truly conscious parenting, what it means to do your work and the question he never gets asked, with Dr. Brad Reedy
Host: Brenda Zane, brenda@brendazane.com
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Guest: Dr. Brad Reedy
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episode resources:
The Journey of The Heroic Parent
Finding You - Evoke podcast
episode transcript
SPEAKERS
Dr. Brad Reedy, Brenda Zane
Brenda 01:33
Oh, boy, I know many of you are so excited to see Dr. Brad Reedy as my guest today. And I was so excited when he agreed to chat with me for this. So if you don't know him already, Dr. Brad Reedy is the founder of the Evoke Wilderness Therapy programs, he hosts the incredibly popular and incredibly helpful podcast called finding you. And He is the author of two books that I can't say enough about; Journey Of The Heroic Parent and The Audacity To Be You. I will put links to both of those and his podcast in the show notes. So you don't have to worry about writing those down right now. Brad has worked with families, adolescents and young adults for a couple of decades. He has four kids of his own, and is truly one of the most trusted voices in the space of mental health and substance use in teens and young adults.
Brenda 02:29
So it was such an honor to get to sit down and talk with him. Also, I have to say a little intimidating. If you are a listener of his podcast, you know that he does these episodes where he just answers questions that people send in. So in preparing for this, I was like, What am I going to ask him that hasn't already been asked. It took some time for me to wrap my head around that. But in the end, it was an amazing and enlightening conversation. And while Brad founded a wilderness therapy program, and he does a lot of work with families in that space. This isn't actually an episode about wilderness therapy, we really instead touched on topics that will be relevant to anyone listening, things that will help you better understand your parenting dynamics with your kids. And we talk about things like healthy detachment, what in the world that actually means and how we can practice it. We covered why it's important to focus on our own healing, how our kids aren't the quote-unquote patient if they do end up in treatment. And we talk about the ever-present danger of fentanyl, and all the difficult things like that. He even shares the question that he never gets asked by parents and why that surprises him. And he talks about a lightbulb moment of his own that I think you'll get a lot out of it actually turned into a lightbulb moment for me. So this is one of the favorite conversations I've had so far in Hopestream. It was so fun and so smart. Just learning from Dr. Reedy and all of his experience and the wisdom that has brought him so I won't get in the way any further. And let you listen in now to my conversation with Dr. Brad Reedy.
Brenda 04:25
Welcome Dr. Brad Reedy to Hopestream this is such a special treat to get to talk to you. I know my listeners are going to be so excited to have you. So thank you for making the time this morning.
Dr. Brad Reedy 04:35
I'm honored to be here. Thanks for having me.
Brenda 04:37
Yes, I'm so excited because I have not listened to all 400 and some odd episodes that you have which is just amazing. But I've listened to enough to be both intrigued but slightly more educated. And I know that the moms and the parents that I work with feel the same it's like oh my gosh, like this is such a different way of thinking about stuff. So having you here to chat is really really special, a little intimidating. I'm not gonna lie, cuz it's like, what do we talk about with somebody who answers 1000s of questions. But for anybody who doesn't know you, which I can't imagine, why don't you just give us a quick? Like, Brad 101? Why in the world did you get into this business of working with young people in psychology and in doing what you're doing today?
Dr. Brad Reedy 05:27
Yeah, you know, I don't say this part of my backstory very often. But I was one of the children that the parents that we work with struggle with, I struggled with drugs, I dropped out of high school, I was angry and oppositional as a teenager, somebody told me when I was 20 years old, that someday I'd make a good therapist, which made me really angry at them, we got an argument over that. But when I started college, I started late, because I had to make up some things from high school. When I started college, my first class was child psychology. And I realized that this is what I was meant to do for my entire life.
Dr. Brad Reedy 06:05
So from there, to a professor encouraging me to work as an intern in a wilderness therapy program. And now I get to live one foot in the struggling child's world. And I'm a parent of four, and one foot in the parent who's struggling through this process. So I get to kind of be the bridge and to give each other a voice, and a way of connecting to each other. So it's really having grown up in it. And now, full circle wanting to give back the lessons I've learned both as a struggling teen, but also as a as a human parent that, as you know, every parenting, you know, parenting is difficult, even under ideal circumstances. And then when you have a child who struggles with mental health or addiction, it's difficult on a whole different level. So I get to give back, I get to participate, I get to learn really, from the clients that I work with all the time. So that's kind of the backstory that I don't tell often.
Brenda 07:01
That's so interesting. What was it when you got into the child psychology courses that clicked with you? Was it like, oh, maybe this would have helped me or I'm just curious, like what a spark was,
Dr. Brad Reedy 07:14
I knew what the book was going to say. Before they said it, because I had lived in been exposed to it. In fact, in a very similar way, my second child, my daughter, came to work with me one time as an intern. And when we were discussing cases and conversations in sessions during the break, we both came to the same kind of conclusion that people would come to with me or I'd come to myself in school, which is, she said, I already know this stuff, as I've heard it. It's been in the water in the air, that I've been living in my whole life. So it was just that I knew that. I mean, since I was a little kid, I wondered, always, some of my youngest memories were, why did that person do that? Huh? Why did you know a peer or a teacher or a parent, Or, you know, why did they do what they did? So I was always interested in human psychology and human behavior. And so it was just that it was something I already knew before it was taught to me formally. And I think it just it opened up for me the entire world. I knew a few weeks into my very first course that my very first year in undergraduate, I knew I wanted to do this for the rest of my life.
Brenda 08:22
That's so incredible. I love hearing stories like that, because it just shows that there is such a connection sometimes when, you know, a calling or a profession that really, truly changes lives for people. And I think that's so incredible. What made you start doing this as a podcast, because you wrote, you have your books, which are kind of cornerstones at least in the area of your parenting, a difficult child. And then what made you start, like I had to do this is a podcast.
Dr. Brad Reedy 08:55
If I could have I probably wouldn't have written the book and just done a podcast on because I, my preferred way of communicating is orally, you know, it's a lot easier. It's frankly, it takes a lot less effort to just talk and ramble than it does to write coherently. But then I was doing 14 years ago, just over 14 years ago, I started doing webinars before webinars were as popular as they are today. Obviously, I had such a great experience doing weekly parent phone calls. We thought as a company, let's do those for everybody. You know, Brad, you could do those once or twice a week for everybody.
Dr. Brad Reedy 09:28
So a parent, connected us with the technology and I started doing webinars 14 years ago, I've done about 1400 to date. And then for years, people were saying I wish I could listen to this on the go in the car. And again, I didn't have access to the technology. So 2016 Finally, I talked to somebody I said can you help me figure out how to take that that that same energy and message from my webinars and put into a podcast they said it's easy as can be. So I just started changing the webinars into a podcast and Now, you know, the webinars get a few 100 viewers a week and the podcast get five to 8000 listeners per day. So I realized people really love doing it. And so the emphasis now is the podcast. But it really started off as a webinar broadcast to our, to our current parents once or twice a week.
Brenda 10:17
Right? That's incredible. I think it's such a private and intimate type of modality for learning, right? And also, what I find is a lot of the parents, a lot of people that listen, say, I can do it privately, because they don't want people to know that they're listening necessarily, right. So I think it's just so powerful. And you can go back over and over and over. If it's not sticking in, I have to imagine that over the course of the years, you've been asked about a billion questions. Is there one that you're surprised that more parents don't ask you?
Dr. Brad Reedy 10:52
You know, I think it's that not the parents that I typically speak to. But really what surprises me is that young parents, colleagues that have children, you know, newborn children, I always kind of tease or joke about the fact that no new parent asks me any questions even when they find out what I do, even if they'd like my work for, for adolescents. And so I think what I'm surprised by is that or what I wish would happen is that because I think when we're new parents were pretty idealistic. You know, for me, it was like, I'm going to be better than my parents, and I'm going to be thoughtful, and I'm going to love my child, and I'm going to be present. And you know that that simple love and energy is going to be enough.
Dr. Brad Reedy 11:37
And so the question I suppose, that I would be interested in answering from a new parent is, what would you say? And my answer, I assume that's kind of the next question would be, you can't get it right. Right, you can't get a perfect, you're going to make mistakes, you're going to dent your children. That's not an abdication of your responsibility as a parent, but it's just, it's just part of being human. And the work really is about embracing and becoming human human and modeling for your child, what it means to be a person learning to apologize, learning to pick yourself up. I think this is something this parenting thing that we do. It's the most important thing in our lives. And it's the one thing that we will fail at more than anything else. And I think, in a very strange way, that's the gift of it that it gives to us is that we learn and grow through that, that failure. That's what Freud said, he said, If you want to teach somebody, something, set them up in a situation where they're sure to fail. And I think parenting is probably the best example of that kind of dilemma in our lives that teaches us.
Brenda 12:39
Yes, I would 100% agree. And I think that is kind of fascinating. You would think that these young parents would say, Brad, how do I not end up with you? Why not end up with a kid in a wilderness program or listening to your podcast? I mean, I think everybody benefits you don't, you certainly don't need to have a child who's struggling to benefit from the podcasts and the book.
Dr. Brad Reedy 13:01
You know, it's interesting Brenda, I think it's fascinating. I don't do this anymore, because it's frustrating. But when I was younger, and I would fly, for example, on a plane, and somebody would say, start up a conversation and ask what you do. And I would make the mistake of telling them what I do, the conversation that would ensue, you would think would be questions or them sharing, you know, them kind of becoming a client. But the most common response I get when I tell people what I do, is I get parenting advice. I get taught by laypeople about how to raise children, and the problem with parents and children today, which I find to be a fascinating reaction to telling somebody, your parent educator, your therapist, for adolescents and families.
Brenda 13:41
That is fascinating. I cannot imagine that. Maybe it's because I've benefited so much from people who have more knowledge than I do around this. But yeah, that is really incredible. This is just sort of off the cuff. But if one of those young parents did say, How do I not end up having to work with you in 15 years? Is there kind of a short answer?
Dr. Brad Reedy 14:09
You know, I think the short answer is do your work, unravel, unpack your trauma, I practice and the research confirms that clearly cross culturally consistently, that the amount of work you do not how traumatic childhood was and if you struggled like I struggled, but do your work unravel look at your childhood and your family dynamics critically through a critical lens and understand how you were raised because the way you were raised was not normal because there's no such thing you know, there's no normal family there's no normal childhood and if you can unpack and unravel that the clarity with which the consciousness with which you can parent improves exponentially so you know, that's, it's why I have difficulty sometimes being short with my answers is because It's inviting people into a way of being in relationship with themselves. That is the change. So I would just say to that parent, go to therapy, do your work, discover your unique emotional history of your childhood, as Alice Miller says, and that will set you up most capably to parent consciously,
Brenda 15:18
And I think what's great, and what I've learned through listening to your work and reading is that, like, I don't consider myself to have a traumatic childhood, I kind of like hit the lottery in the parent department, and they were very enlightened and all that. So I think it's surprising for a lot of parents to learn that they do need to do the work, because we do anyway, dependent doesn't matter how amazing your parents were. So I think that's something that I've learned and what I tried to help further the message along is there is always work to do. And your kids will benefit from that.
Brenda 15:53
I wonder what if we could be a fly on the wall in a wilderness program? With kids sitting around the fire or on a on a hike? What kinds of questions are they asking that we might be surprised to learn? Or just curious about? Because I think, you know, my son went through something similar to what you described yourself, where there was kind of this huge breakdown in communication, we were not talking. And then he went to wilderness, and I just, I was so dying to be there and really hear like, what is he talking about with the staff and the therapist?
Dr. Brad Reedy 16:31
You know, I think the most compelling question that they have is, What are you telling my parents, you know, what are my parents learning? How are my parents growing? And I think that comes out of this idea that I often share, which is, you know, to parents stop making your child the project, I think we can all relate to the idea that nobody wants to be the project. Yes. You know, you don't want to be the project in somebody else's life. It's just exhausting. And it's such a burden. So the children in wilderness, the one question that they ask, that they really can't ask their parents or they're afraid to ask their parents is, what's their work? What are they working on? What are they learning? How are they growing? Are they taking in new information? Do they know that they don't know everything is kind of the question. And I think that's what they're curious about, because they don't want to be the project. And I think we can all relate to that.
Brenda 17:22
Oh, for sure. Because you would think that they realize that they're learning a lot when they're there. And you got to be wondering, but wait, when I get back, are my parents gonna know some of this stuff? You know, are we gonna have this big collision at the end of the road? So I could see that I could definitely see that, with kids asking that.
Brenda 17:44
Another thing that I end up talking a lot with parents about is this concept of detachment. And I think it can get a really dirty rap because it means one thing to some people and one thing to another person. And I think people get really confused because parents do get to a point where they're like, I feel like I need to detach. But I don't totally know what that means. And I've heard you talk about healthy detachment. So I wonder if you could just give us a couple of examples of what healthy detachment might look like. If you've got, let's say, a 15, 16, 17 year old who's, you know, still at home, doing whatever drugs, refusing school refusing therapy, just kind of like my kid? What does healthy detachment look like in that case? Because I think what you hear is, kick them out, kick them to the curb, let them hit rock bottom, don't have contact with them, let them figure it out, which to a parent is obviously torture. So I'd love some help in that area.
Dr. Brad Reedy 18:45
It is one of those phrases that has so many different perspective, perspectives and definitions. And when I was asked this question years ago, by a parent during a webinar, before it became a podcast, somebody said, you're always talking about detachment. What about connection? You know, when are you going to talk about the connection with parents and children? And luckily, it was toward the end of the broadcast. So I said, let's pick that up next week. That's the famous therapist. So I thought about it all week. And I went through kind of my logical, rational mind of kind of dissecting a question and an idea, and it came down to one simple thing. Healthy detachment is healthy attachment. And I think we did not learn what it meant to be healthy, to be attached in a healthy way.
Dr. Brad Reedy 19:29
And I'm gonna say this in a way I've never said it on a podcast, I don't think but I think most people associate attachment with kind of a passionate or an engaged or an energetic response to something and those are really trauma responses. So in essence, a healthy detachment is the ability to overcome or to not respond to the primitive brain the fight or flight, the trauma parts of our brain and to respond in a flexible conscious, reasonable, thoughtful, loving, and caring and connected way. And so really, I think we call it detachment Brenda because it feels like that when you've been enmeshed and engaged in this kind of pinball back and forth trauma response. But really what you're describing is, you really are describing what attachment theory is call healthy attachment. It's a reasonable response, a thoughtful, a flexible response.
Dr. Brad Reedy 20:30
That's the way Daniel Siegel talks about in his book says you have response flexibility. And so you're capable of parenting from a conscious place. And that's why when people, even people who quote me or think they're quoting me, saying, Brad would say, kick the kid out, or Brad would say kick them to the curb, which I never say, because I don't have opinions about what people should do. But I think what I'm trying to teach people are trying to help people move through is once you heal your own attachment, trauma, your own attachment wounds, once you develop an ability to engage a child in a healthy attachment, whatever decision you make from that place is the right decision.
Dr. Brad Reedy 21:06
That might mean keeping them home, that might mean something that looks and sounds like what we used to call tough love. But it comes from a healed and grounded and conscious place. And from that place, it's really hard to get it wrong. But from a fear place, from an angry place from a dysregulated place, it's almost impossible to get it right. So it's about being conscious being present, not responding from your historical trauma, or your current triggers.
Brenda 21:32
Right. That's so amazing that you just said that I was talking to a mom yesterday who said, you know, she just, she keeps responding out of this fear. And she said, I'm so afraid because she knows her son is taking pills, which means fentanyl, which means it's Russian roulette. So I really do empathize with parents in that situation, because I think fentanyl has added a whole new level of fear and urgency. And what I told her was, you know, the fact that he's taking fentanyl just means you have to do the work all that much faster. Like you just you don't have a choice, right? It's like it makes it that much more urgent that you get yourself calm, get yourself into a place where you can think about your thoughts. And think about your response to him. That it is just I don't know if you're seeing that with with the parents. But I just see that the fentanyl aspect of this has just heightened everybody's level of terror. It's just so scary.
Dr. Brad Reedy 22:32
Absolutely, the stakes are high. And, you know, I think when people hear that, and the example you just gave is the best example of it. I think people sometimes interpret what I just said, and what you're talking about is, don't be afraid. And I'm not saying that I'm saying take that fear that is real and earned and deserved and valid. And go somewhere, to a sponsor to a therapist, to somebody that can help you carry it or carry it with you. So that when you return to the child to relating to the child and making decisions and parenting, you are responding for the child's needs, not to respond to your own needs that come out of your fear. And so take care of your fear somewhere else. So that when engaging with the child, the child's needs are at the forefront. Those are what you can attend to, instead of responding to your fear. So it's real, the fear is real, the circumstances are real. And that's why we need like you said, That's why there's an urgency to take care of ourselves in ways that maybe if you were just kind of going through the average kind of parenting experience, you wouldn't need all of those extra resources and supports and contacts.
Brenda 23:41
Yes, for sure. I like how you said that get that taken care of somewhere else, because our kids are struggling with enough. They don't need our extra added burden. And you mentioned, you know, I don't tell people what to do. I've noticed that and I think that's really incredible. It's also I could imagine, can be very frustrating for people do you find parents are like, I just want an answer, like, tell me what to do. Because you're so good at not doing that. Is that something that you get feedback from that parents are like, but you're the expert tell me what to do.
Dr. Brad Reedy 24:18
Yeah, I do get that sometimes, especially early on. But I don't just stop there. I say the reason it doesn't work and I give examples where two opposing choices are both right or both wrong for a certain situation, a certain person, a certain context. And so I kind of illustrate to them that letting go or detaching can look like the story I tell him and one of my books is a parent saying to a child here are cigarettes to a child of age. You know, here are the cigarettes you asked for. I don't like smoking, but it's not my responsibility or saying to the child. No, I'm not going to give you the cigarettes you requested that I pick up, you know, on the way to help you graduate from the program. Because you know how I feel about it. I'm not going to But either way, giving the child the cigarettes or not giving the child the cigarettes is okay.
Dr. Brad Reedy 25:05
It's where it comes from. If you're trying to control the child, you can't get it right. If you're not trying to control the child, it's hard to get it wrong. And so I think, yes, is the answer to your question. And I don't have short answers. But when I can take them and illustrate that, it's where it comes from. It's how you're relating to the child, it's how you're relating to their issues, that defines the problem or the health of the interaction, I think people start to hear it. And I think they start to get just tiny glimpses, like a little bit of sun coming through the clouds. And they say, there's something different out there. I've already listened to parent educators prescribe steps that will, according to them guarantee good outcomes that haven't worked for me up to this point. And so I think they're, while they're frustrated with it, sometimes which is true. I also think they're hungry for something deeper, which I think this work is much deeper than prescribing behaviors and telling people and guaranteeing if you follow steps, you know, A through D, your child will be fixed, I think people at some level, they want that, but at some other deeper level, they know it hasn't worked so far, and it's not going to work going forward. So it's kind of a mix. And if you can just hook into that, that hope. And that glimmer that they see that people can get into the work and start to develop a different kind of relationship with themselves and their child.
Brenda 26:23
Yeah, I think you're so right, that, what I see is, by the time I'm talking to, and I'm not a therapist, I'm a mom, and I'm a health coach and stuff like that, and a parent coach, but what I see is, so many times their confidence is so eroded by the time that they reach out for help, and they are feeling, you know, pulled this way, and that this person saying this, and that person saying that, in their own sense of confidence has been so deflated, that they don't know how to make a decision anymore. And so building up some of that confidence. And when I think when you say that, like this decision could be right or wrong, or, or either, it kind of starts to build that empowerment back up. And then like I can make these decisions. And I'm not always going to get it right.
Brenda 27:11
But I can make those and you see, and I'm sure you see it too, I start to see, I wish there was like a name for it. But I start to see this shift in their language and just their stance of like, I got this, I'm not living out of that place of fear anymore. Yes, it's still scary, terrifying, absolutely terrifying. But I have ways that I know how to deal with it. And I think that comes from allowing them to make those decisions instead of prescribing them.
Dr. Brad Reedy 29:01
in therapy, sometimes they talk about first and second-order change, you know, first sort of change being a behavioral change a second-order change being what Joseph Campbell calls and I'm drawn to Joseph Campbell, the philosophers work. Joseph Campbell calls it a transformation of consciousness. And I think that's what it's called, I think, once you start to invite people and see them, transform their consciousness, my wife and I were talking about just last night before we were falling asleep about this idea that it's about being with somebody in a different way. It's about being with yourself in a different way. It's about being with your questions with your dilemmas in a different way. And that's why the numbers of podcasts the numbers of webinars is so important because it's not that I have, you know, 450 or 1400 bits of new information. It's just, it's inviting people into a different way. And so the conversations on the podcast are a different kind of sensibility, a different way of being with people And I think that's what you're talking about. You're describing this fundamental shift in somebody that happens when you learn a different way of being a parent a different way of being a human a person.
Brenda 30:11
Yeah. And it takes a while to soak in, because it doesn't, you know, you try something once, and it doesn't work. And it's like, Well, that sucked. Let me try it again. And then you try it again. And then you try it again. And so it is a slow process that takes a little while to soak in that, then you do start to see the lights going on. And it's like, ah, that's it. So that was kind of what I see. But when you're working with parents, what are some of the signs that you see in a parent where you're like, they're getting it? Like, they are turning the corner? They're on the path? Are there things that you see or hear? I'm just wondering, for listeners who are like, Am I doing this? Right, right things that they might notice in themselves.
Dr. Brad Reedy 30:56
You know, I think the simplest way to describe when I see that shift is when I remember, in fact, it was the woman who helped me set up the webinars in the first place. So this is a very old story. But when she talked about picking her son up from a residential treatment center visiting some colleges, she said, you know, some of the things that he was saying were the same, he was talking about unimportant superficial aspects of the schools that we were visiting. And so she said, So that's that, that's just him. That's just what he was doing. But what I loved is that I responded differently.
Dr. Brad Reedy 31:30
And so when they start, and by the way, if you're going to therapy with me, or anybody, you're allowed to vent about anything, and that's just, you know, therapy is the one place where you, as a client, you really, in my opinion, can fail, can't get it wrong, so you can talk about anything. But when people start to look at their responses, when they stop focusing on the child's relapse prevention plan, and start focusing on their relapse prevention plan, then I know the shift has occurred. And that's along with like I said, you need a place to vent everybody does. But when people start to consider themselves as the project, and thinking about their responses to the same old behaviors, that's when I see the shift, because then they're they're shifting their focus from fixing and controlling another, to get a sense of peace and serenity and meaning from understanding that, that what really vexes us the problem is in here, and I'm pointing to my head, the problem isn't here, and the solution isn't here. And that's when I really see this shift when that when they start to look at it that way and talk about it in those terms.
Brenda 32:33
Right? I would agree, I can just see that. And I'll have mom's like, text me, I'm so proud of myself, I didn't freak out and scream. And you know, they're so excited and things may still have ended up in a disaster, right? They're so proud of the way that they shifted their own thinking and their own response. And so we like, cheer.
Dr. Brad Reedy 32:54
I love that I love. Yeah, it's great.
Brenda 32:56
It is so empowering. Because you realize, you know, when you have a kid who's struggling like this, so much is out of your control. And so you can start to feel like life is just bananas, because you're like, What can I control in this craziness? And so when they figure out like, oh, actually, I do have a lot of control. And it's very impactful. It's just awesome to see that. I just wonder, are you surprised, that kind of want to tangent into, like, why parents are often so ill-equipped. And that's probably goes back to, obviously, our childhood. And maybe we have a culture that just doesn't make us aware of the fact that we are in for a big surprise when we become parents, but also how that's changed over the years since you began like your practice and in your wilderness program. Just curious, like what's going on? And then I would love to hear any thoughts that you have about how COVID is going to change, not only this generation of kids, but also maybe how those kids are going to be parents.
Dr. Brad Reedy 34:02
You know, I think there's a saying where they talk about how previous generations of parents worried the child worried about what the parents thought what the adults thought. And currently, the complaint or the critique of parents today is that parents worry about how the child feels and what the child thinks about them. And when I talked about is, it's the same person who's doing the worrying. They just grew up and had kids. And so I think with this helicopter parenting that we hear about, I don't like that term, or snowplow parenting, all these criticisms of parenting. I think what we're realizing today, and what's shifting is, I think there's this awareness, there's this awakening to the fact that I'm borrowing this quote from somebody else, that we are all traumatized children who were raised by traumatized children.
Dr. Brad Reedy 34:50
So I think parents are beginning to be treated like the traumatized children that they are the children that need love, and affection if a parent is indulging a child are having a difficult time with boundaries. It's not because they're bad parents, it's because they're wounded parents who haven't healed. And so that's why again, I don't focus on behaviors, because behaviors don't really tell the story. The story is deeper than that. It's about our wounding about our messaging about our patterns about, I think, Brenda, the biggest shift is that it makes sense, we were raised to think that the goal was to raise good children, good citizens, good people, good artists, and musicians, and mathematicians, and so forth. And I think what we are going to wake up to realize is that the job is to raise a person, a human, a self, and that that's messy and complicated. And it can't be prescribed simply again, like I said, so I think there's a humaneness that's coming out of all of this, and the compassion that's coming in, there's just too much mental health information out there and information about trauma out there. For this not to happen, we're gonna wake up to realize we all have work, we all have dents and bruises, we all dent and bruise our children. And we're all in this together. We're all walking each other home. And I think that's the awakening that's happening that the shift that I'm seeing, and I didn't see those kinds of messages 15 or 20 years ago, for sure.
Brenda 36:17
Right? Yeah, I think the silver lining of COVID especially is so much focus on mental health, and kind of getting it out of the closet. And everybody's talking about it. I mean, even for me, with my 22-year-old, you know, I'll ask him now, how's your mental health, which I would have never done? Pre COVID? You know, we had good relationship, but I would never actually voiced those words. So I think that's really powerful. Do you think that that's going to continue? Now,
Dr. Brad Reedy 36:48
You know, that old unprecedented times thing I don't know how to answer that I do think COVID is, is exposed. us as humans, I think we have a shared trauma as humans on planet Earth now that we can all relate to, I think, we have fewer healthy escapes, you know, I joke, I'll say to my wife, I'm going to go out and run an errand or I'm going to go drop something off. And she says, Well, I could do that when I'm out. Or, you know, have our son do that he's gonna go out and he could and I say, No, I need, I just need to get out. Because I work from home. Now I work in front of this computer doing what we're doing now.
Dr. Brad Reedy 37:22
So I do think that there, the COVID has exposed the human condition, and that the fact that we have fewer outlets that were left to ourselves, I think we're becoming more conscious and aware of the stress, the anxiety that gets dispelled through what COVID has blocked for us, you know, that the natural outlets that the travel, the vacations, the going to the movies, I'm sure you're like me, no matter where you stand on the continuum of the COVID information. Everybody has done the last set outside of the home, everybody has limited their outlets, the venting the places to kind of relax and let down your hair, so to speak. And I think, I think in that way, we have this shared trauma and shared experience that's exposing mental health and mental wellness and mental illness so much, just like what you talked about the kinds of conversations that you're you have with your son that you wouldn't have had, I think COVID It's in the social media. It's in the mainstream media. It's all out there. Now it's being talked about. And I think that's the gift that's come out of COVID out of this, this global quarantine, if you will,
Brenda 38:25
right, yeah, it is such a shared experience that I think I was talking with somebody the other day about sort of generational culture differences and how, you know, we refer to pre 911, post 911. You know, there's those markers. And obviously, COVID is going to be one of those markers for generation because everything from now on will be pre-COVID, post-COVID. And I'll be curious to see how that affects this generation, this current generation of maybe kids who are in the teens, preteens young adults, how they parent because I know that, you know, the recession of 2007 - 2008 really impacted my kids and how they see the world for sure. So it's gonna just be a very interesting thing to see how all of this plays out with them.
Dr. Brad Reedy 39:16
Absolutely
Brenda 39:17
Wow. I'm wondering, you give so many people lightbulb moments. I know I've had them listening and reading. What are some of your lightbulb moments that you've had?
Dr. Brad Reedy 39:28
I've told the story before, so I apologize if you've heard it, but it's a silly one. But somewhere around 2010 or 11. I was stumbling for words in a session with my therapist. And I was embarrassed with the mistake that I had made and I always say I can't remember what the mistake was because there's so many of them. They all kind of run together but as I was stumbling to confess or disclose, whatever, whatever it was. Jamie my therapist paused me gently and said it's okay Brad. She said, I don't know if you understand that if you came in here and telling me that you were having sex with a chicken, I would assume that you would have a good reason. And I would just want to understand why.
Dr. Brad Reedy 40:11
And it's a silly example, of course, but I realized, and I could get here is just telling the story. Again, I've never been in a room like that before, such a safe place. You know, Joseph Campbell says that the sacred place is the place that we go back to again and again to find ourselves and I realized that I was in a safe place, like you said, to find myself and I realized that that's where the healing was, and I ended up confessing or telling or whatever it was, and it was okay. And and through being heard, you know, Carl Rogers says, the great paradox is that when I accept myself, I can change.
Dr. Brad Reedy 40:44
And so finding that that loving acceptance, that compassion, that non judgement, and realizing how that fundamentally changed me was my biggest aha moment that the goal was to be who I am, to be a self. And in so doing become my largest self, my most authentic, my most giving and brightest stuff. And so, I know, that's a little bit dated, you know, I'm talking about 2010. But I come back to that, as a therapist, and as a client over and over again, is understanding that healing happens in that kind of radical safety. And that our desires to control our clients, our children, our friends, to get them to do the right thing to think the right thing to believe the right thing. That's the harm. That's the problem. That's the disease, but to get somebody to be who they are, that's really what Plato was saying, when he was talking about a utopian society, he said, in a utopian society, there would be only one law. And the one law would be to be yourself. And I think that's what therapy reminds me of, that's the aha moment that I come back to, that fills my eyes with tears with a client, or with myself, I have therapy this morning in an hour and 20 minutes. I don't know if I'll have one of those moments today. But it is that the light bulb is finding me over and over and over again. Yeah.
Brenda 42:08
And speaking of finding me, I watched it recently, within the last couple of months, is finding me right, Joseph Campbell de vida, Joe, a finding Joe. And I was like, that doesn't sound right. Amazing, amazing. Film. If anybody's listening, I'll put that in the show notes. Because it's so incredible. And I was just like, talking about light bulb moments, I had several of them. But when you were just talking about radical safety, and I was thinking about as parents, that is so important for us to offer to our kids, because I think our kids don't feel like they could come to us and tell us something. So you know, maybe shameful or, or so controversial, that if we could offer that to them, which takes a huge amount of presence, and, and steel. But if we could let our kids know that I am a place of radical safety for you. I'm not a therapist, maybe we can't get them to go to therapy, because a lot of times they don't want to go to therapy. That just sort of I was like, wow, that would be really amazing. If we could be that space for our kids. And even yesterday, I was talking to one of my boys and he was telling me some stuff not. You know, it took a lot in me to just listen and not freak out and understand why he was telling me that. And the more I was quiet, the more he told me why it was so meaningful to him what he was telling me and I thought, man, if I had shut him down, like I would have a few years ago, I would have missed that little nugget of what he was telling me. So that was incredible. Yeah, Finding Joe.
Dr. Brad Reedy 43:49
oh, I recommend any listener finding Joe, Patrick Solomon, he released it on YouTube for free during the pandemic as a gift and I recommend it to everybody. It's something I've seen probably 30 or 40 times. I know that sounds silly, but it still hits me it still impacts me in profound ways. Every time.
Brenda 44:09
Yeah, absolutely. I will put a link in the shownotes. to that. If I could give you a billboard in Times Square for a month, and you put anything on it. Speaking to parents of kids, specifically who are struggling with substance use, what would your billboard say? I have a guess, but I don't know it's gonna be right.
Dr. Brad Reedy 44:34
A few things come to mind. I've thought about this actually had a billboard once, not in Times Square, but I think it would be the quote from there's a couple of different quotes. It's the same idea but I want to get credit to the person who said it this way, using her words I Ann Lamont, the novelist said, the most profound gift that we can give to our children is our own healing. Hmm, that would be my billboard is you know Ram Das says the only thing I can do for you is work on my myself, the only thing you can do for me is work on yourself at that same idea or Alice Miller's The only weapon we have against mental illnesses, the discovery of the unique history of our childhood, it's all the same idea. Do your work, do your work, do your work. And I think the way that and says it is so profound, that the greatest gift we can give is our own healing. That would be my billboard besides go see Hades Town, if it's open, because that's a really good show. That would be today, you know, in January 2022.
Brenda 45:28
Yes, I was in New York about a month ago. And, you know, Broadway just opened and I got to go see a show. And it just felt so good. I was like, Oh,this feels normal.
Dr. Brad Reedy 45:42
That's one of my bliss's is Broadway in New York. So incredible.
Brenda 45:45
Well, thank you a million times over this has been so special to get to talk with you. And I think just have some conversations that will help parents, as they're navigating this crazy is totally crazy and scary. And I think it's really nice to hear from somebody who not only is an expert, from an academic standpoint, and all that in your experience, but as a parent, because there is nothing like going through this with your kids.
Dr. Brad Reedy 46:15
Thank you, Brenda. Thanks for having me. Thanks for what you do. I love it.
Brenda 46:19
I love working with moms and parents. We keep up the fight right.
Dr. Brad Reedy 46:23
Let's keep doing it, yep.
Brenda
Thank you so much for listening. If you'd like to go to the show notes, you can always find those at At Brendazane.com/podcast, each episode is listed there with a full transcript, all of the resources that we mentioned, as well as a place to leave comments if you'd like to do that. You might also want to download a free ebook I wrote called Hindsight: Three things I wish I knew when my son was addicted to drugs. It's full of the information I wish I would have known when my son was struggling with his addiction. You can grab that at Brendazane.com/hindsight. Thanks again for listening and I will meet you right back here next week.