Summarized Transcript of Episode 267 of The Moving On Method® Podcast

What Does It Mean to Heal After Divorce?
HOST (Michelle Dempsey-Multack):
Today we’re unpacking something that so many people misunderstand, what healing after divorce really looks like. It’s not just moving on quickly or “staying strong.” It’s about learning to feel safe again, emotionally, mentally, and even physiologically, after the chaos of loss.
GUEST (Dr. Sasha):
Exactly. Healing isn’t a single stage or a linear process. It’s a full-body recalibration. When we talk about recovery after divorce, we’re talking about the nervous system, about regulation, about what it means to feel calm again. People often try to think their way out of pain, but true recovery happens when your body stops anticipating danger.

Understanding the Nervous System’s Role in Emotional Recovery
HOST:
I think so many of us underestimate how much our bodies stay “on alert” even when the marriage has ended.
GUEST:
That’s right. When you’ve lived in survival mode, whether through conflict, emotional neglect, or chronic stress, your nervous system learns to expect threat. That’s why co-parenting can trigger so much anxiety. Even small interactions can feel like danger signals.
HOST:
So what does that mean for people trying to “move on”?
GUEST:
It means your healing has to include somatic awareness. You can’t think your way into calm, you have to feel it. This might mean breathwork, therapy focused on body regulation, or even simple grounding exercises that teach your system to recognize safety again.
Key Concepts:
Divorce recovery is as much physiological as it is emotional.

The body remembers the threat and must be retrained toward safety.

Somatic practices are critical for sustainable healing.

QUOTE:
“Healing doesn’t mean you never get triggered , it means your body learns it’s safe to come back to calm.” – Dr. Sasha

Why Co-Parenting Can Re-Trigger Old Wounds
HOST:
Co-parenting is often where people feel stuck the most. They want peace, but every exchange feels like a test of their progress.
GUEST:
Exactly, because co-parenting is the perfect storm for reactivating old emotional patterns. You’re still engaging with someone tied to your past pain, but under new rules. If you haven’t learned how to regulate yourself, those interactions will feel like emotional ambushes.
HOST:
So the goal isn’t to make co-parenting perfect, but to stay self-regulated when it’s hard.
GUEST:
Yes. Boundaries help, but the real work is self-regulation. You can’t control your ex’s behavior, but you can control the state you bring to the interaction.
Bullet Takeaways:
Co-parenting is not a continuation of the marriage; it’s a new relationship dynamic.

Emotional neutrality protects your peace.

Nervous system awareness helps prevent reactive communication.

QUOTE:
“Boundaries don’t work if you’re dysregulated, they just turn into barriers.” – Dr. Sasha

The Science of Emotional Regulation and Safety
HOST:
Let’s talk about how people can practically start rewiring their nervous systems after divorce.
GUEST:
Start by tracking your triggers. Notice how your body reacts, racing heart, tension, shallow breathing. Then, introduce small moments of grounding. I teach clients the 5-4-3-2-1 method, name five things you can see, four you can touch, three you can hear, two you can smell, one you can taste. It brings you into the present.
HOST:
It sounds simple, but powerful.
GUEST:
It is. Healing isn’t about ignoring your emotions; it’s about creating enough safety to feel them without becoming overwhelmed.
Core Practices Mentioned:
Grounding through sensory awareness

Breathwork for down-regulation

Cognitive reframing paired with somatic cues

QUOTE:
“Your healing starts when you stop trying to suppress your reactions and start listening to them.” – Dr. Sasha

The Role of Self-Compassion and Internal Dialogue
HOST:
You talk a lot about how self-talk shapes healing. What should people know about that?
GUEST:
Your internal dialogue becomes the environment your nervous system lives in. If you’re constantly self-critical, your body never relaxes. Compassion isn’t indulgent, it’s regulation.
HOST:
So healing begins when you shift from judgment to understanding.
GUEST:
Exactly. When you start talking to yourself like someone you love, your entire physiology responds differently. That’s the foundation for healthy co-parenting, dating again, and rebuilding your confidence.
Key Insights:
Harsh self-talk mirrors emotional neglect.

Self-compassion builds emotional resilience.

Inner safety leads to external stability.

QUOTE:
“Your inner voice can either heal you or keep you in survival mode.” – Dr. Sasha

Reframing Strength and Success After Divorce
HOST:
There’s this cultural obsession with “winning” divorce, like whoever moves on first, looks happier, or dates again wins.
GUEST:
That mindset misses the point. Real strength isn’t about performance; it’s about peace. If your nervous system is calm and you feel safe in your body, that’s success.
HOST:
So instead of performing healing, we need to live it.
GUEST:
Exactly. Healing isn’t a performance, it’s a practice.
Final Reflections:
You can’t measure healing by external milestones.

The goal is integration, not perfection.

A calm nervous system is the ultimate measure of progress.

QUOTE:
“Peace isn’t something you find after divorce, it’s something you learn to feel within yourself.” – Dr. Sasha

Raw Transcript:

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I interviewed Dr. Sasha Racy, and we explored the profound effects of early childhood trauma and the impact of divorce on children. We discussed the importance of emotional safety, the role of caregivers, and how parental conflicts can affect a child’s development. The conversation also emphasized the need for validation, support, and the establishment of boundaries to foster resilience in children.

Ultimately, we highlighted that a child’s sense of safety and security is paramount for their well-being and future success. You’ll also hear some things about the zero to five age being crucial for attachment, the way trauma is defined by the internal experience of the child, not just the events that they’re a part of. We’ll talk about how they internalize their caregiver’s emotional states and how children really benefit from having emotionally regulated parents.

And don’t worry, we talked about having that one stable parent and the difference that they make and how that one stable parent can help mitigate the effects of trauma. The emotional needs of your children are so important in a divorce, and we’re going to be breaking down all of it. So let’s meet Dr. Sasha.

Dr. Sasha Racy, everyone. He is going to help us figure this all out. What does it really mean when your child feels stuck in the middle of two parents in divorce? Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you so much for having me, Michelle. It’s an honor. I know.

I’ve been insta-stalking you for a while. One of those accounts where everything you post, I’m like, yes, yes, that’s yes. So much yes.

Give us a little bit of your background and how you got to doing this work. Yeah, my gosh. So my name is Dr. Sasha.

I’m a licensed early childhood trauma therapist with my doctorate in education, serving the K-12 community. My gosh, how did I end up here? Like most therapists, Michelle, I came out of grad school thinking I was going to change the world, change all these behaviors and fix a lot of teenagers. And right after that, I realized that was just not the case.

And I was lucky enough to end up working for community mental health where I got to serve the zero to five community. And that’s the early childhood work. And even though I was really scared to do it, it was one of the biggest blessings in disguise because I got to see mental health at the root of it.

I got to see a lot of the challenges that were being formed in real time just happened right in front of me. And it was amazing to kind of see the ripple effects that some of these children struggled with. And then I got to see them in adults and it started to really help me connect the dots about the importance of the attachment wounds and the relationships that we carry and the impact these relationships have everywhere in our life.

And I’m talking relationships, not just with people, but relationships we have with ourselves, relationships we have with food, relationships we have with the world around us. It all stems from these early childhood relationships that we form. And so here I am 10 years later, trying to serve as many people as I can, educate people as much as I can to try to create a world where we just all feel so much safer in our body.

Well, that’s the thing is like, I think we’re in this era of, I guess, people our age, I’m probably older than you, but of trying to unpack everything, like what happened to us in those formative years. And correct me if I’m wrong, but that zero to five timeframe is like when all the attachment relationships are forming and where they’re most significant and impactful, right? And our understanding of the world and our parents didn’t know what they didn’t know. But now it’s like, we’re trying to heal ourselves while also preventing our children from having to feel certain things or carry certain things.

And it’s a lot of work. It really is. And that’s what I love about this work is getting people the chance to kind of unpack.

And that zero to five age range, like you said, is one of the most crucial. I would even go further to say that zero to three, my gosh, can be some of the most impactful years in a child’s life. And so to kind of see these dynamics really come out to light.

And like I said, these ripple effects really come to light. It’s a beautiful journey that I love to kind of take my clients on and take my families on for them to not only find a space of healing within themselves, but also a way to find compassion for the generation before them and to also heal that generation that comes right after them too. Yeah.

That’s what it’s all about. And you mentioned your work being rooted in early childhood trauma. I think in the era of pop psychology and social media therapy and all of that, everything is traumatic.

Everybody’s traumatized. When you talk about early childhood trauma, what are some of the things that you see in your practice as being, you know, an absolute traumatic experience? You got it. That’s a great thing that you bring up, Michelle.

And to be honest, like even in the courses that I teach in the graduate studies here at San Jose State, there’s always a big discussion about what’s the difference between trauma and things that are traumatic, right? And I mean, my gosh, in this world, day and age, everything, there are so many things that could be traumatizing. There’s a lot of events that are scary, unpredictable, and can create some of these very everlasting scars, but that’s not necessarily what trauma is, right? And what we’re really trying to understand and share into the world is that trauma is what’s happening inside of your body. And so, so many of us can go through traumatic events, but they’re not necessarily going to last and become trauma in our body.

And I like to help my clients try to understand that all of us go through these stress responses early in childhood. I mean, you can imagine how stressful life is for a brand newborn, even for those first three years as you’re experiencing things for the first time and trying to make sense of things. Our bodies go into a state of dysregulation, and it’s often our caregivers’ response to us that could either help regulate our nervous system or they keep our nervous system in a state of distress.

And for so many kids, like they might cry when they’re tired and their parent comes and picks them up and hugs them and soothes them. And what they’re doing is they’re actually regulating the nervous system. And it sends the child this message that when you feel this way, you will be safe.

And so I have so many clients come in and when we even fill their assessments out and they talk about trauma, it’s amazing how many of them say like, I didn’t have any trauma. But then you start to understand that when they were younger and they would get angry, their parents would yell at them or their parents would send them to their rooms to be by themselves. And even though that they may not think that this was a traumatizing event, we think about it from the lens of what’s happening in their body.

You’re a child who is so dysregulated, not understanding what is happening. And when you need a caregiver to come in to help soothe the nervous system, instead you see that my caregiver is dysregulated. My caregiver isn’t a safe space right now.

And hate to break it to you, but children, oh my God, those first five, six years, we are egotistical. We are narcissistic. The whole world revolves around us.

And so that’s kind of how we make sense of it. And so we tell ourselves this is happening because of me. And so this begins to instill core beliefs within the child.

It starts to create assumptions in the child, and it starts to create a roadmap for what’s safe and not safe. And so for so many of my clients, they kind of operate in this world on autopilot, not realizing that they’ve been operating from this place of trauma. It is so eyeopening.

I personally have come to these moments in my adult life, like very life, like in recent years where I’m like, how did I do all that on my own and not have anybody to speak to? And how did I just live with what happened to me on my own? And perhaps, yeah, that was the real trauma. It’s not what happens to us, but the way in which we have to deal with it after that leaves the most scars. Absolutely.

It’s fascinating how many of my elder clients, when we talk about some of these you know, traumatizing things that may have happened to them that they never really put a lot of energy into thinking about it, when that million dollar question comes out about, so who did you tell? It’s amazing how many of them say, I didn’t tell anybody. And it makes you spark that question. Why would a child not go tell their caregiver if something overwhelming and scary and bad and shameful was happening to them? How do you make sense of that? Because when we’re born, oh, we got no problem crying and asking for our needs and telling our caregivers what we want.

So what happened along the way to that child where they internalize that I can’t talk to anybody about this? That’s trauma, right? Now, and where this leads me to, and I’m really excited to talk about this with you is because, you know, there is this notion of like, if you get divorced, your kids are going to be messed up and quote unquote traumatized. And in my line of work, what I see is it’s not the divorce, it’s the conflict that children have to live in thereafter. And also what I think is far worse are these quiet assumptions that children make that my parents are so burdened by this divorce and the conflict that they’re in, that I might as well just take a backseat to all of it.

And I think that’s probably where we can relate trauma to divorce and children. Yes, absolutely. Oh my gosh.

There are clients that I work with that are terrified of like, oh my gosh, but what is this divorce going to do to the kids? And we take a step back and like, what is the marriage doing to the kids right now? Because even if it might be sad for them to go through, for mom and dad to go through the separation, even they might be angry, even if they might blame themselves a little bit. I remember reading a study that said kids, no matter how old they are, they even interviewed, you know, kids of divorcees, like who were in their thirties and forties when their parents got divorced and they still felt somewhat responsible. Feelings can pass, feelings can be worked through, feelings can be dealt with, can be addressed.

Safety is one of the most important things that we have to take into consideration. And while our children might be sad that mom and dad are not together, we have to kind of take that step back and ask ourselves, what’s the safest option for them? Because that safety is often at times what’s going through their nervous system. And children have this one very important rule, which is if you’re comfortable, we’re comfortable.

And so they sense that so deeply, especially when what comes after that separation and after that divorce. So in terms of that sense of safety, right, the initial, the initial divorce and the change can feel unsafe, but we work really hard to get them to feel comfortable in both homes or in one home if they’re staying just in one. What happens thereafter that has all of these kids essentially feeling stuck in the middle? To be honest, most of it from what I’ve seen in the work that I do, it’s the caregivers.

I hate to kind of put the finger on the caregivers a little bit, but again, it’s kind of how they address the kiddos needs. And so many caregivers, when they’re going through a divorce, it’s hard for them to sometimes get themselves out of their own head to say, what is the kiddo need? And not so much about what is it that you need to feel better that you’re going to get from the child. And sometimes it comes from a sense of control.

Sometimes it creates a sense of secrecy. Sometimes it creates a sense of difficulty with communication. And children want to do everything they can to not overwhelm their caregiver.

And children are just the most intuitive, sensitive beings. Like they are. I hate to say it, but people used to think that children were super resilient.

And I’m here to say children are some of the least resilient. They need us more so than ever to find their footing, to feel safe, to feel secure. And when they start to sense that maybe me talking good about my other caregiver makes this parent, they start to get that look on their face.

Oh, I don’t want to do that to them. So maybe I’ll just keep these things to myself and I won’t carry that. I mean, that is, I think the thing I’ve seen as a common thread amongst all my clients, especially when, because in most situations, when someone comes to me, it’s because they’re really trying to do their best for their kid in light of somebody else being high conflict or difficult to work with in the co-parenting sense.

And this is where I stress to them that like, you know, your child, even if they’re young and can’t comprehend what is happening, they know the feeling, they know how they feel with you. They know how they feel around the other parent. And they know that one is probably unhappy with the other.

So that’s all the more reason to say, Hey, how are you feeling about all this? You know, that constant reminder of like, you’re not in charge of my feelings. I’m in charge of yours. And I think objectively, right.

We like make that our mission, but then it’s these little things that end up making kids feel like they have to choose one or the other, or, you know, the loyalty binds come into the, into play. What do you see that often in your practice? I totally do, you know, and it’s just, you know, it’s expected a lot of the time sometimes because parents are not perfect. Parents are human beings.

Parents have their own emotions. Parents have their own wounds. And these ruptures to some degree are going to occur.

But people sometimes get shocked. Like, I’ll even ask you at what age do you think children can start to recognize like, okay, this makes my parent comfortable. This makes them uncomfortable.

And I’m going to adjust to make sure I don’t make them uncomfortable. How old do you think kids pick that up? I mean, I think very early on, I think in, in probably early toddlerhood. Yeah.

11 months old by 11 months old, we can start to dictate. All right. What’s going to make them overwhelmed.

What might make them angry? What might make them like disappointed? And I’m going to adjust. So even parents who are like, Oh my God, you know, we got a divorce, you know, when my child was age five, your child might be able to pick up on your cues long before, you know, this divorce really happened. And so while it’s inevitable, sometimes that these children take on these beliefs and these burdens, it’s impactful about how we just plant the seeds, right.

Part of being a caregiver, especially in this journey. I, I instruct a lot of my parents that our kids need us to be balanced, balanced, being on one side, being bigger and stronger on this other side of the scale, being kind. It’s not kinder, but kind and being the wiser one as the adult that knows how to balance this out for us.

Right. And being the hardest balance of all, especially for parents. Right.

You’re like now parenting in light or like in the contrast of what the other person is doing. And you’re worried about, unfortunately, parents worry. Am I better than them? Am I doing more than that? Can I be better than them? So like, you’re not necessarily parenting authentically anymore and you’re overthinking the whole thing and all of this overcompensation is happening.

It’s really hard to separate this for a lot of people. Absolutely. And I’ve had co-parents in here who sometimes can’t stand each other and can’t agree on the parenting style.

And I have them just take a step back for a second and say, what is your child need? And let’s really take a step back for a moment and look at these emotional needs that your child does carry with you for you, right? They need you to be bigger, stronger, wiser, and kind. And that means, okay, if I’m going to be dysregulated all the time because of what mom’s doing or what dad’s doing, my child’s going to pick up on that. Oh, for sure.

And they’re going to adapt to that. And so much of my parenting is about, okay, building this relationship. And it’s about understanding what their emotional needs are and how do I just address that to create a sense of security in them, right? The thoughts, the beliefs that these kids carry, these things can be challenged.

These things can be explored, especially as they get older and more age appropriate discussions can be had. But the safety that we manifest in their body, that is something that could stick with them for the rest of their lives. And so even while they kind of go through this chaos of trying to, parents fighting each other on what’s right, I really get them to stop and emphasize when you’re with your child, because the data shows we only need one solid caregiver that can be good enough.

My favorite statistic in the world. Yeah. And I’ve been preaching it till I’m blue in the face, but as I’m finding, and that was really comforting information for me to take on my journey through my own divorce, especially because I was the product of divorce where I had one caregiver, stable, reasonable, what have you.

But now that my child is no longer two, right? A lot of people who follow me have been following me on this journey from when their kids were really young to now at a point where kids figure out what’s what and who’s who. And I’ve seen that the more stable and secure and connected you are to your child, the more quickly it holds up a mirror to the other parents inadequacies or inability to be the same. Do you help children through this part? Because I think that kind of turns everything on its head for these kids.

Absolutely. There’s a lot of these kids from the younger kiddos that I work with, even like the older teenagers that I work with who are going through this realization. And the reality is of it.

One of the things that I do for them is I got to let them feel it. I have to give them permission to feel what they need to feel, especially with the reality of their situation. Cause it’s like, who am I to tell them? No, you know, you shouldn’t be angry at your father, like be angry at what has happened and how it has played out for the, for the kids, you know, who are in their teenage years, who are old enough to some degree.

I still love to include this piece of compassion. You can still be upset with your parent for what they did or what they didn’t do. And you can still have a level of understanding for to move away from blame and guilt.

Cause even for these kids, that parent is half of me. Like, so if I hate them and I think all these bad things about them, ah, that could have more potentially negative, negative harm on me. And that’s the last thing that I would want.

So we help them kind of find this balance of you could hold these two things can be true. You can hold these feelings of what happened and what you carry. And you can also know that this person did their best and they loved you and they still love you.

And you can love that person too, should with boundaries that make you safe and comfortable as it should. I love that you’re saying that. Cause I think what happens is, you know, all of these, the parents who are the, who have been the reasonable ones, their kids come to this realization and I’ve gotten so many DMS like this recently, like my kids finally figured it out.

They’re rejecting the other parent. And for some parents, it’s like, woohoo, finally, you know, like now they know, but, and, and I’m very, I’m very big on stressing to them that just because they’ve come to the realization doesn’t mean it’s time for you to be like, you see, I told you screw them. You still need to maintain this level of, yeah, that those things that they do are really upsetting, but you know what? Like people are going to upset us and we can be upset by what they do and also love and want to have a relationship with them because you’ve only got one dad and one mom, you know, unless there’s obvious signs of abuse, I wouldn’t use the language, but safety issues.

This is not the time to like throw all your good natured, take the high road work and throw it out the window because your kids have come to a realization. I believe you need more support than ever in those moments. Sometimes that’s when the dam has burst open and these kids will get flooded with feelings and thoughts and just their bodies.

Just, it’s a huge realization sometimes when these things absolutely happen. And you’re so right that that is actually the moment that parents have to even be more prepared to offer that safety and that comfort and helping, you know, create just a sense of protection of, I know this hurts. I know this is hard.

I’m still here for you. Everything’s really going to be okay. And I still have to create this sense of grounding for you when your whole world might just be blown up by this realization suddenly.

And I need to regulate you rather than riding that, be like, I’m going crazy with it. It’s so important. I know.

I mean, I, it can feel really, I think validating or really great for a parent who’s been like zipping their lips all these years that the kids finally see it. But you know, we still have to tread very carefully because things can change. The relationship can shift again.

And then who’s the bad guy because you were like, ha ha, I told you so you have to be really careful with that. Are there like different age ranges in which you see children who have felt maybe put in the middle or a little bit parentified or confined to a loyalty bind? Are there, is there like a specific age range where you see children sort of like speaking up and saying, I don’t want to be in this position anymore. Stop putting me in the middle.

You know, it’s fascinating that you say that Michelle, because if I have to really look at history of the kiddos that I’ve worked with, it’s really not until these kids kind of hit preteen teenage years that they really start expressing what they want. And I think where this really lies, unfortunately, is, you know, children kind of in that elementary school age, they sometimes can become really hyper fixated on one of the parents just simply because of gender. We kind of move away from just mom, dad to now like, you know, I’m a boy, I’m a girl, and this is who I connect with.

This is who I am. And again, that’s where I kind of still emphasize, regardless of the gender, safety really becomes a huge thing. But once kids kind of start to get to about the age of like 11, even 10, maybe from some of the more earliest ones that I’ve seen, it’s when these kids kind of start to get the self-awareness and they look in that mirror and they start to question like, okay, so who am I? Like, what’s my identity? Like, what’s this about? And that, you know, the brain just starts to develop a little bit differently and they start to look at things just a little bit differently to say, okay, what the hell is going on? Who the hell am I when I’m spending time with this person? How does it really make me feel? Do I really want to be doing this more? Because if I do, again, what does that say about me? And it’s like, the teenager is so similar to the three-year-old where they’re extremely expressive about what they want and what they want to do.

The difference between the three-year-old and the teenager is the three-year-old is still fighting for attachment. And so they might still be a lot more mom and trying to like, keep the peace rather than being like, I want to go with mom. I want to go with dad.

But once they hit those years of identity development and they’re like, so who am I going to be? It’s when they really start to be more vocal about like, this is what I want. That’s not where I want to go. It’s so interesting because this is, I mean, historically in family court and in, you know, in the divorce world, when you’ll see children going to court, ultimately begging to cut contact with one parent.

And, you know, most courts in every state across the country are going to do what they can to sort of facilitate rehabilitation of the relationship. But I wonder from the kid’s perspective, how much does this push on their boundaries of like not feeling listened to or not feeling validated? Like I’m telling you, I don’t like this. And you’re trying to tell me to fix it.

It’s not fixable. That’s been my, one of my biggest issues dating back for 10 years since I worked in community mental health. And there was a lot I mean, community mental health, we were working low income families, families on Medi-Cal.

I worked with a lot of kids in the foster care system, kids who were adopted, who are going through these court processes. And it was my biggest gripe. It was just because this kid is seven or eight, why does their voice not carry weight? This is a kiddo who is experiencing it.

And I get it. Like there are times where they’re like, oh, they’re being coached. They’re this to say these things.

I’m like, well, these kids have been coming to therapy for like six, seven months, working very directly with me. If these express these feelings of theirs, there’s thoughts were being coached. I would know you would know, right.

But their play, their expressive arts, you know, their body, like it’s speaking volumes to us. It’s telling us something. And I always would feel for those kids who would, their body, their behaviors would tell us, I don’t feel safe with this person.

This person doesn’t meet my emotional needs and leaves me in a greater state of distress. And the courts would sometimes be like, well, we’ll just send your parents to parenting classes and, you know, make it supervised and X, Y, Z. And so I feel for those kids because yeah, they grow up at one point thinking like, am I helpless? Does my voice just even matter anymore? What’s the point? Yeah. Which, which leads me back to that trauma piece.

Like, you know, you can avoid having your child feel traumatized as much as you can. But at a certain point, the other parent is an adult with, you know, the ability to make their own decisions. And if those decisions are regularly impacting the child and then the professionals are saying, well, too bad.

So sad. You know, they took a class, the impact of that trauma. My gosh, you know, it’s, it’s a interesting thing to talk about.

I should ask is having that one stable person, you know, are the positive childhood experiences going to outweigh the adverse ones in a situation like that? There you go. You got right to where I was speaking my language. So the research shows, right, even going back to that whole, it just takes one parent.

What they really mean by that is it just takes one good enough parent to hardwire that nervous system and build the foundation and even create some support and some resiliency against the chaos that may come against the other side. So even for example, there are some kiddos who would go to one less stable parent, who would be a little bit more, you know, not as much there and they would be left in a state of dysregulation and they would come back to the caregiver who was a lot more regulated, who would be more stable, more predictable. And we would almost help them go through like a roadmap.

It’d be like a structured thing to do when your child comes back to you. What do you do? We’re going to assume that they’re in this period is so important. Yeah.

So important. And then the time that you spend with them when they’re with you, the comforting, the meeting, the emotional needs, the safety, the predictability, it creates this safety blanket, right? The praise, the delight, the loving, all of these things. And this is far beyond just spoiling your child.

This is filling their body with love and comfort and safety and predictability. Like as it becomes an armor for them, where each time they go to the other parent and things are tough, each time it just becomes a little easier to deal with. And the next time it becomes a little easier to deal with because what’s happening in the other home is the foundation of my nervous system is being built up to be able to handle.

That stuff’s still going to make me sad. I’m still going to be disappointed. I still might get angry at the other parent’s house.

I still might be really ashamed and embarrassed. And I still might even have moments of joy. It’s so sad.

It’s almost like in these situations, we’re teaching our kids by doing all the good or the one parent who is reasonable doing all that good and connection and safety and love and just basically teaching them to survive the other parent. And that’s very difficult. It is.

It is. And to me, sometimes I realize it could be really heartbreaking because it’s not the child’s responsibility to change the parent. And sometimes they’ll grow up their whole life thinking that I can.

And one day they’ll wake up and realize it was never my responsibility and there was just nothing that I could have done. And from that level, it’s like I think about it of what a great preparation for the world to some degree. Right, right.

There are going to be people you’re going to have to interact with and deal with that might not make you feel good and it will suck. And there will be moments in life where when that stress kicks in, you can’t flee. You can’t fight.

So can you regulate internally and learn to just be OK? And as you get older, you set boundaries to keep yourself safe. And even with some of the families I’ve worked with in family therapy, it’s like, don’t be surprised if your kid gets older and sets boundaries, dad, because you’re not wanting to change your behavior. It doesn’t mean that your kid doesn’t love you anymore.

It just means that this is how they can show their love, because this is what will make them feel safe and this is what will make them feel OK. I really emphasize boundaries to these children as young as possible to help them understand that boundaries are a way to keep you safe. And the older you get, the more stronger you can become to enforce your boundaries.

And if your boundaries are ever crossed, know that you have one caregiver that you can hopefully feel safe and trustworthy enough to go to to say, hey, this happened. It didn’t make me feel OK. And they can bring you in, offer the comfort, offer the repair that you should have gotten to help regulate your nervous system and prepare you for the next round of life.

You talk you talk about or you had an article about rupture and repair. And I know like this is so buzz wordy on social media right now, especially if you follow a lot of the parenting accounts like I do. But.

Is it possible to you know, if there is a rupture with the other parent between the other parent and the child, can you make the repair enough for them or is it at a certain point out of your hands? Absolutely. You can ideally in a perfect world, the caregiver who caused the rupture would be the one to come in and create a repair. But when we even look at like what rupture really is.

And so rupture is you can think of it, Michelle, going back to what I said, bigger, stronger, wiser and kind and understanding your child’s emotional needs when you lose that balance. That’s a rupture. That’s that’s what we call it.

So if you become so heavily focused on being bigger and stronger, you come off as mean to your child. If you’re this parent who’s always kind, the fun parent, right, even that can come off as weak to a child like, huh, you can’t you can’t take charge of me when I when I need you to take charge of me. You just let me do whatever I want.

And that’s scary to a child that doesn’t make them feel good. And when it’s possible, we want to be able to meet our child’s emotional needs, but we’re also not always going to be able to. So even when we don’t meet those emotional needs, that in itself is a rupture.

And what rupture does, it creates distress in the child’s body. It sends the message like, oh, my gosh, my needs aren’t going to be met. I’m in a state of distress.

Oh, right. That emotional cup is like almost drained. And they they sometimes get so overwhelmed.

And these kids might act up. They might engage in behaviors that parents don’t like. And sometimes that nervous system might be in a state of distress from the moment they leave their parents’ house to the moment they come to yours.

And if I’m a caregiver who’s like, OK, I know my I know the other parent. Let’s be honest. I know they’re doing their best.

I you know, no ill will towards them. I’m doing my best to co-parent. But let’s be honest.

You know, they try to be the fun parent all the time. They don’t really ever set any limits and boundaries or or let’s just say when they go over, my kid goes over to their house like, you know, dad’s busy all the time or mom’s busy all the time. And they’re just kind of put in front of a TV.

And so when they come back to me as the bigger, stronger, wiser and kind one, I’m going to know that my child can come back to me and there might be in a state of distress internally. And what is need to have to interject with parents that attitude or behavior that you see in your children when they come back to your house is not personal to you. It’s not.

It’s like when they come back after a long day of school and they kind of just fall apart, have to be prepared for it. I have a course on my website and a workbook to help you navigate those transitions in a way that are better for you and better for your children so everyone can feel safe and secure and happy. Absolutely.

You’re so right, Michelle. Those behaviors is your child saying, what I’m feeling is too much for me to go through alone and I need you here with me. And what that looks like is maybe you just be here with me.

Maybe you comfort me. Maybe you help me work through it, but stay balanced while I go through this, right? It’s not about you. It’s about what I’m going through.

And so as that caregiver, if you have that knowledge and you have that understanding, then you get to welcome that repair process as that bigger and stronger and wiser and kind one that comes in and says, I understand what you’re going through. I can organize those feelings for you. I can help you name it.

I can offer comfort for you. I can offer your nervous system comfort so that even if your body just went through this distress, your body starts to learn that even when I go through these difficult, uncomfortable things, I will be okay. It might be a little while, my gosh, like, but I’m going to know at least no matter what, I will be okay.

And Michelle, you could think about the ripple effect that that creates for these children for years ahead. It doesn’t matter what is happening in here that says, my gosh, this is difficult. I’m struggling.

Their body is telling them, yeah, but everything is going to be okay though. I love this. This is so beautiful and so healing.

I think there, if whoever’s listening to this still at this point in the conversation, probably really needed to hear this and is struggling at a certain point in their life with all of the things we’ve talked about, trying to do their best all the time when maybe the other parent is not, finding the right balance to support their kids, helping them through those years of kind of realizing who the other parent is on their own. It’s all a lot of work, but my biggest takeaway from this is no matter how exhausting it feels to have to be the bigger parent, the more reasonable one, it is all so worth it because of the difference between a child who is healthy, secure, and strong and a child who is otherwise traumatized, and we don’t want that. It’s the difference that makes a difference, Michelle, right? And we know that these kids, regardless, single-parent household, two-parent household, living with or being raised by grandparents, adopted kids, we know the biggest difference that makes a difference in these kids’ life is feeling safe and secure.

We know kids who feel safe and secure do better in school. They have better relationships. They have better futures.

They’re less likely to engage in risky behaviors or connect with people who engage in risky behaviors. So many of the parents that I talk to that I’m like, is this not what you want for your child? They all say yes. And I show them the roadmap.

I’m like, this is it right here. It’s written out, clear-cut. Your children are the instruction manual.

They’re here right now telling you what they need. Can we work through our stuff to be able to get them what they need? And that’s the most important thing for parents. And you ultimately can to any of the parents listening, even if it means you’re taking a different approach with somebody who just is not willing to change or work things through on that roadmap the way that they need to.

Dr. Sasha, this has been such a beautiful conversation as I knew it would be. Where can our listeners find you if they want to get in touch or just follow your amazing words of wisdom? Absolutely. They can find me on Instagram and TikTok at Dr. Sasha Racy.

I’m there. I post a lot of great tidbits. If you’re here in California and you’re looking for some support, looking for some coaching, looking for some individual therapy, please come check me out.

You can always reach out to me. I’d be more than happy to see how I can offer your support. Thank you.

And to our listeners, don’t forget if you are struggling with those transition periods or how to connect with your child in light of a difficult co-parent, I’ve got all those resources and more available to you on my site. Prerecorded courses, workshops, workbooks, you name it. Go check it out.

MichelleDempsey.com forward slash courses. And we’ll see you next time on the Moving On Method.