887: The Four Ts of Trauma Healing & IFS with Harvard-Trained Psychiatrist Dr. Frank Anderson

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Katie: Hello and welcome to the Wellness Mama podcast. I’m Katie from wellnessmama.com. And this episode is all about the four Ts of trauma healing and IFS with Harvard-trained psychiatrist, Dr. Frank Anderson. And I really, really enjoyed this conversation. If you are not familiar, Frank Anderson, MD, is a world-renowned trauma treatment expert, a Harvard-trained psychiatrist, and a psychotherapist. He’s also the author of To Be Loved: A Story of Truth, Trauma, and Transformation of Transcending Trauma, and the co-author of the Internal Family Systems Skills Training Manual. He’s a global speaker on the treatment of trauma and dissociation. He’s passionate about teaching brain-based psychotherapy and integrating current neuroscience knowledge with the Internal Family Systems model of therapy. He believes that traumatic events can have a lasting effect on the well-being and life of an individual and that by addressing these events, we can help people down a pathway of healing and forgiveness.

And I really like his approach to this. He says some things that you might find out of the ordinary from a therapist. But we talk about IFS, Internal Family Systems, and what it is. We talk about why he thinks you don’t need to forgive in order to heal and what he actually recommends instead. We talk about his four Ts of trauma healing, which I really like, and I think provide a really clear path for this even if there were any type of trauma, even small trauma. We talk about how to release trauma versus manage trauma, how to take back your power. We talk a whole lot about parenting and how we can avoid passing on things to our children that we experienced ourselves and how we can strengthen and build a deeper relationship with our children, with our partners, and even with our parents. So without any further wait, let’s learn from Frank. Frank, welcome. It’s such an honor to have you here. Thank you for being here.

Dr. Frank: Thank you for having me. I’m excited.

Katie: Me too. I’m really excited to dive deep on this topic, especially because I’ve never gotten to really go deep on this at all on this podcast. And I feel like it can be so helpful to many of the women listening, ripple into their entire families. In fact, that seems to be a little bit of actually kind of the origin story of your work within this world. So as a little bit of a broad intro, can you actually walk us into what IFS is and how your own journey through maybe perhaps your childhood story led to this work that you do now that helps so many?

Dr. Frank: Yes, sure. So Internal Family Systems or IFS is a method of therapy that was created by Richard Schwartz many, maybe 35, 40 years ago by now. So it’s been around for a long time, but it’s gained wild popularity recently, which is really great. And I run the trauma component of that. I created the trauma curriculum and wrote a trauma book called Transcending Trauma.

So in regards to my clinical expertise, I’m all about trauma. I’ve been working with Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score, since 1992, which really dates me. And then it started working in 2004 with Internal Family Systems. So the root of my professional life has been relational trauma or complex PTSD. Surprise, I happen to have a relational trauma history. You don’t become an expert in anything without it being personal in one way or another.

So I just recently released a memoir in May called To Be Loved, which is really my personal trauma history. I was one of these people. As a quote expert, that was like, let’s cut the crap. Let’s break down the divide between us and them. Of course, I have a trauma history. Mine started very early on in my life when I was six years old. Got caught playing with the Barbie doll in my cousin’s basement, which brought me into six years of a conversion therapy kind of treatment to make me act like a normal boy, so to speak, right?

And then I had a verbally and physically abusive father, kind of a passive mom. So I had the perfect bad setup for trauma history. I lived my whole life not being me in many ways, suppressing my authenticity in order to be loved. I finally came out 32 years of age and really dove my whole career into figuring this trauma thing out, right? That was really kind of my thrust, if you will, like part, of course, most therapists and they don’t, maybe all therapists don’t like to admit this, but we go in to help people and we go in to help ourselves, right? The wounded healer, as they say.

So that’s certainly been my journey and I’m fine and open and happy to talk about my own trauma history because so many of us can relate. And again, breaking down that barrier of us and them. So that’s the elevator version of my story. And we can do a deeper dive in any subject. You know, after you write a memoir, nothing’s off topic anymore.

Katie: Fair enough. Yeah. Well, I think there’s so many directions to go from there. I know I’ve talked on this podcast before about my own historical big T trauma, but also the relevance of what would have been defined as like little T traumas that actually had almost sometimes more of a lasting effect when it came from parental figures. And they were so early of just like how that shaped my psyche for such a long time.

And I love in researching this, your concept of the four Ts of trauma healing. I want to make sure we for sure dive into those, but I would love for you to speak a little to the like big T little, T trauma aspect a little as well, because I know when I shared my big T trauma on here, it felt like there were times comparisons and people thinking like, well, I don’t really have trauma because I don’t have anything that big. And so I want to speak to that because I feel like this is something that affects all of us.

Dr. Frank: I am not a fan of big T, little T trauma, Katie, for exactly that reason. I really don’t like it because big T, little T trauma is like what’s significant and worthy of real trauma and what is like no big deal, what’s your problem trauma, right? That’s the connotation around that. And the reality is when we talk about big T, little T trauma, we are assigning the significance to you. Oh, this is big T, oh, this is little T. And the reality is, just like you said, the perception, the experience of anything hits differently for different people.

You know, I worked with one client for many years. She’s like, nothing, I have no trauma history. What’s wrong with me? I have no trauma history, right? And she had all the markings, many failed relationships, difficulty with her children, difficulty standing up to her partner. And what she realized is she had all these little micro-shaming events growing up in her childhood. And it was like not being picked on the sports team and our mother favoring her sister over her because her sister was better at cheerleading. And all these little T traumas that had a significant impact on her, huge impact.

So I always go to the perception of the person. You have kids in the same family who are raised by the same parents to some degree, and we can talk about that. We have vastly different experiences. Why does, excuse me, I’ll say this in my family, why does one become a world-renowned trauma expert and the other focuses on hunting and kills every single animal in his path, right, growing up in the same family. Each of us are different people and we each respond to things very differently.

So this comparison doesn’t make any sense to me. You can have little events that are hugely significant and change your life’s trajectory. Or you can have these bigger events, and interestingly enough, big events like the Boston bombing or some September 11th, when you have the whole world responding in loving, kind ways with tons of resources, it may have a minimizing effect, right? So big T traumas with tons of support can be less significant, if you will, to a bunch of little T traumas with no support at all. So it’s the event, it’s the experience the person has, and it’s the response of others that really add up to what’s significant for who. And it is not ours to judge. It is each person’s experience and connection to it that really matters.

Katie: Such a good point. And as you said, you know, yes, we were raised by the same parents if we grew up in the same household. But as I realized with my kids, I’m a different parent every year, every day. Also, each child, I have to parent differently. And if I figure out something for one child, it works, maybe, maybe works for that child for that day and does not have crossover to the others because they’re all so unique.

But I think like you talked about, sometimes those things, especially our early childhood experiences with our guardians and parent figures and people like our first people that we experienced love from can be so powerful and also so hard, at least for me to work through or to even recognize sometimes because it’s easy to fall into that like, well, I had objectively great parents and I know they loved me. So I feel bad even feeling bad about these things. Like I shouldn’t feel bad about that at all.

Whereas the big T trauma, I know we don’t like that word now, but at least that was, I felt like, okay, it’s okay to be upset about that because that was an objectively bad thing. And so I feel like these experiences with our caregivers could actually really subtly kind of hold on for a long time. And we can feel weird about even addressing them. And it seems like that’s where things like IFS can be really helpful because we don’t have to go into the blame. And I love that you talk about, we don’t even necessarily have to forgive. Can you delve into that more? Because I think that’s a thing that most people might hear and go, wait, what?

Dr. Frank: Yes. Yeah. So there’s so much you just said there to unpack, right? There’s a ton of stuff. Yeah, we can jump into the, I call it the F word, is what I call it, forgiveness, right? People are so allergic to this word, right? And I understand why. Culture and society and certain religious organizations really push forgiveness prematurely. That’s what I will say. Forgive, forgive, move on, forgive, right? It’s a problem. I don’t agree with it. I don’t agree with the forgive to move on because that actually hasn’t been my experience of what forgiveness is about at all, okay?

I say heal your trauma first, then focus on forgiveness second. I see forgiveness as a second component of healing. First, heal what happened to you. Heal what you’re holding based on what happened to you. Release the trauma energy that your system is carrying, whether it’s neglect, physical abuse, you know, the neglect is like the silent wound. How do I feel trauma from something that didn’t happen versus something that did happen, right? People don’t even pay attention to that.

And like you mentioned earlier, we normalize our upbringing because that’s the only one we have. So we tend to downplay the significance of it because we don’t have any comparison. We didn’t live three years in one family and, most people didn’t, and then three years in another to compare, oh, this one was messed up. This one was good, right? So it’s our normal.

So when we’re looking at forgiveness, heal the trauma first, release the energy that you’re carrying based on what happened to you and what you went through. Then next, decide if you want to release the energy you’re carrying towards the person who harmed you. Relational trauma or complex PTSD is about a relational violation in one way or another, whether it’s bullying in school, whether it’s an absent parent, whether it’s a drunk parent, whether it’s a dismissive parent, a physically abusive parent.

So once you release the pain you’re carrying, then you could focus on the relationship and choose to forgive or not. Some people choose not to forgive. And that’s fine. Other people do choose to forgive. And for me, which was so shocking, and I wrote about this in my memoir, was after I healed my trauma with my dad, primarily, I focused on him after I was feeling better about me. And I saw the brokenness in him. I saw the humanity in him. I saw his brokenness. I was like, wow, the way he treated me was about him. It wasn’t about me. It was about his upbringing. It was about his fragileness. It was about his limitation. So I had compassion for him after I wasn’t holding anger and resentment anymore because I released that.

So that was one thing. And it’s really freeing for the person doing the forgiving to no longer carry anger and resentment towards the person you’re forgiving. I used to think forgiveness is for the other person. No, it’s for the person doing the forgiving. So the forgiving is for you. It’s not for them. You’re not letting them off the hook. You’re not condoning it. You’re releasing the feelings and the pain that you’re carrying about what they did to you. So it’s really for you.

And when I felt love for my dad for the first time, was so freeing for me I’m like I am so free of all of what you did to me. I no longer carry anything from it. So that was huge, and I wasn’t expecting that because you don’t hear this a lot. In the literature and people have talked about it because forgiveness is so kind of pushed.

The other thing I’ll say, the last thing I’ll say about it, which was another surprise, is it’s hard to forgive yourself if you’re holding resentment for another person. So once I forgave my dad, I then started forgiving me for all that I’ve done in my life. So it freed me to not be so hard or critical on myself for what I had done. So it was like this circular bonus, like, wow, feel what happens to you, focus on forgiving the person who harmed you because it frees you, and then it allows you to forgive yourself for what you’ve done.

So I am so excited to say I’m sorry now. Just love it. It’s so freeing. It was a game changer for my parenting with my kids, I have to tell you. You know, they’re like, I’m like, you’re like, you are controlling. I’m like, yeah, I’m so sorry. It just, it disarms them. They’re like, what? I’m like, yeah, if that’s the way you felt, I’m sorry. You know, I’m not saying I did or didn’t do that or that. It’s not even whether it’s true or not. If they’re holding something, I’m going to apologize for it because that’s what they’re carrying. And it’s been, it’s been a game changer for me. So it’s a topic therapists don’t talk about enough. And it’s a topic that I really want to get out into the world because people are so allergic to it in all the ways, right? Because we’ve been forced to do it prematurely.

Katie: Oh, that’s so powerful. I love that explanation. And I think of that quote, that forgiveness is setting a prisoner free and then realizing that the prisoner was yourself. And how we think we have to do it for the other person, but really we’re the one suffering internally and hoping it hurts them when it never works like that.

But so beautiful, the journey you described with that. And I would guess everybody listening has their own version of some form of that, that we can understand from our own childhood, because it feels like we do have this expectation of our parents growing up to be sort of like perfect, to have it all figured out, to love us the way we need to be loved. And then all of us as parents, though we might try our hardest, are never going to love our kids perfectly, exactly the way they need to be loved all the time.

And I love what you pointed out. I think there’s so much power as a parent, when we can have the vulnerability and the humility to go to our children and say, like, hey, I messed up and I’m sorry. And I love you. I read somewhere about the Hawaiian prayer, the like, I’m sorry, please forgive me. Thank you. I love you. And that it like it’s purest form. It eventually becomes just thank you and I love you. Because when the relationship is strong, it’s the forgiveness is understood. And that vulnerability is there in both ways. I just love your story of that.

Can you go deeper on the four Ts of trauma healing? Because I feel like this concept is helpful to keep in mind for people who are trying to work through these things.

Dr. Frank: Yeah. So that’s one of the things that’s my main focus now in my career is bringing trauma healing to the general public. Like I’ve been a therapist and a psychiatrist for a long time, since 1992. And I’ve been working in the field of mental health primarily. And what I come to realize is that the world is too big and there are not enough therapists available to help heal the world.

I got this message after my second book got released. Bring trauma healing to the world, Frank. I’m like, me? Like, what the hell? Me? Really? And of course, I’m not the only one to do that. I’m very well aware of that. One of many people. There’s millions of us doing this, right? But this idea of getting outside of psychotherapy has been really important to me. I already know my next book is going to be bringing trauma healing to the world, to the general public. Because so many people don’t have access to therapists, therapy insurance and self-pay, it’s such kind of a mess. So I really want to bring healing to the general public. Like how do you heal, if you don’t have access or you don’t want to go to the therapy.

So I’ve come up with this, and this is kind of a work in progress, let me say that. I’m working on a whole program of trauma healing. So this, the four Ts are one component of this whole program, honestly. But for people, what do you mean by healing? Like everybody, what do you mean, what does healing mean? And a lot of it is rooted in my work with Internal Family Systems. But I’ve also translated a lot of the work in Internal Family Systems for the general public, because therapy speak doesn’t work well for the general public. They’re like, what is this technical terms?

So first is thank your trauma responses. Thank your responses and reactions. Because what people don’t understand is that your reactions and your responses to things are a result of your protective responses. So when you’re drinking, when you’re yelling, when you’re suicidal, when you’re shutting down, those are trauma responses. And I say, instead of hate them, thank them because they’re trying to help you. This piece is a game changer for people, for people to start appreciating yelling at their kids instead of self-loathing for yelling at your kids. Like, oh, wow. Because when we yell at our kids, we’re not protecting our children. We’re protecting the wounded parts within ourselves that have been activated by our kids. That’s what we’re protecting. So first, thank your reactions and responses.

Second, and that’s hard for people to do. Second is trust that you have the wisdom with inside of yourself to heal. We’re so easy to get expert advice from the other. You know, the therapist has the answer. You know, the internet, the social media people have the answer. I’m like, no, the answer is within you. Trust your own wisdom because that is what gets disconnected in trauma. We lose connection to our wisdom in the sense of in the service of survival when we’re traumatized. So trust your wisdom. Regain trust in your judgment, your intuition. You knew this person wasn’t right, but you had to do it anyways because you needed them for survival. You knew what they were saying or doing was wrong. You had a gut feeling, but you disconnected it in the service of survival. So trust your wisdom.

Next, transform your trauma. There’s really a way to transform it. And transform for me means release. And neuroscience helps us understand this transformation sequence. There’s three steps, basically. One is you have to share your experience, not just the story. When we hold trauma, we’re holding thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations. Not just the story. So we have to share that experience with somebody. We have to not be the only one who holds it. We don’t keep it secretly locked inside of us. So share your experience.

And once you’ve shared the experience, then it’s necessary to have a corrective experience. Like if you were unloved, feel loved. If you were yelled at, be treated kindly. If you were ignored, be paid attention to, right? You have to have an opposite corrective or healing experience. Now that can happen internally where the adult me treats my child inside better than it’s ever been treated before, loved in a way that it never did. That’s what the IFS shows us. Or it can happen relationally, like in a healthy relationship with an intimate partner.

So we need a corrective experience. And once the experience has been shared, and then you have a corrective, then you can release what you carry about it. That’s how release is possible. So many therapies and so many people talk about managing trauma. I’m like, no. It’s more than managing, it’s releasing. And there is a sequence of releasing, which is that transformation sequence.

And then for me, that last T is take back your power. Because once you no longer carry that trauma, you can take back your power. And live differently now. Whether it’s choosing to forgive somebody or not, it’s within your power and within your control. And most of therapy doesn’t talk about doing it differently now. Coaches talk about that. And so I want to combine what psychotherapy offers and what coaching offers. Once you’ve released your trauma, then you need to show up differently. These moments are hard when you’re like, okay, I could do my usual, or I could step out of the box and do it differently. Those are really difficult moments.

And I don’t think we spend enough time on how we have to move forward differently when we take back our power. Because it’s not like heal your trauma and then everything’s fine. It’s really tough to show up in that relationship differently, in that conversation differently, at work differently, even with your kids differently, you know? So that change forward is really a big piece of what’s necessary and it builds on itself.

So that’s the gist of my four Ts. There’s a lot to it. And again, as I said, I’m really going to create a program for people to be able to do this in many different ways, because I think it’s what the world needs right now.

Katie: I love that because it’s such an easy to remember formula. And I feel like to your point, instead of managing, which speaks to like holding on to being like very intently focused on the variables of, but wouldn’t it be so much better to release? But then just because you released it, there’s still the effort of rewiring your responses. I think of that Viktor Frankl quote, I think it was of between stimulus and response, there’s a space. And in that space is your kind of power to choose. And that’s where our growth and our freedom is. But it’s not always an easy choice. It’s a hard choice.

And it seems like as a parent, it is like our kids have a unique ability to sort of trigger those, especially childhood related things in us. And they kind of know where those buttons are. And because we love them so much, they kind of uniquely have an ability to like get an emotional rise out of us sometimes. And I love how you talk about from reading some of your work, kind of how we can sort of rewire that and create new patterns, a new story, new relationship with our kids than what we had growing up. So can you speak to that more? Because I know this has also been an important part of your journey and like releasing your own childhood.

Dr. Frank: Yes, that’s been honestly probably the most important piece of my life, separate from educating people on trauma is fixing the transgenerational trauma in my family lineage, right? We all experience something from our lineage and our heritage and what we were raised in. You know, Rachel Yehuda talks about PTSD for children of Holocaust survivors. We know that a trauma is passed down through the generation.

And with our children, we tend to in my belief, get what we need, not what we want in our children. I wanted little girls. My husband wanted little girls. We both grew up with abusive fathers. There’s nothing more than we wanted than a little girl. We’re like, oh, it’s going to be so amazing, right? No. We got two boys who were like full of testosterone, raging, angry, impulsive boys who actually forced us, because we took advantage of it, to learn and heal our own trauma. Nobody has taught me more in my life than my two boys, honestly. Hands down. They’ve been the most rewarding, healing relationships of my life because they’ve pushed me in ways that nobody else has, just like you said.

And parents have this choice. We either repeat the pattern. We repress it or we heal from it and we grow and we learn. And I really, at this point in my life, feel so proud about how hard I’ve worked to not repeat the pattern because I do write about this in my memoir. When my kids were younger, I was doing some repeating in a way that felt so awful. I think we all do. It shows up. It’s like, you’re like, I’m never going, I’m going to have kids so I can do everything differently. And then you’re like, how am I talking just like my father or my mother? How did these words come out of my mouth? It happens to all parents.

And those are those opportunities to be like, okay. Where is this coming from? How am I going to do it differently? And the reason we do that is because when we experience trauma, we absorb, we experience being the victim of what happened. But we absorb the energy of the perpetrator. We all absorb the energy of the perpetrator when we’ve been perpetrated upon. So we have the hurt part inside of us, but we also have the harmer inside of us because we absorb it.

So when we have kids, both will show up. When we feel hurt, we are going to perpetrate in the ways that we were perpetrated upon because we know how effective it was. And most people aren’t aware of that. They think, you know, I certainly wasn’t. I was like, oh my God, my parents did some things that were good and some things that were not so good. And I’m not going to do any of the bad stuff. I’ll just love my kids, and everything will be amazing. And then I started yelling at my kids in the way that was familiar to me. What is going on? It was because I had that energy inside of me and it was my responsibility to heal it, so I didn’t perpetuate it down to my kids.

And I think that happens. I think that’s one of the main reasons I don’t say this a lot, but I think we have children to fix the relational patterns transgenerational. I think that’s part of the cycle of life. What did we come on this earth to experience? What did we come on this earth to fix and grow and evolve as a soul? I really do think it’s a soul evolution if you take advantage of it, right? And nothing shows us differently than our parents, our primary relationships, and our children. And I think it’s an opportunity. I think nobody comes in scot-free. I think we all are here to work through adversity and to learn and grow from it. I really do. I think that’s our purpose, why we’re here.

Katie: Oh, I love that. Yeah. I think our children, to your point, can be our best teachers if we let them, if we’re willing to do the work of those lessons.

Dr. Frank: Yes.

Katie: And I think this is brought to mind something I say so often on this podcast when it comes to the physical health realm is that at the end of the day, we are each our own primary healthcare provider because we are the ones that make all the decisions that impact our bodies. And we can work with doctors and practitioners, and that can be a wonderful partnership. But the responsibility still lies within us. And it sounds like you have a sort of similar corollary here of like, we are also each our own healer. And we can work with experts to help us walk that journey. But we have to walk that journey. No one can walk it for us.

Dr. Frank: Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. It really is. And, you know, it reminds me of this. We are our own healers. I was so pissed when we brought my son home on the airport, from the airport, from California to Boston, we did surrogacy with my first son and I got this baby. I wanted baby so badly. Like it was like my dream in life.

And the flight attendant is like, don’t forget to put your oxygen mask on first before you put your child’s. And I was like, that’s the stupidest thing in the world. Why do that? Like I was so incensed with her in the moment because I was like, I care so much about this kid. Of course I’m going to put their oxygen mask on first. But it was like, oh, oh, like I really do have to take responsibility for this in order to be a good parent, you know? And that took a while because we become so selfless when we become a parent, because we just have so much love for these kids. You want to give them everything. And this idea of healing yourself, cleaning your vessel is the best you can do for your children. And I don’t think enough people are aware of that.

There’s too many parenting books that are about children. And I think there should be more parenting books that are about parents. Because it is our job and our responsibility to fix, release, and heal what shows up in us. It’s too easy to blame our kids for what’s happening within us. And it’s really, people don’t like to hear this so much, but it’s, you know, when you have an intense reaction, it’s about you. It’s not about your kid. And it’s too easy to blame them for their behavior. It’s like, no, your reaction and your response is about your history. Not about blaming the kid.

And I think that we need to take responsibility for that in a big way because kids are these little bundles of moldable energy. And what we bring to it has a big effect on them. And if we’re clean and clear, we raise a very different child than when our stuff shows up and we don’t tend to it.

Katie: That’s such a good point. And yeah, I agree with you. It seems like we’re even the parenting books kind of paint that like focusing on ourselves is selfish when really isn’t that the best gift we can give our kids as a calm, regulated, loving, kind parent who, as we talked about earlier, can admit when we do something wrong and who can model apologies. Because we do hear, at least I think in the parenting books that kids will do a kind of poor job of becoming what we say and a great job of becoming who we are. And so to the degree that we can model, I feel like that’s incredibly powerful. But that goes back to, like you said, going through those lessons, doing the work to be able to model them. That’s where the healing in a family, it seems like, really happens.

Dr. Frank: It’s really, I thought about this twice during this podcast here, you know, this example for me, and I told you, I said I had two boys, my oldest, the angry, volatile, they both have ADHD, you know, and I, earlier on, when my kids were younger, I would get reactive. I’d get angry when they would be impulsive, when they’d throw things, when they’d fight. It was really, it stirred me up a lot.

And it wasn’t until my oldest was about 16, 17 that I was aware that I was reactive to his reactive moments. And he was reactive because I taught him to be reactive in anger. And I was like, oh, my gosh, because it was so hard for me to tolerate his anger instead of reacting to it. Don’t do that. Stop hitting your brother. And so my reactivity towards his aggression was all about my history of being a recipient of an abusive father.

And I remember the shift where I started tolerate, holding space for his angry feelings. And my husband was like, you’re condoning it. You’re giving him permission. And I’m like, no. And I stayed present in silence when he was angry. I stayed present in silence. I didn’t get reactive. I didn’t try to stop him. And it was a hugely powerful transition for him. He’s like, wow, somebody can handle my feelings.

Holding space for his anger. I didn’t yell. I didn’t scream. I didn’t. I just held space for it. And I saw how it allowed him to begin to tolerate his own intensity. And that’s where self-regulation came from. It was so powerful for me. It’s like, don’t be angry. Be calm. Use your words. That is not self-regulation, people. That’s not how we teach. We have to show our capacity to be with intense feelings in order to help our children learn for themselves how to be with their own intensity. And it was a game changer for me.

It was holding space that allowed my son to then hold space for his own intensity. And that was so powerful. And it’s, you know, the non-reactivity, not fixing it or getting rid of it was a big, big lesson for me. And I saw the effect it had on my kids. He knew his behavior was out of control, but he didn’t have a good enough model for how to hold it and not release it until I shifted.

Katie: Oh, that’s yeah, that’s incredibly powerful. And I feel like my body even felt it when you said tolerate his own intensity, like as someone who always worried I was too much. My body felt that statement.

Dr. Frank: Got it. That’s what if, what if you’re not too much? What if there was somebody to hold it, not shame it, not react to it, not condone it, just like you are okay, and we can hold this together. It’s the we that is that message instead of blaming or judging. Yeah, it was very powerful for me to move through that with him.

Katie: And how incredibly powerful just that statement you said about being present. I think often as a parent, we expect these little, tiny humans to be regulated and have control over their emotions when we don’t.

Dr. Frank: Right, exactly. And you know, I hate to say this too, but a lot of parents normalize losing it. Oh, it’s what we do. Like when we go out with our couple friends who are raising kids together, like we all normal because we all feel bad about it, and we all normalize it. Oh, everybody loses it. Oh, it’s normal.

I’m like, yes, everybody loses it. And no, it’s not normal. And in fact, it’s our responsibility to do something about it. Not just, oh, well, we, you know, yes, we do lose it. But there’s a process of repair. There’s a process of owning it. There’s a process of healing it and releasing the cause of it that is our responsibility. Not just, oh, no big deal, everybody loses it.

Because every time we lose it, our kids lose a safe parent. Every time we shut down, every time we yell, every time we lose it, our kids lose safety. That is a relational trauma for our kids every time we lose it. And people are not aware of that. Now, yes, it’s going to happen. Nobody is perfect in that way, but we have to own it and take responsibility for it fully. It’s too easy to push it on our kids’ behavior.

Katie: Yeah, that statement, every time we lose it, our kids lose a safe parent. But hopefully also then every time we apologize and repair and come back stronger, they gain the ability to do that in relationship. Hopefully over time.

Dr. Frank: Yes. Here’s what I want to say about that, because this is another piece that I learned. I don’t think of myself as a parenting expert. I’m constantly in the learning mode, right? I’m learning like, we all are, right? I say repair is essential, of course. It’s all about connection in repair when there’s been a breach or a disruption.

But don’t re-engage with your kids until you feel compassion for them. Too many people lose it. They’re still holding onto something and they go back. Yeah, I’m sorry, but you blah, blah, blah. I’m sorry, but you shouldn’t hit your brother. No, that is not repair. When a repair says, “I’m sorry, but,” it’s not a repair. So I say to the parent, recover, understand the origins of your trigger, then once you feel true compassion for your kids, it’s like this, I am so sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. That was my fault. And I’m sorry that I imposed that upon you. End of story.

That then allows the kid to say, look at themselves. But not, I’m sorry I did this, but you shouldn’t have hit your brother. It really upsets me when you yell at your sister. No, that’s not an apology when it is attached to the other person’s behavior, right?

And so I say re-engage when you truly feel compassion. And that may take a while. And that’s where we’re lucky for those of us who are co-parenting. Because while you’re recovering, it should be your partner’s job to stay connected to those kids because you’re not capable of doing that in this moment. I call this kind of the parenting lose it agreement. If I’m losing it, I got to recover, do my own work. And then my husband needs to be there as the safe parent until I can recover and show up authentically with compassion.

Katie: Oh, so many good quotes. I’ve taken so many notes for this show notes from this episode. And I really value your work and your vulnerability. And I’m guessing a lot of people listening are also recognizing the tremendous value in this and wondering sort of like, where can they engage? Where do I start if I want to do this work and show up better for my family, for my partner, for my kids? Where do I begin? And I know you have a lot of resources in book form and online. So where would you point people to begin?

Dr. Frank: Yeah, probably my website is the first place to go because I have a sign up for my monthly newsletter, which gives all the courses and the teachings and the stuff that I do, which is frankandersonmd.com And then, of course, I’m on all the social media channels, probably most active on Instagram, Frank_AndersonMD.

But as the world goes, I’m on TikTok. I’m on YouTube now. I’m on LinkedIn. So I’m on all the channels. And yeah, people, you know, we need to do this in community. You know, trauma violates relationship. Healing happens in community. And we have to do it together. So let’s join forces together in a way to make a change. Because the world is ailing, and we all can benefit from the health.

Katie: Well, I will link to your website as well as to your books in the show notes for any of you guys listening on the go that always lives wellnessmama.com. Frank, this has been such a fun conversation, so impactful. I would guess for many of the listeners as well. And I love that you are so vulnerable and so open and so willing to share in a way that can help so many other families. Thank you so much for your time, for your vulnerability and for your wisdom today.

Dr. Frank: Yeah, thank you so much for having me. And thank you for what you’re doing, because like I said, we’re all doing this together. So your part is just as important as my part. And so thank you for giving me this platform.

Katie: And on that note, thank you all for listening and for sharing your most valuable resources, your time, your energy, and your attention with us today. We’re both so grateful that you did. And I hope that you will join me again on the next episode of the Wellness Mama podcast.

If you’re enjoying these interviews, would you please take two minutes to leave a rating or review on iTunes for me? Doing this helps more people to find the podcast, which means even more moms and families could benefit from the information. I really appreciate your time, and thanks as always for listening.