Looking for ADHD support this summer? My entire 'ADHD Women's Wellbeing Series' is on offer this July. Head here to learn more about the workshops and use code JULY to get 35% off.

Some of the deepest childhood wounds don't come from parents who shouted or hurt us. Sometimes they come from parents who simply never had the tools to truly see us.

On this week's episode of The ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast, I'm joined by Sian Crossley, a London-trained psychotherapist, author and the founder of Break the Cycle Coaching.

With a background in both private practice and the NHS, Sian specialises in helping adults understand and heal from the lasting impact of emotionally immature parenting. Through her writing, courses and online community, she helps thoughtful, self-aware people untangle patterns like people pleasing, self-doubt and over-responsibility, so they can build healthier boundaries and more authentic relationships. She's the author of How to Heal from Emotionally Immature Parents, and now lives in Malaysia with her two young children, working with clients and audiences around the world.

In this episode, Sian and I talk about what emotionally immature parenting actually looks like, even in a childhood where all the practical boxes were ticked. We explore why feeling unseen can leave a lasting impact, how undiagnosed neurodivergence in a parent's generation often went unnamed and unsupported, and why grief and acceptance matter more than forgiveness when it comes to healing. Sian also shares the foundations of emotionally mature parenting, and how small, consistent changes, like simply asking a child how they feel, can start to break old patterns without anyone needing to be perfect.

In this episode, we cover:

• What emotionally immature parenting really looks like, even in a "good enough" childhood
• The difference between big T and little T trauma
• How undiagnosed neurodivergence in parents shapes the way love and connection are shown
• Parentification, and what it means when a child becomes their parent's emotional support
• Why grief and acceptance matter more than forgiveness when healing childhood trauma
• The "and, not but" technique for holding two truths about a parent at once
• Why childhood memories can feel fragmented after emotional neglect
• Breaking generational cycles without overcorrecting as a parent
• The four foundations of emotionally mature parenting: regulation, self-awareness, empathy and boundaries
• Why asking a child how something made them feel can change everything

Timestamps:

• 00:00 - Welcome, and introducing Sian Crossley and her book
• 02:40 - What emotionally immature parenting actually looks like
• 05:03 - Why feeling unseen can matter more than what was provided practically
• 06:15 - Parentification and becoming a parent's emotional support
• 07:51 - Kate's own story: a late ADHD diagnosis and family patterns
• 11:34 - Where healing actually begins
• 14:48 - Why too much empathy for parents can get in the way of healing
• 17:16 - Breaking the cycle without overcorrecting as a parent
• 22:41 - Why fragmented childhood memories are so common
• 25:23 - Grief, acceptance and why forgiveness isn't the goal
• 34:03 - The "and, not but" technique for holding two truths
• 39:05 - The four foundations of emotionally mature parenting
• 45:04 - How to work with Sian

🌟 The ADHD Women's Wellbeing Live Event Audio Experience is here!

My first-ever ADHD Women's Wellbeing Live event sold out, and now the full experience is available to you wherever you are, whenever it feels right.

Alongside three neuro-affirming experts, we spent four hours exploring the questions that matter most to late-diagnosed women. Get lifetime access here!

Inside the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Audio Experience, you'll find:

• Kate Moryoussef on post-diagnosis growth and her gentle framework for what comes next
• Dr Hannah Cullen on the neuroscience of ADHD and why your brain works the way it does
• Hannah Miller on reconnecting with purpose through a neurodivergent lens
• Adele Wimsett myth-busting on hormones, HRT, progesterone and perimenopause

Understand yourself more deeply, feel less alone, and finally access the expert knowledge you deserve because every woman with ADHD deserves access to the knowledge, expertise and understanding that for too long hasn't been available to us.

To get lifetime access for £44, click here.

Links and Resources:

• Find my popular ADHD workshops and resources on my website [here].
• Follow the podcast on Instagram: @adhd_womenswellbeing_pod
• Visit Sian's website: breakthecyclecoaching.co.uk
• Connect with Sian on Instagram: @sianmorgancrossley
• Check out Sian's book, How to Heal from Emotionally Immature Parents
• Start a free trial of Sian's membership here

Kate Moryoussef is a women's ADHD lifestyle and wellbeing coach and EFT practitioner who helps overwhelmed and unfulfilled newly diagnosed women with ADHD find more calm, balance, hope, health, compassion, creativity, and clarity.

With thanks to our Sponsor: This week's episode is sponsored by Elete, a simple way to support your hydration by adding essential electrolytes to the water you're already drinking. So many of us get completely absorbed in a task and forget to drink anything for hours, then wonder why we feel foggy or flat later in the day. Elete is sugar-free, with no artificial sweeteners or unnecessary additives, and it's trusted by health-conscious families, athletes and wellness professionals alike. Head to eletewater.co.uk and use the code WWP20 for an exclusive 20% listener discount.

Welcome to the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast.

I'm Kate Moore Youssef and I'm a.

Wellbeing and lifestyle coach, EFT practitioner, mum.

To four kids and passionate about helping more women to understand and accept their amazing ADHD brains.

After speaking to many women just like me and probably you, I know there is a need for more health and lifestyle support for women newly diagnosed with adhd.

In these conversations, you'll learn from insightful guests, hear new findings and discover powerful perspectives and lifestyle tools to enable you.

To live your most fulfilled, calm and.

Purposeful life wherever you are on your ADHD journey.

Here's today's episode.

I'm here today to talk about a really sensitive topic, but also something that I know sort of appears and happens in this community so much.

I'm talking about a book, but we've also got a fantastic guest in.

The book is called how to Heal from Emotionally Immature Parents.

And my guest today is Sian Morgan Crossley.

Now, I wanted to bring Sian in because I think this is such a relevant topic and I'll give you a little bit of background on Sean.

So she is a London trained psychotherapist, she's an author and she's also the founder of Break the Cycle Coaching.

And she has a background in both private practice and the NHS where she specializes in helping adults understand and heal from the lasting impact of emotionally immature parenting.

And through her writing and her courses in her community, she helps people untangle their patterns and understand what's been driving them, such as people pleasing self, doubt over responsibility so they can build healthier boundaries and more authentic relationships.

And she is originally from London, but she now lives in Malaysia with her family and she works with clients and her audiences all around the world.

So welcome to the podcast.

I'm really happy to have you here.

I'm happy to have your book here, how to Heal from Emotionally Immature Parents.

I really, really found this a very validating and helpful read.

And like I said just before, I've passed this on to a few people that I think may, may need it.

I mean, I came across you online actually and you've got quite a big social media presence and some really helpful videos that I straight away was like, oh my goodness, that is so relatable, like when you're talking about like parenting wounds or mother wounds, understanding what this looks like and how we're still processing our childhood perhaps through parents that just didn't have the tools, didn't have the understanding.

And I know, you know, obviously through this conversation, we're going to look at all this through this more neuroaffirming lens as well.

Really understanding about how neurodivergence must have, you know, undiagnosed neurodivergence would have shown up so much in all of this.

And I feel like there's a lot to untangle and we're going to have a really interesting conversation.

So perhaps we can just start from what is the concept or the topic of emotionally immature parenting and how can people see that in their own lives?

So the way I kind of describe an emotionally immature parent is really just a parent who is kind of lacking in emotional skills.

This can be sort of maybe somebody who's not massively emotionally aware or just is lacking that kind of emotional insight oftentimes for themselves.

And so of course, what we can't do for ourselves, we struggle to do for our children often.

So that just gets translated.

So when I was putting the idea for the book together, I suppose I wanted to speak to this really large group of people who didn't have kind of objectively abusive childhoods.

They had a lot of what they needed.

In a practical sense, there were a lot of boxes ticked.

They perhaps absolutely had parents who did their best, but nonetheless they were parents who just really didn't have the, the kind of skills that children really need in order to grow up, to feel kind of full of self worth and good self esteem and to be able to set healthy boundaries and that sort of thing, to be able to emotionally regulate and so on.

So yeah, emotionally immature parents just lack those skills, I guess, normally because of their own childhood.

Yeah, you mentioned of self awareness.

So they don't quite have the awareness that they are emotionally immature.

Like you say, they've maybe got the practical skills, foods on the table, the kids get schooled, the clothes are washed.

But would you say that there's, you know, especially sort of like there's a generational shift of perhaps there was unresolved trauma, there was maybe abuse that wasn't considered abuse back then.

Again, being parented by parents with even less awareness, less tools, less understanding.

And how do people, I think sometimes we, we dismiss or push aside or we're in survival mode and we kind of think, well, we were looked after, but we kind of didn't feel quite safe or emotionally attached or connected.

Is.

It's, it's more in the nuances.

It is.

And it, I think often what is missing in a childhood in which you had emotionally immature parents is that emotional connection.

I think one analogy that's useful is it might be a parent who does show up to the school play but doesn't ask afterwards how you felt whilst you were in the school play.

Right.

It's like they're maybe there and of course sometimes not as well, but maybe they are.

They're showing up in that sense, but they're not really able to offer that connection.

And what we then lack is feeling seen.

And if you don't feel seen, then actually the way we show up in really all of our consequent relationships and you know, the way we certainly feel about our own capabilities and capacity to handle challenges and to kind of create lives that we want, it's all really diminished because, you know.

Yeah.

To not feel seen, to not feel witnessed.

We're then just sort of missing a big chunk of something that we do really need as children.

And what about if it was on the.

On the flip side, there was sort of like parentification going on where there's a parent that's overly reliant on you, almost treats you, the child as the adult.

And does that form part of this sort of emotionally mature parenting as well?

Yeah, absolutely.

That dependence that you're describing, that.

That typically comes from the parents own lack of skills, I suppose, in supporting themselves.

Often there might be an adult consciously or sort of subtly actually rather than conscious.

It's more sort of subtly asking for reassurance from their child, perhaps for them to soothe their anxiety in some way to help them problem solve.

So we can as well, you know, when we're thinking about this kind of dynamic, it's clear that this is just a skill deficit on the part of the parent.

Right.

They're not even necessarily or generally not very aware of what's going on.

But nonetheless the effect is the child feels this burden, feels this kind of pressure to prop up an adult.

And so in doing so, they then miss out on that part of childhood that feels carefree, that feels innocent and free to be and make mistakes and explore which is obviously what is really needed in childhood.

That gets sort of taken over by the.

The parents anxieties really.

Yeah.

As a parent myself, it's hard because there's no such thing as perfect parenting.

And no matter.

I'm sure you know yourself, you're a psychotherapist.

I speak to so many different psychologists and therapists and psychiatrists who are also parenting.

They may have all this sort of practical skills.

But when you're on the ground parenting and life's coming at you and there's just so much going on, especially in the world that we live in right now, like we are learning on the job, aren't we?

And it is, it's very hard and, and I think we all have to give ourselves a little bit of a break.

But this is not about giving, this is about recognizing our childhood.

And you said before, this is about making sense of our childhood and not necessarily blaming, but recognizing those emotional deficits and the parts where we didn't feel seen or safe or there was there and being able to understand it, process it and then eventually sort of move towards the process of healing which again is not perfect and there's probably no end game, there's no destination there.

What do you find when people start doing this work, when they come to you?

You know, I'll speak for myself.

You know, I had quite a dysfunctional childhood, parents got divorced, different step parents in the mix, we moved countries, siblings moved away, boarding school, all sorts of different things.

And it was not easy.

And nearly 46, I think I'm still processing my childhood and lots of things come at me, you know, with my kids at different ages now, like I see myself age of 18, I've got a 20, a 15 year old, an 11 year old.

I just like see myself in those different ages and what was going on in my life.

And sometimes, rightly or wrongly, I sort of fixate on, right, how can I look after that version of me child and give them what I didn't get?

Which is exhausting in itself and I'm going on a bit of a ramble here, but also to recognize, you know, I got my ADHD diagnosis at the age of 40.

I also grew up with two brothers who were diagnosed with ADHD at a much, much younger age.

So we knew ADHD in the mix but no one ever considered it being part of my adult family.

We had mental health challenges, we had addiction, a lot of difficulties with different mental health.

No conversation about neurodivergence that I never, but because of the work that I do and this is the world I, and I see it everywhere, I pattern spot and I see this a lot with my community that when they get their diagnosis later on in life, whether it's in their 30s or 60s, they're able to then pattern spot all of what happened in their childhood through oh, my dad was autistic and that's why he really struggled to show emotion or he shut down or burnouts or nervous breakdowns or my mum was chaotic and was self medicating and, and there was addiction and there was a lot of dysfunction And I do find that there's an inflection point when we get an adult diagnosis of being able to make sense of the mess that perhaps that we came from.

But we also need to process so much of this ourself and we put a huge burden ourselves to then not make the same mistakes, break patterns, break cycles.

And that in itself, all of this is exhausting, isn't it?

Yeah.

I guess my, My question is, where do you begin?

Because.

Right.

Yeah, it just feels like a lot, I think.

I think as the pattern spotting that you're describing, I do think this is absolutely part of this process of healing.

However, I think that sometimes we need to almost pop it in a bracket for a little bit until we've done a little bit of, like, we've moved through the process a little bit more ourselves.

Otherwise, I think what can happen is a big piece of emotionally immature parenting and kind of having that experience is that our feelings get invalidated.

And I think if you add into that neurodivergence, if you were neurodivergent as a child and you had parents who were not aware of that, or, you know, certainly coming from, you know, a generation whereby as children, this wasn't really talked about much at all.

Right.

And so that would have layered on a whole nother sort of load of shame, really, about emotions and just invalidation of how you're feeling in small and large ways.

And so a big part of the process of healing now is going to be about letting yourself feel your feelings.

And the problem with focusing too much on, well, how was it for Mum, how was it for dad?

Must have been hard for Gran, must have been awful for Granddad.

They didn't have any of these tools.

Is that then we're actually just re traumatizing ourselves because what we're doing then is still sending ourselves a message that what you're feeling doesn't count too much, doesn't compare too much.

And actually we need to sort of reserve some of those, that part of the process for a bit later.

Does that make sense?

Absolutely, it makes sense because a lot of the.

The community that I hear from have been chronic people pleasers, they've been hyper independent, they've had to hold up families, they've had to be the person that, despite their own neurodivergence, they've had to mask, they've had to hold things together.

They've got to be the fixers, they've got to be the ones that create the order because the parents haven't been able to create that order for them.

And so there has been probably a lot of invalidation there like you say.

And maybe myself, there's a bit of grief or sadness or guilt.

I would say that.

Oh, okay, well I understand this and they didn't understand this.

So I just have to put my pain and the way I felt growing up aside because I have to be compassionate and I have to be that person that is like the bigger person.

And I've heard that before from a parent of one of my parents who has sort of said just be more compassionate, be more understanding.

Like you were, you weren't there, you didn't.

You know, I had to deal with this, I had to deal with that.

It was really hard for me.

And I was thinking about that version of the version of me 11, 12, 15, 16, 16 that I had to almost hold that parents pain and mine was invalidated.

Absolutely.

And I think, you know, you don't have to be compassionate actually when you're healing you I think that interferes with it because what you are doing in the process of trying to recover, we, you know, healing recovery is sort of one and the same.

You're literally recovering your connections yourself.

That's really what we're trying to do.

And that's what gets severed with emotionally immature parents is your connection to yourself.

Because you, there's not space for it, right.

In a home in which the parents emotions are running the show, the parents trauma is running the show, then there's no space for that.

So actually the process is about recovery to self.

And that doesn't initially, that does not include heaps of empathy for your parents, that doesn't include loads of compassion for grandparents and so on later on as you go through your own process which is grieving and that's grieving for you, you know, that's grieving.

That's feeling through the feelings, whatever they may be, the anger, the sadness, the doing the bits that you need to do to make your relationships feel more sustainable and so on.

Once you've gone through that process, then I think the, the empathy and the compassion for other family members is sort of a natural byproduct.

But I think to get stuck there means you're doing yourself a disservice really because you, you'll never be able to heal because you'll just constantly be feeling bad for other people.

And that might just be mirroring your childhood.

Yeah, that's, that's really helpful I think, because I think there has been a lot of that.

And again I kind of have like a bit of an avatar of about 20 different people in my community of stories and different things.

And I understand how this can show up.

And I also see this pattern of overcompensating.

So say we have had this experience growing up, and it's like, well, I'm not going to.

You know, I'm going to break this pattern.

I'm going to be the most supportive, loving parent.

And then we burn ourselves out because we're trying so hard to not show up as that parent.

How do we kind of find that balance?

Yeah, I think it's really difficult.

I.

So when I was pregnant with my daughter, I've got two children, she's the eldest.

When I was pregnant with her, I had a lot of therapy, and it focused specifically on my relationship with my mother.

And I was very frightened of recreating that dynamic because I knew I was having a girl.

So it felt really frightening.

And I described it to someone at the time and saying, it's like I felt like I was about to take my driving test, but I'd never had a lesson.

That's how sort of frightening it felt.

So we went through this therapy, and essentially the conclusion was that, you know, I needed to parent without my mother in mind at all, that that's the goal.

We don't want to be kind of doing the opposite.

I think if we're still preoccupied with.

With our parents and how they were with us, the good, the bad and the ugly, you know, whatever it is, if we're still holding them in mind, the danger is that we end up going completely the opposite direction, and then we're just inverting our own experience, which probably isn't going to be too healthy either.

So I suppose it's about trying as best as you can through whether that's therapy, podcast, but books, processing, talking, whatever it may be, that we can find our way away from the parenting we experience as much as is possible.

So that I suppose we're just sort of trying as best as we can to be creating relationships with our children that feel responsive in the moment.

And I'm not suggesting this is easy or simple.

It isn't.

And it's a constant work in progress.

But, yeah, I think to try very hard to do the opposite of our parents, we trip ourselves up, we're going to be running on fumes, I think, at certain point, because it gets.

We have to stay preoccupied with our own childhood then, if that makes sense.

And actually what we're wanting is just to have a relationship with this other little human that is separate Yeah, I.

Mean, as a psychotherapist, you said that you.

You obviously want to validate the experience of the childhood, but you don't want to get too preoccupied in the actual parent, and you want to focus on this, the adult version of ourselves now and making sense and not.

And I guess, moving towards this sort of emotional healing and acceptance and everything.

Would you say that if someone is maybe listening to this and they kind of thought, well, I've never really considered that maybe that was what was going on for my parents.

What should we, you know, as.

As a child, like, how should we feel?

I've written down here because I found this very interesting, like, safety, being seen, loved, heard, validated.

And then maybe as adult children, we look back and go, actually, I was always dismissed.

I was always told, get on with it, stop moaning, stop being too sensitive, stop complaining.

Who are you to do this?

You know, and those little things can show up, but do you find that people in adulthood kind of have like, almost like a realization of, actually, I wasn't seen and I didn't feel safe and I wasn't heard?

Yeah, I think so.

Because really, what this sort of parenting dynamic that we're talking about, this happens in.

It really happens all the time, and it happens in amongst what looks like a very good childhood.

You know, this.

So it's difficult, I think.

Well, first of all, objectively, as children, of course, we don't really have the capacity to reflect in this kind of way that we're describing or even to compare.

I think that's a trait that comes online a bit later on, probably.

Is that comparison to how it is in other families, for example?

I think that happens a bit later.

And it is really often a case of.

Of hindsight.

And I think also it is so subtle because it is just how you described.

It's often just those comments, the little comments that actually, you know, nobody else would notice that you, as a child, you're just sort of in that mode of taking on board what comes at you, which is how we're designed.

So we're soaking everything up and learning.

But actually, when you look back on it and think, yeah, where.

Where were the comments of encouragement?

Or why was I not allowed to feel what I was feeling?

Why was it so terrible if I was angry?

Why was it not allowed.

I was just not allowed to.

To be worried about things, let's say, or to feel sad and, you know, why did I not have that space to go to that person to go to in those moments?

And you really don't Realize that, I think until, certainly until if you have your own children.

But I think even if you don't have your own children, there's so many points at which you start to notice how, how it might have felt for you as an 8 year old or 12 year old or.

Yeah.

Is it normal, I guess, if you've gone through all of this to actually not remember a huge amount of your childhood?

Yes.

Yeah, that is really normal.

So there's this concept of big T, little T trauma.

So trauma meaning sort of objectively traumatic experiences and little T meaning more kind of developmental.

So this is what we can think of as childhood trauma.

And this emotionally immature parenting kind of experience falls into that category because it's lots of experiences of invalidation and not feeling emotionally safe and in connection.

And so when we experience trauma, trauma of any kind, we end up with really fragmented memories.

So, yeah, that's going to have lots of gaps.

There will be lots of bits that don't quite add up.

There might be.

If there was a specifically difficult memories, they might kind of be there prominently and then not a lot else around it, for example.

So, yeah, it is, it is absolutely common.

And then I think people get sort of confused as to how they might start working on things.

Yeah.

And it's trusting what was true.

And you know, again, I'll speak for myself is that I do have fragmented memories.

And because my parents got divorced when I was about 12, I have.

I can't quite remember my parents living together apart from a few arguments and being told they were getting divorced.

But then I looked through photo albums and we looked like there was a happy family there.

So I'm kind of like, well, have I made all of that up?

But then I know how I felt and so I sort of like, well, have I.

Am I holding on to resentment that shouldn't be there?

And then I sort of think, well, what's true, what isn't true?

And I wanted to ask you about, I guess, holding onto resentment.

We'll move on to the nervous system soon because I think our nervous system knows maybe our memories don't quite add up, but I think we trust our nervous system and how we feel in our body.

How do we let go of the resentment?

And I know you said in the book, which I found really helpful, that forgiveness actually isn't that important.

Yes.

I think from a spiritual perspective, forgiveness can lessen that, lighten the load lesson.

That's not condoning what people have done.

But how do you move, I guess, from that feeling of that resentment to what happens to that place of letting go and whether or not you can forgive or not.

I think it's grieving, Grieving, it has to be grieved.

I think if it's not, if we don't do that piece of.

So when I say grieving I mean really connecting with the sadness because often we can, we might kind of feel sad about our childhood maybe, but we don't actually.

We're not sort of really going there with the, with the loss of it because it's something that takes place over such a long period of time, a long time ago.

As you say, there's not clear access to memories.

So we often, unless we prioritize it whilst we're healing, we don't ever go through that process.

Right.

It's something that needs to be actively decided upon is to.

That I'm going to put aside time to grieve what I didn't get, what I needed, how things could have been, to grieve, to feel sad about how that might have felt for me when I was a child and I.

How I might have felt, I might have felt alone, et cetera.

Once we do that and go through that process, then on the other side of that is typically acceptance.

And so acceptance that, well, this is how it was, this is how what my parents could offer this was their kind of limitations and so on.

And then for me, acceptance is really important.

Grieving and acceptance, those two pieces of this healing process when we're talking about childhood trauma is to me they're kind of almost non negotiable, I suppose if you really wanting to, to make progress.

The forgiveness bit.

Yeah, I think, I personally think forgiveness is a sort of thing that happens once you're quite far along through it all and then you'll realize, oh yeah, I'm not really that cross with them anymore.

Or you know, it's fine.

Like I.

You just sort of arrive there.

Yeah.

You can't get to the forgiveness without like what you just said.

Then the grieving and then the acceptance and the understanding.

Exactly.

And then no matter how much people say let go, forgive and forget, it.

Just doesn't work and it ends up being really frustrating.

I think people end up feeling like they failed, feeling like they're doing it wrong and stuck in that resentment as you described.

And you know, I think there's nothing wrong with feeling.

If you're in that phase of feeling anger towards your parents, that's fine.

There's nothing wrong with that at all.

But I think to stay there is tiring you know, it is a sort of quite draining emotional state over a long period of time.

And, you know, you deserve better, really.

You deserve to.

To feel lighter.

And so for me, that means moving through that grieving, that acceptance.

Yeah.

I mean, I think the.

The guilt that I sometimes feel is that we, this generation, are the first generation of women, I'm going to say, that have had understanding of their wiring, their brain, their nervous systems.

We're understanding how perimenopause shows up from maybe an earlier stage than many women, many people have said before, you know, and we can look back at generations of women and go, oh, my goodness, okay, from her mid-30s, early-40s, that's when she started behaving X, Y, Z.

And, you know, and there is, I feel like, guilt there because there would have been unprocessed trauma.

They would have had unresolved trauma, that they would have had no resources or tools or medication, therapy, understanding, books, podcasts.

Like, we are in a very lucky situation.

Women have been neglected.

You know, women's health, women's mental health have been neglected forever.

And we're at this very beginning point where women are getting an understanding of, okay, how hormonal fluctuations can manifest as, you know, severe mental health crises where they're not able to look after families and children.

And there is that guilt there of, oh, I should just get over it, because look, look what they went through.

And I know we've talked about this earlier on that, you know, it's okay to, you know, to process that.

I guess my question is, is, do we just allow ourselves to feel that pain and go, okay, that's.

That was our pain, and almost separate ourselves from what our adult parent went through?

How do we blend that with all the nuances and understanding that was not there in the past?

I kind of think this is.

This is a.

This is about deciding.

If you decide that you, as an individual want to heal your childhood trauma, then I think for a period of time, that's what you need to focus on and doing the sort of the.

Because everything that you said was absolutely accurate.

Previous generations of women did not have access to the type of information that we have, the type of understanding, the type of support available in different ways.

So that is absolutely true.

But I think if you keep one foot in that reality, I suppose, and then you've only got one foot in your reality of how it affected you, then I think you'll just be stunting your healing, I guess.

But that's okay.

That's a choice, I think, you know, some People need to sort of maintain that, I guess.

Is it loyalty?

I'm not sure if that's the right.

Word, but sort of, yeah, I understand that.

Right.

To, to previous generations.

And for some people that's more important.

Maintaining that loyalty, maintaining that empathy for generations past feels actually more important for them than healing themselves.

And that's fine, that's a decision.

But I think for somebody that says no, do you know what?

I really know that I need to do this for myself, my own quality of life, for maybe my children, for my relationship, etc.

Then I think you need to just try to really focus in initially on your own experience.

Only then can you go into the grief and the acceptance and move forward.

And when you're on the other side of that, circle back.

Circle back to the sadness for mom, you know, circle back to how hard it was for Nan to have probably maybe had these neurodivergent traits and not have had any support, not had any awareness to you.

Yes, we're talking about neurodivergence, but we can also think of this just in terms of trauma, mental health and also just difficult life experiences.

Right.

Like if we look at a couple of generations back or sometimes just our parents generation, there's a lot of hardship, a lot of.

I mean, my grandparents were immigrants, for example, from the Caribbean to the uk, which was a hostile place to be for, you know, people of color at that time.

They had a hard life, you know, that was really hard.

If I were to focus exclusively on that, I don't think I probably would have allowed myself to really feel my own experience.

But that doesn't mean that that isn't true and that that wasn't sad and hard and difficult and it would have been great if it had been better for them.

I guess both are true.

But I feel as if it's important initially, if you really want to work on yourself, is to focus on your own experience.

And then you'll have so much more space and capacity and men energy to think about your relative's experience.

I suppose in a way that.

Right, in a way that's not going to sort of pull you under and, and overwhelm you.

I know in the book you.

You've got the.

The and verses or the but versus and give me a couple of sentences because I found that really helpful because it's exactly what you're saying here.

It's.

Yes, that was a difficult situation went through, but.

But I'm not going to invalidate my experience either.

Yeah.

So, you know, that might be dad had a really hard childhood and he frightened me with his anger.

Like, both things, right?

They are both absolutely true and valid and exist with each other.

So if you put the button, you're kind of excusing the behavior, is that right?

I think it's more so that, yeah, if instead that was, um.

You know, dad had a really hard childhood, and so it's understandable that he was angry.

I think what you're doing there with.

With that sort of framing of it instead is that you are just not allowing space for your own emotions and your.

The impact it had on you.

And so then it's just this continuous process of bypassing yourself.

And I mentioned earlier on that really this practice process of healing and recovery is ultimately about reconnecting with self.

And so we just kind of can't get to ourselves if we're constantly saying, oh, but I understand why they did that and I understand why that happened.

I think, as I said, though, I think that can definitely come later on.

But it's.

If you've had a lifetime of having your emotions invalidated and of invalidating your own emotions, and as you describe this kind of sandwich that we get of parents, maybe emotionally immature parents may be invalidating our emotional experience or really just not noticing it or not prioritizing it.

And then maybe if you become a mum or dad, that you suddenly are invalidating your own emotions again because you're trying to put your children first and, you know, you're having to sort of center their emotional experience, then actually you might have just had this lifetime of doing that.

And so healing is about saying, well, yeah, dad had a difficult childhood and his anger wasn't okay.

It was excessive and it was frightening.

And it's made it really hard for me to have a conversation that involves any type of asserting myself or something, you know, or whatever it may have been that you allow yourself to access that.

Yeah.

And I think working, working in this space and understanding your divergence, there's this sort of very fine line of not using it as an excuse and not sitting in sort of like the victimhood mentality of it.

And so it's like, well, if you've got a sibling with ADHD and they are violent and disruptive and difficult to be around and it's being excused the whole time, then that it can't just be like, oh, well, they've got adhd, so you just have to deal with it and your emotions aren't valid.

What I like to see is the understanding and the awareness.

So we get that Understanding, awareness.

And it's like, okay, now what do we do with that?

Okay, there's therapy, there's coaching, there's help, there's tools, there's books.

We can, you don't have to stay stuck in this place of, well, I'm autistic and that's just the end of that.

Or I'm dyslexic and that's, you know, I like to be able to say, right, okay, you've got new language, you've got a new lens to see things through, you've got a new perspective, but that doesn't mean you can't do the work.

And we have to take responsibility.

You know, as a parent, I want to take self responsibility to emotionally regulate, to make sure that my nervous system feels, you know, grounded and calm and regulated.

And no one can do that for me.

I have to do that.

So I have to choose to put my phone down and stop scrolling.

I have to choose to take a walk.

I have to choose to say no to certain things, put my boundaries up.

I have to choose to have a place of safety so I can feel emotionally regulated for my children where many of our parents maybe didn't know about that.

And that is what I, I want people to step into.

I want to step into people, step into a place of empowerment with this now.

And I know that the sort of, the last bit of your book, you talk about the foundations of emotionally mature parenting.

We've got emotional regulation, self awareness, empathy and attunement and secure boundaries.

And I, and you've obviously gone into detail on, on those four different foundations, but I just found that so helpful because if we're not emotionally regulated, you know, we can't parent self awareness.

We need to have not rumination, but like an introspection, an understanding of what makes us tick, the triggers and all of that, and being open, like you say, to self reflection and growth, this empathy and attunement.

So being able to tune into our children's emotional needs and experiences and encouraging our children, which maybe we never had to share their emotions, you know, express their emotions.

We, we may never have had parents, that's.

Well, how did that make you feel and what's going on for you?

When I've as a therapist had sessions with parents who have maybe been kind of our, you know, maybe our focus wasn't about parenting fully, but they were wanting to know how to make things different for their children.

The one thing I would always say is ask them how they're feeling, because that in itself is Just so powerful.

And it doesn't matter that they might not say anything or that they might not know how they're feeling, that's fine.

It's really just that you are modeling that you're interested in number or you're showing that you're interested.

You're modeling the process of reflection.

So, you know, if the, if they are asked how they feel, they will eventually learn to ask themselves, how do I feel?

And it also invites and give.

Sends the message that emotions are welcome.

You know, just this one sentence, and I just think it's so powerful if there's one sort of takeaway.

If somebody is listening, thinking, how do I make this different for my children?

I think just, just add that in whenever you kind of can.

When it feels useful to.

Right.

Or not.

Even when it feels useful, I think just regularly, just to be asking them, how are you feeling about that?

Or how did that feel for you?

It creates this connection which is really what's missing in emotionally immature parenting.

Right.

Because an emotionally immature parent doesn't want to know how it felt.

They won't know what to do with it because they didn't have their emotions invited.

And it was.

They haven't been shown what to do with emotions, basically.

I think that's so key, what you just said there, that they wouldn't know what to do with the emotions.

And especially if you've grown up and you've been told either you're too, too much or you're too sensitive, there's just a lot of kind of criticism and negative, you know, commentary about how you show up in the world, you know, whether you were this or you're that.

And it was just like, it's easier just to sort of quash this situation and, and not even make it a conversation because again, I, I remember having experiences of maybe having emotional outbursts or really venting how I was feeling.

And my parent would say, I can't handle this right now.

This is just too much for me.

Like, you don't know what I'm going through.

I'm going through a lot right now.

I can't deal with this.

I can't handle this.

And so that was, you know, my cue to shut down and go inwards and not have that emotional connection, which there's.

There's a hundred percent a connection there, but it's not the deeper connection.

Emotional connection, which is sad.

And yeah.

And I've had to navigate that.

But, you know, and you know, it is a parenting wound.

Reading your book, I was like, yeah, definitely, need to go back to therapy.

Basically the book highlighted, yes, go back to therapy, but in a good way.

It was, it was a really good way.

And I guess so many of us just want to find that peace.

We want to find our nervous system feeling safe.

Safe.

We want to live in a world where emotions are allowed.

Like again, none of this is about perfection.

This is about just allowing things to be and if someone wants to shout and express how they're feeling, like we have that safety.

But going back to, you know, what we were just saying then, you know, what you've written in your book is we can't do that unless we make space for ourselves.

And whether that is through therapy or finding time to just be on our own or have a walk in nature or heal or find joy or creativity like can't be done in this sort of tiny little vacuum that often we, we find ourselves, you know, in as very busy parents working and holding a.

Lot for everybody and yeah, absolutely.

It's a lot to kind of do but I think it can be just done as you go along.

Right.

We don't have to kind of arrive certainly at the beginning of parenthood all sort of shiny and healed and wonderful.

That doesn't have to happen at all.

We'd learn on the go and it's more powerful that way.

Anyway, yeah, obviously we've talked a huge amount about the book but how can people work with you?

Do you see people one to one, what's the best way?

If people are listening to this and really resonating with your work, what were the next steps?

So I, most of my work is actually online courses so I have an online membership and that contains five of my main courses.

So I like to, I, I have online courses on different topics.

So there's one about self connection, there's one about the mother wound for example, the nervous system.

And they're all kind of self led.

It's me videos talking through all of these concepts and so on.

So I would say that's the most sort of in depth.

But then I do also offer someone to one slot.

I don't have that many but I do offer them online.

So it's that and, and of course the book as well.

What's the website that people can go to?

Ww.breakthecyclecoaching.co.uk yeah, and that is essentially what.

We're trying to do, isn't it?

We are trying to, to break the patterns and the conditioning and the beliefs and all the things that have been maybe weighing us down.

Maybe unconsciously as well.

Not, you know, we've kind of like, maybe realized, but to haven't realized how much our parenting wounding wounds have kind of impacted us.

And I do believe even just the small amount of stuff that I've done around this, it can make you feel a huge amount lighter.

And just the last thing, what I really enjoyed reading about is crying and the tears and the research that is in, you know, having a good cry and the amount of different chemicals or hormones that are found in the tears.

Yeah, and crying is a natural pain killer, all right.

Literally.

Yeah.

Emotional or physical, it's like a great free tool that we have, which unfortunately, sometimes our.

The way we're sort of brought up sometimes disconnects us from that lovely free two.

My kids laugh at me because sometimes I've got three daughters and, and a son, and sometimes I can.

I can see that bottom lip just start going.

And.

And my husband's tendency is sort of, oh, I don't know if I can handle this.

And I'm like, you know, you can cry.

It's good to cry.

And obviously they stop crying.

And they.

And they always say to me, you always want us to cry.

You always push us to cry.

I'm like, because it's a good thing.

It's good to let it go.

Like, why would you not want to have a good cry?

It's therapeutic.

So.

But they sort of shout at me because they may not want to cry in that exact moment, but I would rather help them get out, then, you know, push it down and then suppress it.

So they would shout at me and say, stop trying to make me cry.

No, I think that's definitely a good thing to promote.

Well, thank you so much, Sean.

Sean Morgan Crossley.

I would highly recommend the book.

Really, really enjoyed this conversation.

Thank you.

It feels kind of a little bit like self therapy, but also I hope that it's been a conversation that a lot of other people resonate with, and I do encourage people maybe to check you out on social media as well, because I think there's lots of really, really resonating videos as well.

So thank you so much for your time today.

Thank you so much for having me on.

Thank you for being here and listening to today's episode.

I just want to remind you that if you are looking for more support on your ADHD journey, there are so many resources waiting for you [email protected] so inside the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Workshop library, you'll find practical and compassionate guidance on topics such as nervous system, system regulation, rejection sensitive dysphoria, perfectionism, emotional regulation, hormones, parenting, and so much more.

All designed specifically for late diagnosed neurodivergent women.

You can also explore my new book, the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Toolkit, which was published by dk, which is also available in ebook and audiobook, which is packed full of tools to help you feel calm and calmer, more regulated and more like yourself.

And if you do crave a bit.

More deeper connection and ongoing support, come and join us inside the More Yourself Community.

It's a gentle space for learning, reflection and connection with other neurodivergent women.

And you'll also find the recordings from our first ever ADHD Women's Wellbeing Live event, which brought together incredible speakers and a room full of inspiring women for a truly special day.

We have recorded it all for you and it's there to buy.

So whether you're just starting your journey or looking to go deeper, there's something there for every stage.

Just head to ADHD womenswellbeing.co.uk to explore everything.

And as always, thank you so much for being here and for being part of this community.