For alienated and estranged parents who keep getting pulled back into the chaos — even when they swore they were done.
Why Your Brain Chooses Chaos Over Healing After Trauma
If you're a parent navigating parental alienation or forced estrangement, you already know the pain. You've cried out for relief. You've said you'd do practically anything to make it stop. And maybe someone has even handed you the tools to heal — only to catch yourself, after the fact, leaving them completely untouched.
You're not alone. And you're not broken.
What you may be experiencing is what I call the accidental participation in the crisis loop — a defense mechanism that flies under the radar, keeping alienated parents stuck in chaos long after they've decided they're ready to heal.
Here's why it happens: when you pause the crisis, the wreckage becomes painfully loud. The silence is deafening. Healing itself feels terrifyingly quiet, and your brain — in a desperate bid to protect you from the heavy, weighted work of recovery after trauma — discovers that staying in an active, roaring crisis is the ultimate weapon of mass distraction.
Your nervous system, accustomed to years of chaos, has made crisis your baseline. The cascade of cortisol and adrenaline that floods your body when stress hits has become something your body expects. Without it, things feel off balance. Chaos has become normal.
And it's not your fault. This is all happening on a subconscious level.
This is part three of our four-part masterclass on reclaiming your agency after alienation. If you haven't caught the first two parts, you can find them here:
- Part 1 (Ep. 202): My Life is Doomed: 3 Signs To Help You Break Free
- Part 2 (Ep. 203): The Internal Prison of Self-Punishment
I also covered the addiction to chaos in a three-part series last year — those are fantastic pairings for this episode (Episode 158-160)
3 Signs You're Stuck in the Alienation Crisis Loop
After working with alienated parents for years — and living through my own alienation journey— I've identified three signs that keep even the most well-intentioned parents trapped in the crisis loop. These aren't the obvious blowups. They're subtle, internal, and deeply rooted in trauma.
Sign 1: The Two-Week Trigger Hangover
You receive one loaded email or text from your ex, your child, or even your boss — and it completely derails the next two weeks of your life.
Your nervous system gets commandeered. Your brain floods your body with cortisol and adrenaline, locking you into a loop of intrusive, repetitive thoughts. You're ruminating about the past, catastrophizing about the future. You spend your days "tired and wired" — physically exhausted but mentally looping. Checking your phone every nine minutes. Losing sleep. Struggling to stay present at work.
You believe the lie the situation is handing you: that you must solve this now. That the urgency in your body means you need to act. But the only way you think you can get relief is to follow the old pattern — the one that never actually worked.
I walk through a real client example of this in the full episode (watch or listen here)— an alienated mom I'll call Kim, who had a breakthrough contact with her son at a family memorial, then immediately texted her ex to "smooth things over" and accidentally stepped right back into the alienation dynamic. It's a pattern so many of us recognize.
The actionable step: Do an audit. Next time you notice yourself reeling and looping after a trigger, lovingly observe yourself. See how long you spend in those rumination and catastrophizing states. Add up the hours, the days, the weeks. Not to shame yourself — to become aware. Awareness is the first step.
Sign 2: The Self-Care Ghost Phenomenon (Why Reading About Healing Isn't Healing)
You're downloading the worksheets. Buying the books — maybe even *Co-Parenting with the Toxic Ex*. Listening to all the right podcasts. You're consuming all the correct information about parental alienation recovery, co-parenting with a narcissist, and how to reconnect with your child.
But perhaps the files sit untouched on your hard drive or the work itself is left undone.
This is the illusion of progress through information consumption. Passive action — learning, reading, listening, consuming — feels productive. It triggers a hit of dopamine because learning itself feels like work. But it's keeping you safe from the terrifying, high-risk (or so it feels) work of actual implementation.
Here's the truth I had to learn the hard way: information gives you knowledge, but only application buys you freedom.
It's not that you lack commitment. It's a subconscious safety strategy. Your body is screaming, "Stay safe. Stay unnoticed. Don't make any big moves." You've mistaken the act of learning for the act of changing. You're collecting tools like trophies instead of using them like shovels.
I did this for years. I made it my job to consume everything about alienation, narcissistic ex-partners, and co-parenting strategies. I knew it all. And it kept me stuck — because knowing every angle let me talk myself out of ever taking an actual step.
The distinction that matters: Passive action is reading the book. Massive action is closing the book, looking in the mirror, and doing the hard internal audit — then taking the corresponding steps, even when your hands are shaking.
Sign 3: The "Uniquely Unfixable" Story
This one keeps you the most stuck.
"My situation is so severe that it will never be fixed. My ex is too toxic. My child is too brainwashed. Nobody understands how uniquely terrible my case is."
I hear you. I believe you. Your situation may genuinely be that extreme. But here's what your brain does with that reality: it builds a story around it. If your situation is fundamentally unfixable, you are completely safe from the heartbreak of picking up a tool, trying your best, and watching it fail.
Your ego effectively immunizes itself against the vulnerability of trying and failing. You don't have to grapple with future disappointment if you've already deemed the situation impossible to solve. This is what I call cognitive exceptionalism — and it's a powerful defense against disappointment.
But this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. You show up already defeated, already convinced it won't work — and your energy carries that defeat straight into every interaction. You end up rejecting yourself before anyone else can.
The core truth: Your ex's behavior may be exceptionally toxic. Your situation may be exceptionally painful. But that does not make you exceptionally unhealable. That's them. That's the situation. The situation is not you.
## You Don't Have to Stay in the Recovery Phase Forever
Here's something I want you to hear: you don't have to remain in the healing phase for the rest of your life.
You may grieve for a long time — and that's okay. But at some point, you can move beyond healing and into implementation and integration. You can step out of the "special snowflake who has to be in recovery forever" identity and start building a life of your own.
Just because the storm is extreme doesn't mean you never leave the dock. As exceptionally terrible as your situation has been, the pendulum can swing the other way. You have the potential to experience something equally brilliant, expansive, meaningful, and full of love. If it's been this absolutely uniquely terrible — the only way is up.
## Breaking the Crisis Loop: Your First Massive Action Step
Passive action keeps you safe. Massive action buys you freedom.
You don't need to fix your entire life by tomorrow morning. That urgency is an illusion that keeps parents trapped. You just need to take one small bite of a massive action today.
Here's how to start — it's simple:
The Tactical Delay. The next time a trigger lands in your inbox or on your phone, intentionally disrupt the two-week hangover mechanism. When the hostile email or text arrives, do not reply instantly. Don't spend the next four hours drafting a response or venting to eight different people.
Instead: read the message. Acknowledge the spike in your nervous system — the swirling in your belly, the tightness, the heart rate. Then say to yourself: "I see the storm, and I'm choosing my own peace for the next 24 hours."
Put the phone down. Close the laptop. Walk away. Don't stick your head in the sand. Don't reel on it. Just choose differently.
By enforcing that 24-hour boundary between the chaos and your response, you're taking the very first piece of massive action. You're proving to your brain that the alienating parent, your child, or whoever is out there can throw a punch — but they no longer have the power to dictate your daily stability.
Your healing lives in the quiet. Yet massive choices you make right here.
---
This is Episode 204 of the Beyond the High Road podcast— part three of a four-part masterclass on reclaiming your agency after alienation. Listen to or watch the full episode for real-life client examples, deeper teaching on each sign, and more.
Not sure about your next steps? Come have a clarity call with me. First one's on me.
Keep your head up, stay anchored like the lighthouse parent.
— Shelby Milford
Episode Transcript
3 Hidden Signs of the Crisis Loop (& How to Fix) for Alienated Parents
Have you ever found yourself crying out that you just want relief? That you will do practically anything to make the pain go away?
But then maybe when somebody hands you the tools to heal, right? You notice, and you may notice this after the fact, that you were actively or you are actively choosing to leave those tools untouched. I know I did, And it-- for me, it was after the fact today we're gonna be talking about a very real, very relatable, to me anyway, and I'm sure to a lot of you, defense mechanism that usually flies underneath the radar, the addiction to and the accidental participation in the crisis loop
We're gonna look at why your brain chooses the very loud and also very familiar war zone over the quiet work of actual recovery. Okay? So you are listening to the Beyond the High Road podcast with Shelby Milford, episode number 204
Welcome to Beyond the High Road, a podcast dedicated to healing your heart and life following the grief of alienation. I'm your host, Shelby Milford, a twice certified life coach specializing in post-traumatic growth. If you're experiencing the effects of alienation and you're ready to heal, then this show is my love letter to you.
Stay tuned.
Why Your Brain Chooses Chaos Over Healing After Trauma
Hey, y'all. Welcome back to the show, or welcome if this is your first time. This-- today is part three of our four-part masterclass on reclaiming your agency after alienation or estrangement. Okay? So far in this series, we've unmasked the passive bow out of the sacrificial lamb.
That was episode one, or 202. Um, and then we've audited the internal prison of self-punishment last week. And then today, we're gonna shift focus to that defense mech- mechanism that I was just talking about in the cold open that might feel incredibly in your face. It for sure is in your face uncomfortable, definitely exhausting
And sometimes, I almost wanna say most of the time, it feels completely unavoidable by the person who's doing it or experiencing it, okay? And that is the addiction to crisis so last year, almost a year ago to the day, maybe it's 11 months or so, I did a three-part series on the addiction to chaos.
but then I covered it in a much different way than I'm going to cover it today. If you haven't listened to those three episodes from back then, I will link them below. They would be a great pairing for today. And even if you have listened to them, sometimes you pick up...
Most of the time, I know for sure, I always pick up new stuff when I go back and re-listen to things, and I do that often with books, um, listening to books, you know? But anyway, I'm gonna put, link those below. Those are, uh, excellent pairings for today's episode. along with, of course, the rest of this series, one and two of the series.
So before I even begin, if you are new to me, I want to be very clear I know and wanna let you know that I know that alienation, forced estrangement, whatever you're going through is a traumatic high-conflict nightmare Of a tragedy.
The chaos coming at you from the other side is real
And there is a line that we can sometimes cross where we stop just enduring the chaos, and we start holding onto it as a shield without even knowing that we're doing it.
Why? Because healing itself can feel terrifyingly quiet, right? When you pause the crisis The wreckage itself becomes painfully loud. You know, like the silence is deafening? That
When you decide to shift your focus from how evil the ex is
how disrespectful your kid is or how awful this is that this is all happening, when you decide to shift your focus away from the outside, the external, the sudden lack of noise, excuse me, the sudden lack of noise forces you to look at your own choices your own deep pain, like the clean pain, And your own path forward
So your brain, in a desperate bid to protect you from doing that heavy work, because it is, does feel heavy and weighted, right? Discovers, your brain discovers that staying in an active roaring crisis is the ultimate weapon of mass distraction
It can feel like so necessary to fight for your child, and I'm definitely not saying to not do that, but subconsciously what is happening is that you're hiding from yourself by staying in the crisis, you know? So I'm gonna talk about, in a few minutes, I'm gonna talk about the three signs of the crisis loop, but first I just wanna say that it makes sense.
Like, this episode today, first, before I talk about the what makes sense, um- This episode, if you feel like, like maybe you've been on the he- healing path for a while or p- personal responsibility path or whatever it is for you, but you're ready to, like, step away from the drama. And again, when I say step away, I'm not saying step away from your child or children, I'm just saying step away from the-- s- step off the merry-go-round of crazy, When you decide that you're gonna get on solid ground, and do the work, you all of a sudden feel completely stuck, and you feel like no matter what you do, chaos and, drama sorta keep kind of following you around, and you're like, " Wait a second.
I just told myself I was gonna step away, and why are these people coming in and they're testing me? I can't get away from it," right? "No matter what I do, I'm right back in the same fucking loop again, and I don't wanna be here." Right? And that in itself, you, the resistance to where you're currently at and the current circumstances of your life causes more chaos and drama for you, and you didn't want it.
It's just there because you're fighting it, right? It all makes sense nobody came through childhood unscathed, right?
We all have some, maybe some unhealed traumas or some stuff depending on how much work you've done, that changed the way that you operated and in your mind, not for the best, right? and then as you went into adulthood and up until today, maybe the relationships that you attracted or that you jumped into, um, caused more of that trauma, right?
And so you're still trying to pull it all apart. It makes sense that if you had that, if you had a, some ups and downs and some rockiness in childhood, And then of course, you went through alienation or estrangement or whatever, it would make sense that your body, your nervous system, got completely accustomed to and made chaos normal for you, right? That makes sense. Even though with your higher thinking, you truly don't want it. You would pay all the money you had or lots of it.
You would give a lot to just have a boring life. But when it comes down to it, it seems like it doesn't matter how much you want that or how much you plan or try to get stuff done or change ways, change the ways of your life, things keep coming around, then this is a good episode for you. But just know right now that it's completely understandable because it's all happening on such a subconscious level, okay?
So yes, what I'm getting ready to talk about is a defense mechanism, but I'm not, definitely not pointing fingers or saying it's your fault. That's my message right now. It just happened, and it's happening because your body is addicted to that cascade of chemicals that happens when stress comes up for you.
When you see something as stressful, then that-- you get a certain combination, cocktail of those, those chemicals that your body feels like if it doesn't receive those chemicals, then things are off balance, So your normal, your baseline has calibrated differently than maybe that you want it to be.
Okay? All right.
I'm gonna talk about three signs of the crisis loop, three entirely, I think, different signs than I've ever talked about. Like, it's-- whenever talking about the crisis loop or the chaos loop. Um, but the reason I am is because these three signs, I was thinking about this, um, when I was doing all these outlines.
These are the ones that happen that cause people to stay stuck even though they have all the best... I mean, we always have the best intentions for ourselves no matter what stage but, like, you really have a plan to get-- move forward and away from the drama, But somehow you just keep-- it's like the gates won't open.
You're like, "I swear I made the decision, but here I am still back here." You know? So the first sign... Hopefully, all that made sense. You guys, this is the second time I'm recording this. I just said-- I h-held up the number three, but what I said two. The second time I'm recording this because I-- yesterday, I guess I had my sound off.
Like, I'm actually-- the-- my-- whole sidebar right now on my right side of my screen is the sound so that I make sure that it's on this time, because the recording came out fine, but there was zero sound. I thought it was my AirPods. I thought... Anyway, so we're doing it over again today. So,
Sign 1: The Two-Week Trigger Hangover Explained
Sign one is what I'm calling the invisible gravity of the two-week, quote-unquote, trigger hangover. Okay? The mechanism here for this is neurobiological hijacking and also then emotional dysregulation. Alienation itself or estrangement, whatever's going on for you, acts like a physical tractor beam. Every time I say tractor beam, I think of Dumb and Dumber. Tractor beam sucked me right in, which is actually exactly what happens, unfortunately.
Not so funny in our situations of alienation, right? When a trigger ha- quote unquote, "trigger happens," when you're activated, your nervous system gets basically commandeered
And it experiences an instantaneous threat response
Your brain floods your body with the corti- uh, cortisol and adrenaline that I was just referring to in that cascade of chemicals, right? Locking you into a loop of intrusive, repetitive thoughts. Raise your hand if this happens with you on the reg, right? Or if it did.
When you're ruminating about the past, you're catastrophizing about the future. It's like the oh shit place where you're trying to solve for back then, um, mitigate what happens in the future, and it's all of this extra planning, and it's fucking exhausting. And it, it... I know that you know what I'm talking about here.
So the core experience here is that y- of course, you don't want to be in crisis. Like, no part of you wants to be in crisis. But what will happen is you'll receive one loaded email or a text from your ex or from maybe your kiddo Your boss, a friend, whatever. You'll receive that email on like maybe a Monday night, right? And it will completely derail the next two weeks or even just two days of your life. I put two weeks here because sometimes you're stuck in it for a while, it's keeping you in activation.
Some-- It can be much less than that. But if you notice that it's taking time, I, I really suggest that you do an audit for yourself. And next time that you do notice yourself doing what I'm talking about, where you're just like reeling, looping on whatever incident that happened, with love for yourself, I should probably say this at the end, but it's coming out now, so I'm just gonna leave it.
Just right now, you could do like a, an experiment with yourself and lovingly observe yourself doing it, okay? This will already provide you some relief because you are now in an active role of watching yourself. But see how long that you spend in those rumination, catastrophizing, states, About whatever incident circumstance that happened.
Because I know that when I talk with my clients or even, during my clarity calls, when I talk with parents about how much time we'll do it, h-how many hours of the day, h- add that up into the week and then put it into the month and so on to see how much time that it's sucking from the parent's life and from, now I'm talking to you, from your life.
It can be really helpful not to shame yourself, but to become aware, Because of course, awareness is the first step. anyway,
your experience will be that you spend your, your days pretty much tired and wired, You're physically exhausted except for you're mentally looping, right?
Like, high energy anxiety going on on the inside in your brain. and then you're checking your phone every nine minutes maybe you're losing sleep
Of course, struggling to stay present at work or in your other activities during the day, it sucks you in, and, feels so necessary at the time that you're doing it.
I used to-- I was so sick of hearing the loop that was the chatter that was going on in my head. I mean, I did this for years. I didn't-- Before I even noticed what I was doing, it was going on probably for my whole life. But really in that last, um, like I would say from 2014, somewhere around there, to 2017, '18, '19.
That's-- I, I didn't know actually what I was doing, and then after that, I knew, I was aware, and it was awful, and I just wanted it to stop. I just wanted my brain to shut off. Like, I used to think that if I could just somehow, not gross-like, I wasn't trying to, uh, do anything bad to myself, but if I could just twist my head off and set it on the table, I would feel so much better, you know?
Because it wouldn't stop. It was so loud in there, So anyway, if this is happening with you, I know, and I'm sure you probably know, that your intentions are that you're not doing this to avoid healing. You're doing this because the gravity of the trauma feels so heavy and so urgent that by habit, like your system's habit, like your body's habit, you allow it to pull you under, Because, y'all, you're believing the lie that the situation is handing you
so the first thing that came to my mind right before I hit record, to give you an example of what I'm talking about here of the two-week hangover, is this conversation that I had with my client.
Now she's-- she was a previous client, now more a friend. I kind of, I would say maybe mentor her now and then. Um, but she's an alienated mom. She's been alienated for as long as I've known her, which is at least six, seven, seven years, I think, and she was alienated a year before that, It's been a while. And he's been out of the house that entire time. He is now 20 we're gonna call her, by the way, let's call her Kim. We're gonna call her ex Mark and her son Hunter, okay? three years ago was the last time up until very recently that she saw Hunter, and at that time it was a very Traumatic, chaotic experience because she went over to hand him, give him a card and, uh, maybe a little present or something.
I think it was for his birthday. and he blew up at her and told her to never come back to the house. It was really hard on her. And since she hadn't seen him... Actually, no, she would see sightings of him because they still live in the same town, five minutes away from each other, but she didn't often see him.
Anyway, she's been alienated, hadn't spoken to him in three years, and then recently her mom got sick. Now she's already, I think maybe she was 92. She got really sick. She'd already-- She was already in a facility. Um, but Hunter came. She was able to, to get Hunter to come and see his grandma at the facility before she passed.
Okay? So maybe that was, like, two months ago. And then Mom felt really ill and passed away, okay? And that was maybe three weeks ago. it was kind of unexpected, kinda not. You kinda know how that goes. But she did not think, she thought it was gonna be a long shot that she was gonna be able to get Hunter to come to the church and then come to the celebration of life.
This happened last week, the celebration of life, okay? Lo and behold, Hunter showed up, But he also showed up with his dad, Ki- my client's ex, and he wasn't invited. But whatever. She said, "It's okay, so long as my son is here, we're just gonna let it go." They went to a brunch afterwards, and at brunch, Mark, the ex, sat right next to another uninvited guest.
And Kim, the entire time, was pretty distracted. In fact, it was, causing her a lot of anxiety because Mark and this other invite- uninvited guest were talking, and Kim, the entire time, was so worried because Mark is the gatekeeper for her son.
Even though her son is now 20, son still lives with Dad, and son also, from what I understand, of course, is still pretty much brainwashed, and obeys whatever Mark says, she was worried that this lady was gonna say something to Mark which would cause him to get angry with her, with Kim, and then cut off all the progress, she had to stand up and do a speech. She was in fact, shaking, her hands were shaking, and she couldn't really get her words out. She did eventually. It got done. It's no biggie. Of course, she's in immense amount of grief right now.
Her mom and her were super close. So it all makes sense, but really what was going on underneath the hood is that she was distracted by Mark being there and Mark being angry and pulling away, pulling the rug out from underneath her, right? And so after the whole event happened,
in order to mitigate, like to take away some of the anxiety, she sent a text to Mark, putting her feelers out to see if he was upset. So she apologized, "Hey, I'm sorry about whatever her name is. She can be a lot. I hope you're up- not upset," or something. And now, for most people, they think, and probably for me too back in the day, I would think, "Oh yeah, that's a good thing to do," that you're just, you're doing damage control early on, just making sure everything's copacetic because you wanna stay on good terms and whatever, whatever, right?
But n- I, I have a completely different view in today's world, , than I did back in the day, and of course, and then maybe that you guys have, and here it is. So Kim, the dynamic before, and probably for a lot of you guys, is that, the gatekeeper, the alienating parent, whoever is keeping your kid away from you, , the dynamic was such that they were in, up on the pedestal, right?
At least for Kim, And she, it wasn't so blatant, but basically looked to him to give her the answers for everything. Looked to him to get permission, if you will. It wasn't that outright, you know what I'm saying? But that is what the dynamic was. Mark has the last say. He's the one that makes all the calls.
And so when she
Place this text, and then not only did she, you know, try to, like, see if he was upset, she also then apologized for somebody else's behavior that she wasn't responsible for and wasn't even invited to the wed- or to the celebration of life. It wasn't even her... It was out of her control, you know, in all the ways.
Yet she went to apologize for her because she was trying to smooth things over and make sure that he wasn't going to gatekeep again, actively gatekeep, and ruin the progress that she made with these two points of contact she had with her son. Do you get me? So by doing that, she ended up stepping right back into the role that she'd been playing for her entire relationship with Mark.
They've been split up. She wants nothing really to do with him. She's-- That-- The novelty of Mark has worn off a long time ago, right? But without even realizing it, she was thinking a lot, but she d- wasn't doing it with her higher thinking. her body, her nervous system was in activation, and it said to her, "We need to get some relief."
And so the only way that we think that we can get relief, you know, is the, is to follow the pattern that used to work before. But used to work never actually worked. Do you get me? And so what she just did by... It's okay that she did it. It's not a problem. We had this conversation, and then we worked through it and did some other...
We talked about other stuff in order to help her let go of this habit. But anyway, not for now. But by placing that text, taking responsibility for somebody else, and also then putting Mark up on that pedestal again, g- giving her power away to him, it, she was doing it for the right reasons, right? But
she actually just put herself back in and reinforced the alienation dynamic. Do you see what I'm saying? So she opted in without even really being a-aware of it to chaos, to the crisis loop. And if she was to continue that and con-- like damage control and making sure he's getting permission from him and doing all that stuff, she would find herself right back in the same position as she did back when.
again the second that she did actually piss him off, and it keeps her on her toes all the time in this fawn mode.
If it's been happening, maybe you can identify with this and notice it in your own life. It doesn't always need to be these big blowup chaos crisis sort of things. It can happen internally, and that's really what I wanna... It's more nuanced than the, the outward crisis, right? But it also can create, in the long term, the outward crisis too.
And so if Kim and I did not speak about this yesterday, then the two-week hangover would turn into a four-week, six-week, who knows how long. And the same thing can happen with you, where you're just con- She, she could've been constantly looping on whether he was mad, whether he wasn't, how can she make things right, how can she make sh-sure that Hunter still sees her in the light that he saw...
You know, all of that. And so yeah, there's that. , I know it's happened for all of us at some point, right?
But I wanna tell you, here's the truth of all of this. Yes, the crisis is heavy, okay? The situation you're going through, likely, I'm going to assume, again, if you're listening to these episodes, that it's very heavy, and allowing it to hijack two days, two hours, two weeks
Of your life is how we accidentally let the storm rob you of your forward motion. So first, the first step there is just to become aware that it's happening, if and when it does happen for you. That you, after something that you're just sitting there ruminating, trying to fix it, trying to solve for the unsolvable, um, even though your brain is gonna tell you it, it's necessary, and sure, we can solve it, we can figure it out, it's important.
It feels so urgent to try to solve that. But most of the time, if you're feeling that urgency, like, in your body, like, "Oh, I gotta get this done now," like when you're s- concocting the email response or the text. We've talked about this lots. If you're a longtime listener, you know. You're sitting there, you spend hours sometimes, hours writing and rewriting.
I mean, in today's world, we do have chat. We've got all the AI, so that's great, you know? And that does-- can save a lot of time, but it doesn't save... Chat can't come into your brain. You know? So you have to actively learn how to manage this. Like, you can notice when the cascade of chemicals starts to flood your body.
You can notice when the swirling happens in your belly. It's okay that it's happening, but when you think that swirling in your belly or whatever happens for you when you feel anxiety, when you think that swirling in your belly means that that's when you need to act, then that's when you can take a deep breath and allow it to be there.
And I'm gonna talk about this. I'm jumping way ahead into the end. So I'm gonna talk about this later. So yes, the crisis is heavy. It feels urgent, and also letting it hijack any amount of your life is how you will rob yourself of where you know you wanna get. Okay?
Sign 2: Why Reading About Healing Isn't the Same as Healing
So sign two is what I'm calling the self-care ghost phenomenon.
Okay? It's basically... The mechanism here it's an illusion of progress via information consumption. It's the psychological difference between, passive action, which is learning, reading, listening, consuming, like the lifetime student who gets one degree and then gets the other degree and then gets a certification and a, a license and then goes back to- for master's and another master's.
You know what I'm saying? It can happen on that scale, it can happen on a smaller scale. But it's just, I have a client that... And I used to do this. Oh my gosh, this is what I did. I-- in fact, I'm gonna talk about myself here in a second. I'll mention him for a hot second. He knows retains so much information, and he does.
He is like a sponge. He listens to and reads all, watches all of the videos, all of the things, if you bring up a subject, guaranteed he's gonna know a lot about that subject. A lot. And the same thing with me. I was like the jack of all trades. I knew, I knew everything. I-- if I'm being honest, I know I must have been super annoying back in the day, maybe still am.
But back in the day especially because I was a know-it-all. Like, I knew a lot of in-information. Like I was... I called myself a plethora of useless knowledge, you know? Some of it was actually useful, but it's just I just knew a bunch of stuff because I was, f-full of curiosity. Still am. But that was it. But because I consumed so much information, it
I have a funny memory that I'm gonna share with you in a second, and it may or may not be funny to you. But it made me feel like I actually tried whatever I was reading about. It did. It made me feel like I had experience in, , usually self-help is what I'm talking about today.
Self-help, not the best word. You know what I'm saying. Um, self-care,
Personal growth,
But I, what I was just laughing about was, um, my... I had a friend, I have a friend that back in the day, I've known her for, I don't know, 20-some years, and back in the day, we used to laugh because she she has this Southern accent. She's from Lexington, Lexington, Kentucky, and she would watch the Travel Channel.
This was before we had really... We had the internet, but nobody really used it. We had, you know, flip phones and whatever, and she would watch the Travel Channel. Like, she, she didn't go anywhere. We lived in Marco Island and Florida here. She didn't go anywhere on vacation, but she would talk to people, like, she would sit at home and watch Travel Channel while she was ironing her sheets and stuff, and she would go out to, to bars and stuff and talk about these exotic locations, destinations as if she'd been there, and she really presented, she lied.
She would tell everybody, " Oh yeah, I've been there. I've been to Borneo. I've been to whatever, whatever." And she the, and she truly believed that she went to those places because she was so into those Travel Channel shows. Like, she put herself in those spaces which, by the way, now that I'm saying it the way I'm saying it, isn't actually a bad thing.
That's actually how you brainwash yourself into a new life, right? Is by imagining whatever it is that you, uh, really truly with detail imagining whatever it is that you want for yourself, right? Okay, off, completely off topic. But she also did this, and I'm sure many of you have some version of this for yourself where you have read about something so much or watched something so much that you believe that you've been there and that you know it and that it's, like, ingrained in you, and this can be, work for you, and it can also work against you.
Um, but we're gonna talk about that in a minute because I've interrupted myself and taken us down a detour, um, before I even got to the psychological dis- distinction between passive action and massive action. So I'm gonna remind myself to go back to how it's unhelpful in a second. So passive action is the consumption, right? Massive action, on the other hand, is shifting your old behaviors, right? Usually growing by applying, by foraging, by integrating, reclaiming, stretching, expanding, even incubating which by- seems like very passive, right?
You're just sitting with it, marinating. But an incubation period, there's so much growth happening. Think of a chicken in an egg, right? There's so much growth and development happening, but it's mostly happening on the inside for the most part. You know, the brain is being developed, , all the, organs and stuff like that.
The same thing for us during the growth journey, right? Especially coming from trauma. So you can be doing a lot of the work that we must do to grow through what we've gone through. That sounded redundant, but you know what I mean. Is going to be very quiet work, silent, almost unnoticeable work, because it's about managing your thoughts and managing your mind, which is very active, And then there are steps that you need to take after, you know, after you've rearranged, the thought patterns, So that you're, integrating the new patterns, the new patterns into your life so that they become, they have staying power. They're now neural pathways that you've created.
The actions really hammer all the, incubation period in, passive action will initially trigger a hit of dopamine, okay? Because learning itself feels like work
It feels like work. Like I'm, I need to study, I need to listen to this, I need to listen to Shelby's podcast, or I need to watch this YouTube video, or read all about alienation, or all about how to reconnect with my kid, There's nothing wrong with that stuff. but because it feels like so much work and you're getting that hit of dopamine by doing the thing...
Oh, I've read that book. Oh, that's what I was gonna tell you about my one client who's, he knows all the inform- I've really interrupted myself a million times. He knows all the information about all the things, but up until recently, he was not actually applying that stuff, And so
By, this is where it can work against you. By only reading or only consuming the information, we can sometimes, all of my points that I left open are actually gonna end here at this place anyway. we can sometimes, not even sometimes, often talk ourselves out of doing the actual steps because we know all about them, and we feel like because we know all about them, we know every angle, which...
Take alienation, for instance. We know because we've listened to other parents, or we've read the studies or read what works and what doesn't work by the professionals. We take their word for it and integrate it into our own memories and think, "Okay, well, if it didn't work for them," the-- it's not even put like this, that it's not gonna work for me, or I've already put all the, the conglomeration of all the information that I have consumed, and I'm gonna make up my mind that this is not gonna work for me, right?
And so-- or you'll say, "I've tried it all," even though you haven't, you just read about it, just watched videos about it, right? You'll say to yourself that you've tried it, and it doesn't work too. So it'll close you into a corner of no more steps to take before you've actually even taken a step, before you've even
applied, integrated the actual steps that are being outlined. So, what this does by taking in all the information, it... feels like work, but it actually, i-in your subconscious, it's keeping you safe from the risks of real-world implementation. that's the difference between passive and massive.
In passive action, you stay safe. You get to, no disrespect, but hide... I did this. I, uh, I told you, I did it a bunch. Hide behind a book or hide behind a screen and just read about it, which feels great because now you have, you're equipped. Information is knowledge, But without the steps, it's... You guys know, it's like the difference between knowledge and wisdom,
the steps matter. The massive action is where it's at, and it's so difficult for us coming from what we have because coming from trauma and of sometimes very acute grief, depending on where you are in your situation, um, you, your body is... You're gonna have to really p-push yourself 'cause your body is screaming, "Stay safe Stay unnoticed. Don't make any big moves. We just need to stay here, and we'll just learn about stuff." And at least that feels better than, worrying about whatever's going on, right? Like in sign one, This is a step forward from ruminating and also can keep you stuck for so long.
Years is how long this part kept me stuck. Years. I mean, I consumed, I made it my job to consume. I, I, I was a sponge. I would- wanted to read and watch and listen to everything about alienation and about the communication. First it was like the danger of the narcissist, and then it was the turning point-ish was co-parenting with the toxic ex.
All that stuff is fine. I'm actually gonna mention that here in a second. And then it moved on to where I am today. All of it was important, but it, it kept me safe because I just only did this. Okay, now I'll, I'll feed it in. Um, so your core experience with this is that you're downloading the worksheets probably, you know, if there are any.
You're buying the Co-Parenting with the Toxic Ex books, right? You're listening to the podcast, my podcast, other podcasts. You're consuming all the right information, but the files, if they're files, sit untouched in your hard drive or the work itself is actually left undone, And if this is you and you haven't taken s- actually really truly taken all the steps and followed the protocol of actual action steps, I want you to know that it's not because you have a lack of commitment. It's a safety strategy. Most likely a subconscious safety strategy. Mm, it's maybe like partially 'cause you can tell yourself, "No, that's too scary. I shouldn't do that because I could-- I don't want to, rock the boat." Right? "I don't wanna poke the bear."
And so you'll just stay, you stay in freeze, So passive action lets your brain feel productive, feel completely productive while completely protecting you from the terrifying high-risk, I'm using air quotes here, work of actually im-implementing the tool, okay? When I say high-risk, it just feels that way.
I'm not saying it always is. Um, implementing a tool and then also facing what will happen is what we're all worried about, is facing this potential rejection or failure, It's not that you're lazy, it's that you are possibly a terrified parent on the inside who has mistaken the act of learning for the act of changing.
It's what I did. It's what a lot of people do, the core truth I wanna say here is, or share here, is that yes, information gives you knowledge, but only application buys you freedom, only the application. So lovingly, I wanna say to you that maybe let go of collecting the tools like trophies and begin using them like shovels or hammer drills or
Table saws, whatever. Use them as tools and not just collect. "Oh, I've read that book. Oh, I've watched that video. Oh, I know about that." That's how I used to be, and it kept me stuck for so, so long, And it will keep you in the loop of here, it will cause chaos and crisis for you because you haven't yet, laid the pathways, inside and out for you to actually create the new life.
You're just thinking about creating it. You know all the ways to get there, but you haven't done it. And it makes sense that you don't. So I have different, It's already getting long, so I'm not gonna do them. But I have these, like, different, nuances around that, like the information collector versus the practitioner, treating healing like a research project instead of a practice, And then I have here mistaking the desire for relief for the willingness to work, You might be hooked on the idea of being healed, but terrified, terrified of the process, the requirements it, it will take for you to get there. But really, let me just tell you right now that the worst that you think about facing whatever it is that's in your past or whatever it is that's ahead of you, it's a- it's all in your mind.
N- 90% of it's in your mind. The work, I wanna say if you're doing it right, but I know that that's against how I normally say it. But truly, I feel like if the work is so heavy and so terrifying when you're in it, then you're doing it wrong. And I don't mean that, in a divisive way. I just mean you can have fun.
Not every day is gonna be fun, but you can have so much fun and really discover, reinvent yourself while doing this work. That's why I love it so much. Like, it lights me up to show people that, you know, in my sessions with them, because it doesn't have to be so serious. Yeah, there are some things that you want s- some seriousness around, for sure, a lot, right?
But also, we can bring the fun into it and make it a l- lighten you up around it, So that you're not carrying th- this heavy burden.
Breaking the Belief That Your Alienation Case Is Too Severe to Heal
So, the last sign. is what I'm calling the safety shield of the uniquely unfixable story.
You know, you guys, we've talked about this before, but this will keep you stuck. Ugh, so stuck. And I have talked to so many parents that some of them will outwardly, this is their outward story, right? That my situation is so severe that it will never be fixed. And they're so hell-bent on keeping that story because it feels right, it feels true. Also
It absolves them from having to do any more work on it so that they can, and I'm saying this with love when I say this, dismiss the idea of resolution because of its severity, then they let themselves off the hook or down ahead of time whenever they proclaim that as part of their identity or part of their situation, their forever situation.
they don't have to grapple with any future disappointment, letdown, rejection, quote unquote, "failure," if they already deem it impossible to solve. And I know that many parents that are listening right now will also identify with that. And it doesn't have to be so severe, but it may be somewhere in your mind, like this idea like, "Okay, well, it's just unfixable.
It's not my fault then." And it's never your fault, by the way. But that's just how it happens in our systems. It's like, well, it's gotta be somebody's fault. It's the blame thing that goes on. It's like, well, if I can assign-- And this hap- this is a human thing. If I can assign who's responsible for this, then I can just move on with my life and go do other things.
I can let go. I can get closure, But what if it's-- I mean, I know we all wanna say that the alienated parent wasn't doing what they're doing, then none of this would be a problem, and so they are to blame. But that's also gonna get you in a big pickle, too. So it's just best to say it's a situation, and I am, I can handle it daily without labeling it, Okay. Again, I've jumped ahead of myself. So the safety shield of the uniquely unfixable story. The mechanism here is cognitive exceptionalism used as a defense against disappointment, like I said. Okay? So your mind takes the genuine extremity of the alienator's behavior, or anybody's behavior really, and transforms it into a logical baseline.
It seems logical. Seems right, right? By convincing yourself that normal healing tools cannot possibly
apply to your unique nightmare of a situation, your ego effectively immunizes itself against the vulnerability of trying and failing. the core experience here is when you find yourself Saying or thinking, " But you just don't understand how sick and twisted my ex is." And you may just say this on the inside to yourself, " Nobody will understand how sick and twisted my ex is, how, painfully unique and tragic that my situation is."
Or maybe you say too, like, "My child is too brainwashed for anything to work." Like, the-- it's so severe. I know, and I want you to know that I know, that you're not lying, right? It may be very true. I have a current client that I'm thinking about it is a rather, definitely traumatic, rather...
Oh gosh, I don't wanna use the word because it-- you can use this word against you, but rather severe case, okay? You're-- it-- this could be happening with you too. Your situation may be that extreme. But what happens is that your brain will take that reality and build this story around it.
Because my case is uniquely terrible or severe, I am undoubtedly the exception to the rule. And so, of course, why does your mind do this? It's because if your situation is fundamentally unfixable, you are completely safe from the heartbreak of picking up any tool, right? Trying your best and then watching it fail.
So you're so worried about the disappointment that you might feel up there if it doesn't work, that you just decide to talk yourself out of it now. And this is-- can be a real problem when it comes to this same client that I was briefly just mentioned a second ago, who has a pretty severe case. He will talk himself out of, a strategy or a
Like a conversation technique, right? He'll talk himself out of that before he even gets... Or he'll tell himself like, " Oh, they're not gonna do this. This isn't gonna work. This won't work for them because it's too severe." And he will s- say exactly what he thinks is going, how the girls are gonna react.
Now he's trying stuff. But, in the past, he was already convinced based on history that his c- children were gonna act in a certain way, and that was against him.
And so he was like, "Why even bother trying? It d- it's not gonna work anyway." Well, that not why even bother trying is going to affect, of course, h- his whole energy when he shows up if he does even try the technique. Probably if he's already thinking that he's defeated and that it's not gonna work, he probably won't try it.
Or if he does, it's like on a half 50%, scale. it's confirmation bias. You end up talking yourself out of doing the thing or your energy just carries it. Listen, think about like any time that you've ever walked into a room, and, and you've probably done this with your children too, I am sure, if you're alienated, but I'm gonna take it away from alienation.
If you've ever walked into a room and before you walked into that room or as you're walking in, you're thinking... And I know we do this, many of you are doing this today because of the disenfranchised grief that you're feeling, like, "They're not gonna like me. They're gonna judge me," is what you say.
"They're judging me. They probably think I'm crazy. They probably think I'm a terrible parent," yada, yada, yada. I just said I was gonna take it f- away from alienation, and then I didn't. It's okay. If you have that idea going on in your mind before you walk into the room thinking that everybody's gonna hate me or they're, they're gonna be judging me or I'm wearing the wrong clothes, I don't look presentable," then that is going to obviously reflect on how you show up when you are actually in that room. Either you stand in the corner, you have your head down, or you're defensive, or you're, you are stone-faced, right? Like, you are gray rocking everybody because on the inside, you're already trying to avoid the rejection that you are convinced that's gonna happen.
Well, what that does, because of your mannerisms, because of your energy, you end up rejecting yourself and then rejecting them, which feels like they're rejecting you. So it's just this big, you're-- it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. So being the special snowflake or the exception to the rule or whatever you wanna call it, th- like the most severe case, is going to keep you backed into a corner and cause you to feel... like cause your life to feel chaotic, you to feel lonely and stuck because you don't have community or you don't have resources. The resources that you have aren't good enough because nothing is working for you.
You know what I'm saying? So we've all done this. if this is happening with you, your mind and your body are working beautifully. They're actually responding in the way that either you or the crisis, the trauma in your past has taught it to. So it's not your fault. There's nothing wrong with you.
But if you want to stop feeling stuck and stop feeling like the, like your life is still in crisis even though you've been aching, clawing, trying to claw your way out, then it might be helpful to look at these three signs, okay? This one though,
The core truth I wanna bring home to you for sign three is that your ex's behavior, your children's behavior may be exceptionally, I'm gonna use the word here, but it's not my favorite, toxic or
Terrible, just awful behavior, Disrespectful, Dysfunctional, hurtful, added, whatever you want that applies here in. It may be that. I am not gonna doubt you. But, and, but that does not make you exceptionally unhealable. That's them. That's the situation. The situation is not you.
So don't back yourself into a corner and make the exceptional situation your identity, Say something about you. It-- the situation doesn't have the power over you and your ability to heal, your ability to grow, however you wanna say it. I mean,
Don't Stay In the "Recovery" Phase for Life
you don't have to, by the way, this is another thing that I'm just thinking about right now, is that you don't have to remain in, like, healing for the rest of your life.
You may be grieving for a long time. You know what I'm saying? For years and years to come, because maybe even if you got back with your kids and things were fine, maybe you're grieving with the time that you lost. So yeah, sure, but that doesn't mean that you always have to be in the healing phase, in recovery, right?
You can... And actually, I would advise you not to stay in the recovery, healing place. Instead, you wanna start to step out and see yourself. This will help with your stuckness and also this whole crisis loop, to start seeing yourself when you're ready. There is a time for the healing, right? When it's acute and when, you're still processing the trauma, but at some point, and you will know when, you can move beyond healing and into, implementation, integration. And then you don't see yourself, too, as this special snowflake who has to be in the healing phase forever.
That's gonna cause you to feel stuck too, okay?
Breaking the Crisis Loop: Your First Massive Action Step
In a nutshell, basically what that is, is just, just because the storm is extreme, extreme, I get it, doesn't mean though that you never leave the dock.
To build a life of your own. As exceptionally terrible as your situation is, as the pendulum swings, you can now, because of how exceptionally terrible it is, now... You have the potential to experience that level of exceptionally brilliant, expansive, amazing, fulfilling, meaningful, purposeful, joyful, full of love, and all the things that you want. the only way is up. Okay? So if you recognize yourself in the invisible gravity of the work and the closing right now, and I just wanna give you some, some words, but also I have one step for you to take.
So if you recognize yourself in the invisible gravity of the hangover, or of the safety of passive action or the shield of being unfixable, I am not calling you out to judge you. Instead, I am calling you forward Because I know exactly, exactly how exhausting it is to run in place
Your mind built these mechanisms, to protect you from a level of heartbreak that 99% of the population never has to endure. Okay? But running in place is still running in place And it's exhausting So instead, we have to realize the core difference between where you are and where you wanna be okay? Passive action keeps you safe, but massive action buys you freedom
Passive action is reading the book. Massive action is closing the book, looking in the mirror, and doing the hard internal audit and, corresponding steps The scary ones. Once you start to take one step and then the other, you'll realize how not scary they really are and how not dangerous.
I mean, come and have a clarity call with me if you're not sure about your steps, and I can help you with that. First one's on me. but it, it gets less scary and less scary the more that you step yourself out. Okay? Passive action is listening to me talk about managing your mind or creating new habits, right?
Massive action is actually noticing when the hab- noticing when the habits come up and actively putting yourself out there, even when your hands are shaking, like my client who was reading the, her speech about her mom. You know? Um, you do not need to fix your entire life by tomorrow morning. And I know that you know that, but sometimes we think that.
It feels so urgent. That's an illusion that keeps m- so many parents trapped in the crisis loop. You just need to take one small bite of a massive action today. So here's how you start. This is a simple one.
Excuse me, I've got something. My throat is dry. The next time a trigger lands, trigger, lands in your inbox or on your phone, I want you to intentionally disrupt the mechanism of the two-week hangover. Okay? You're gonna do practice a tactical delay. When hostile email or the text arrives, do not reply instantly.
Don't spend the - next four hours drafting a response or venting to eight different people, whoever calls or whoever looks at you. You know? Instead, look at the message. You can read it even, acknowledge the spike in your nervous system that's, that's swirling in your belly or whatever's your heart rate, tightness, whatever's going on for you, just acknowledge it and then say, " I see the storm, and I'm choosing my own peace, for the next 24 hours. Okay? Then you can put the phone down, close the laptop or wherever your, the situation is arising for you, even if it's in front of you, you can still... You do not have to react or respond in that moment. You can take your 24. Walk away. Don't stick your head in the sand.
That's not what I'm saying. Don't reel on it either. Just choose differently. By enforcing that 24-hour boundary between the chaos and your response, you are taking the very first piece of massive action. you're proving to your brain, this is very important if you've been in the reaction loop, right?
Proving to your brain that the alienating parent or your child or whoever is out there can throw a punch
But they no longer have the power to dictate your daily stability. That high conflict storm, your situation may be loud on the other side
But your healing lives in the quiet
Yet massive choices that you make right here
So thank you for tuning in to episode 204. And,
Keep your head up, stay anchored like the lighthouse parent, and I will see you next week for the finale of the series, which will be on the blurry line, the choices, like the active choices that you make, 'cause sometimes those can get, confusing and cause you to also stay stuck in, indecision, right?
So we're gonna talk about specifics of that making the line more visible for you, So I'll see you next week.