands and thousands of years is within spiritual traditions. Pick any spiritual tradition.
0:48:01 – (Dr. Lynyetta): They got habits, right? Like prayer. And you name it, they got it right. Any tradition, meditation, whatever. And so I started to look into different spiritual practices and figure out what is it that they’re focusing on? What are they doing that is really helpful and transformative? And that’s where the paths process came up. So for me, what I do in triggered or transformed is we’ve laid this paths process out in a very digestible way so that if people practice this consistently over time, there is not one relationship that you can’t transform in some key way.
0:48:39 – (Dr. Lynyetta): So the thoughts, if you go into any spiritual practice, being able to understand what you’re thinking, especially in the more eastern philosophies, when you look at your thoughts, watch them pass by on a cloud, that sort of thing, even having the awareness of how you show up, that’s another one that often shows up in a lot of taking your thought traditions captive. Yeah. Or even holding them lightly, depending on whose metaphor you like to use. Right.
0:49:10 – (Dr. Lynyetta): And the tools, especially in the christian tradition, like really shifting what you tend to do and how you tend to respond, spawn with compassion, look at the beatitudes and all that kind of stuff, right? Yeah. The Bible is filled. You want tools. Bible is filled with them, right. Of different things that you can do to shift your emotions and to shift your thoughts and things of that nature. The other thing, and this is the h.
0:49:37 – (Dr. Lynyetta): Healing is a big part of any spirit, most spiritual traditions, right? Being able to be with those difficult moments and being able to move through them and give yourself grace and compassion in the process. That’s a huge one. And I say with healing, I say triggers need to be healed. Stressors need to be honored, because triggers are often those things that come from our past. There’s something that’s buried in the past that is bringing this forth, whereas a stressor is usually something that’s modern day.
0:50:15 – (Dr. Lynyetta): And the reason why we’re plagued with so much chronic stress is because we tend to ignore them and just kind of like, go, go, stop doing that. So being able. Getting in the habits of figuring out. So I say our children are gifts. Figuring out what within me needs to be healed, right? And what within me do I need to honor? What am I pushing to the side right now that I really need to honor? That is taking my energy or my attention?
0:50:41 – (Dr. Lynyetta): What do I need to make space for? What do I need to release? So, being able to get in the habit of doing that, and the last one is self empowerment. That’s what the s stands for. And that really is about noticing where your power is. You have power. Even if you’re caught in the forest in a sleeping bag and the zipper is broken and they’re bedbugs, you can still get up and hop your way to arranger safe, right.
0:51:08 – (Dr. Lynyetta): And realize that at any moment in time, we have power. Whether it’s divine power that you’re pulling on, right. Whether it’s the power of wisdom of others, whether it’s your own personal power, being able to lean into that, whatever that power is for you, and trusting that there is a way around this, out this, through this, beyond this is helpful, because when we’re often in those triggered moments, one of the biggest entities that’s present is a sense of powerlessness.
0:51:40 – (Dr. Lynyetta): And we react because we’re like, this isn’t okay. We need a sense of control. So when we practice self empowerment, what we’re doing is we’re practicing that reliance on and that awareness of where our power is in any given moment that we can stop, tap into and choose our next best step forward. Oh, so good.
0:52:01 – (Wendy): And you know what, Dr. Lineda, that I find so fascinating in my work and with all of our members that we work with and all my coaches, we talk about this a lot, is how that last one, that self empowerment piece, it is so crucial because the parents that I see get really thick like they are down in the victim mindset. It is so destructive. And it’s like to find success with exactly what we’re talking about. Like transforming intergenerational dramas, ending painful, generational cycles, like having the grit and the persistence that it takes to do this work because there are so many days right where you’re just like, dang it, I freaking hit the kid or I yelled again or shouldn’t I know this by, like, you have to get supported with someone you guys like, Dr. Lineatta, like myself, whoever it may be, to keep you out of that victim mindset and that just disempowered state because it’ll take you down and keep you stuck, in my opinion. So that last one is so important and we’re going to wrap this now.
0:53:15 – (Wendy): And I want to make sure you tell everyone where they can find you and come find your incredible work. But the idea of community that both it sounds like your program and my program have, that is one of the best ways to stay out of that powerless state and remind yourself by watching someone next to you, even if they live halfway across the world or in a different state, but watching them do something and being witness to it and being like, look at them, man. They hopped to the ranger station when I wouldn’t have even thought of that. Right?
0:53:48 – (Wendy): I love that silly analogy. Bedbugs in a weird. Whatever, Dr. Lynyetta, I love it. But when you witness someone that, and you’re like, oh, my gosh, they got creative. They didn’t just give up, they kept going even though they’re the reason why they’re stuck in the damn, I don’t know, knapsack.
0:54:07 – (Dr. Lynyetta): I don’t even know. But the things we do.
0:54:09 – (Wendy): But bearing witness to one another, I just cannot stress enough how important that last step is as like, staying in that self empowered mode. So what a beautiful way to wrap Dr. Lynieta, tell everyone where they can come find you. And I know families, after listening to this are really going to want to make sure they follow your work and come support you.
0:54:29 – (Dr. Lynyetta): Absolutely. So you can go to healingstablemisery.com and there you will actually find a gift that outlines these paths and some next steps that you can take to start moving forward with forming these five key habits. And one thing I always say to people is, please don’t try to do all five of them at once. Just pick one. You know you wouldn’t like – I’m going to do prayer. I’m going to do meditation. I’m going to do giving.
0:55:02 – (Dr. Lynyetta): I’m going to do fasting all today, right? Nobody would do that. I would strongly suggest against it. Right? You’re like, I’m going to start this one habit today, right? So just pick one of the paths just one of them. One of them that you feel called to. Maybe it’s like, for instance, starting to track the stories in your head. Start tracking those with your partner. Start tracking those with your child.
0:55:26 – (Dr. Lynyetta): And if you go and you download this gift, it’ll show you how exactly to use the paths right now, starting today to take you to the next step within your most sacred relationship so that you can start to transform how you’re showing up. So that you can start to heal those intergenerational dramas and leave a legacy. Live for yourself and leave a legacy that will leave you smiling in the end. Heck, yes.
0:55:54 – (Wendy): Oh, my goodness. Well, what a beautiful conversation. It was definitely as good as we expected after this long wait. Dr. Lynyetta. So thank you for taking time out of your busy day to be here with us today. And thank you for all of the incredible, light filled work that you are doing to serve and support parents.
0:56:12 – (Dr. Lynyetta): Thank you, Wendy. This has been so much fun. And ditto back to you. Thank you for all you do. This has got a lot of parents out there who want to do this differently. And so I am so appreciative of all the ways that you pour into that.
0:56:28 – (Wendy): Oh, heck, yes. I’m glad we’re in this together. All right, families, well, thanks for listening and we’ll see you in the next episode. Bye.