How To Be an Emotionally Present Parent

Welcome to Roadmap to Joy. My name is Alex Stavros. I'm the

CEO of Embark Behavioral Health. And today, I'm delighted to have

Andy Mauer with me. One way that I like to talk about what Andy

does is this combination of being a exceptional clinical

therapist, and a great executive coach. And so you've started

this new company that basically combines both of those, how

would you describe what you do?

Sure,

well, I think if I wanted to describe it, I go back a little

bit and give some context. So I'm a former licensed therapist,

went to school practice for a couple of years. And one thing

that I saw, which was a huge gap in the market, especially for

leaders, which is a client that we serve, is that therapy

provided a great service to them in some ways, but there was some

gaps in what therapy had to offer the dual relationship,

they can have relationships outside the office, and some of

how they understood their role as an executive or as a leader,

a lot of therapists and understand them, and a lot of

ways it was issue context based, but it wasn't contextualized

around leadership for them. So I thought, you know, then I

started looking at executive coaching roles. And I realized,

Oh, really great things there for these leaders. But they had

a hard time dropping below the line on some of these

subconscious issues that are going on, which really drives a

lot of the functional issues above the line. So I saw two

main services that were offered for executive leaders, both good

but both incomplete for the life of this leader. So we bridged

those two, I jumped out being a therapist and I became a coach.

And then we started Pursue Whole, me and my wife, we co

was opportune timing, because it just seemed like in that season,

leaders needed a lot of support with all the chaos that was

going on. So we are a coaching business, but we we are

transitioning into a lifestyle brand that helps leaders pursue

wholeness in their life, leadership and relationships.

And we serve three primary leaders, we serve leaders in the

business community, in the entertainment industry, and also

professional athletes. There are some similarities between all

those and some differences.

So the name of the company pursue whole. Obviously, we know

what pursue means. What is whole, why the word whole? Where

does it come from? And what does it mean within the context of

your work?

Yeah, well, wholeness means completeness. And that word, if

you look all the way back comes from the word shalom, which is a

Hebrew word, which most people understand is peace. But

actually, it means completeness, and not just completeness and

family, not just completeness and business, not just

completeness, financially, but kind of a whole rounded person.

So when we talk about wholeness, there are really two parts of

the leader that we're trying to integrate. And by integrate, I

mean to bring together as one complete whole, they have their

highperformance part, which is driven logical, linear, it gets

a lot of stuff done, it drives the boat for but then they have

their more emotional umbrella relational part, which is more a

better at relationships and connection, it connects with

their children, it connects with their purpose, their meaning and

their why. So you have these two parts, and oftentimes, they

operate very separate from one another. So when I sit down with

leaders, they will describe that if they were driving a car, the

high performance part is driving the car 95 to 99% of the time,

they're just hustling through, well, that a more emotional part

doesn't even get a seat in the car gets put in the trunk,

right, they just keep pushing it down, pushing it to the side,

because they see that as a problem to their performance,

when really, it's one of the greatest assets to their

performance. They just don't know that. So wholeness is

really taking these two parts and bringing them together so

that leaders can live a whole life one that's integrated from

both their performance part, but also this more deeply integrated

emotional part.

Yeah.

How do you live life with both of those parts? versus just

having your high performer drive?

Yeah, you know, I've I've definitely experienced that,

that when I'm trying to perform well, or I need a certain

result, there are certain things I need to turn off. And there's

certain things I need to tell myself and it has to do a lot of

it is about grit and resilience and withstand the pain and maybe

feeling some emotions, but getting them getting over it

really quick, because I have to when you talk about athletes, to

athletes very much out of this way you can have right before

the game some stress and anxiety, but when it's game

time, it's crunch time, it's game, you got to be all about

focus, and you got to remove all that noise. But often what I

find is that may help in certain periods of time and sometimes

longer periods of time to perform or achieve certain

results. But there's a lack of meaning and purpose over time

that starts to build and you start to feel empty. And then

you start to get these achievements and these results

and you're like, what's there and Part of it is because you're

not bringing your full self, there are certain parts that

you're just closing out that you're shutting down. And, and

those parts are actually where all this purpose and meaning

comes for why we're alive why we do what we do.

Now, I would absolutely 100% agree. And I think what leaders

are trying to do most of the time is they locked into that

high performer and they achieve high levels of success. But then

they lose the most important things in life on their on their

journey to success, they lose their sense of purpose and

meaning their their family connection connections with

kiddos. So what we describe is, it's really normal natural

stress is a very good thing we've talked about that before.

Stress helps us lock into the zone lock into flow. It allows

us to perform at optimum levels. But when that stress becomes

toxic stress, when it overflows, and it becomes a lifestyle

stress, it really deteriorates our ability to perform at

optimum levels. So typically, for leaders, I'll say what we

need to do is we need to have a Windows of high performance, but

not a lifestyle of high performance, because you have to

have both an active life, which is the pursuing great things,

pursuing more pushing yourself beyond your limits, but you also

have the passive life, which is the ability to slow down and

actually have empathy when your spouse shares that they're

having a hard day or being able to watch your kid and connect

with your child as they play or engage with something. These are

two different parts of the brain. And yeah, we don't create

windows of rest, we create lifestyles of stress. And that

is detrimental to not only performance, but also to finding

a purposeful and joyful life.

Yeah. So Andy, what got you into originally what got you into

wanting to be a clinical therapist?

Well, part of my expertise in this journey has been actually

engaging in therapy my whole life. So I've had a therapist

off and on for the last decade and a half of my life. And

that's really helped me address below the line issues in a lot

of really, really helpful ways. As a kiddo, you're just kind of

running through life trying to have fun and play and there's

hard things going on. And but as I got older, a lot of the hard

things that happen in childhood started become more front, top

of mind, I started to think about the more I started a

process, the more and one of the difficult things that came up

for me was I had a condition called hyperhidrosis. And about

one to 2% of the population has this condition. And it's sort of

my hands on my armpits and my feet would sweat profusely. And

to the point where I would go to school and I'd have these huge

rings of sweat my armpits, I'd have to take multiple shirts,

you'd never wear gray, you always wear black or white,

because sweat doesn't show on black or white. I had like all

this in my head, socially to think about how do I become

accepted in the circles that I'm a part of. And I feel like I

never want to touch people, because as soon as I shake their

hand, they go, Oh, that's really gross. So I just felt very

ashamed about my body's natural response to stress and how it

would sweat. And what was so frustrating to me was I didn't

do anything to get that. It's like something happened to me.

And I didn't get a choice on whether I wanted that to happen

or not. And it's just my body's response. So what was really

difficult about that, as I couldn't even do my homework at

school, I had to constantly wipe my hands and kind of shake my

hands. And it made me go really internal. I was a very social

kid, I loved connecting with people, but I couldn't do it in

the way that I want to. So as time went on, I had to really

process some of the pain around that some of the social

isolation that I felt and I eventually convinced my parents

to go and get a surgery for this procedure that now I don't sweat

on my hands on my armpits anymore, I still sweat on my

feet. But that allowed me to really branch out and then find

more connections, it was a really helpful thing for me. But

as I branched out, I started to realize, oh, there's a lot of

painful things for me in my past that I had to work through,

whether it's relationships with family, whether it's views I had

on myself, where there's different addictions that I had

to address. And as I went through that process, the most

helpful thing for me was being able to just have someone to

talk to like these older wiser mentors that I could just sit

with and process about what I felt, why I felt it and almost

get it out in real time. And that was very helpful for me to

have relationships in my life that helped support me and after

that process, I thought, you know, I want to do some really

impactful work in the world. So I actually went back to school

to ASU got my exercise and wellness degree and I wanted to

do personal training. I wanted to help people feel good in

their body because exercise was a really great way for me to

heal my relationship with my body. I know for a lot of people

they have unhealthy behaviors around exercise for me it was a

way that I could feel confident about my body as a way after all

this hyperhidrosis it was a way that I could reconnect with my

body after feeling like my body had betrayed me in away. So I

went back and I became a personal trainer. And I loved

training people, I started my own company, I learned about

business during that time started training leaders and

companies and their employees. But part of the breakdown there

was I was helping people physically feel good on the

outside and look good, but internally, emotionally, they

were still really struggling, you know, there's eating

disorders going on, and there's lots of stuff coming up. And I'm

like, Man, I don't think making someone look good on the outside

is gonna resolve what's going on on the inside. So then I did

some deeper work. And I went back to school and got my

counseling degree because I wanted to do even deeper work on

myself and others. And that's really what led me into therapy,

to really make this deep seated change impact, because I saw,

you know, especially in the leadership community, all

they're fed is do more, do more, read this book, perform at

higher levels, have this hack, be productive in this area, it's

encouraging them to just do more, but it's not slowing them

down to assess what's actually going on below the line. And

oftentimes, I found that these leaders are really honest, they

would say, I don't know what's going on below the line. It's

like they're on a treadmill that's going 100 miles per hour.

And there are team members and family members and board members

who are pushing the speed up on the treadmill. So they keep

running faster. And they run on it because they don't know

anything better. But what they crave is to have someone tell

them, you don't have to be on that treadmill anymore, you can

come off, take a break, get set, and then go back on the

treadmill and run with better intention and purpose and

meaning.

Yeah, yeah, I appreciate you sharing that. I think that

there's a lot about work and leadership that is compensating

for issues that we haven't resolved or addressed this in.

So often. There are issues that we're not even aware of. And you

took the time to start to explore these that just opened

up this whole new world. And seems like that this is a gift

you want to give back that I was able to do this work and this

introspection to understand what was making me tick and what was

driving me. And I see so many other leaders out there that

haven't gotten in touch with that yet. And you can live so

much more of a purposeful, meaningful and whole life, if

you are aware of these issues, and integrated them more. How do

you feel like that, for you personally, that journey has

impacted the relationship with your wife with your kids?

It's huge. I mean, it's it's everything. When I went through

this process of healing, and I'm still in this process of

healing, one area that I had to face was my need to define

myself based on my performance that I did not feel. At times

people wanted me for who I was as a person, they wanted me

because of what I was able to produce for them. And as I've

really learned over the last decade to unpeel those layers

and really actually like myself and like who I am and feel proud

about who I am and understand my unique abilities and how to be

content, I'm able to be really present with my wife, I'm able

to be really present. I think when she comes to me with an

issue about me, I think before I would have been a lot more

defensive because I was trying to say hey, look at all the

stuff that I'm doing I'm What do you want me to do more because I

was so much in my head around, I am my behavior, I am my

performance. But now I can take a step back much more not every

time. But I can take a step back and go, Okay, she's not

attacking my identity. She's bringing up an issue in some of

my character, my behavior that I need to address, and I'm willing

to shift and address that listen with empathy and maybe

understand what it's like for her on her side. For my kiddos,

I think the biggest thing that I've learned is I stopped

pushing them. And I stopped pushing them around their

performance as a way to help them essentially feel good about

themselves. So I think before I would have really pushed my kids

to behave a certain way, or show up a certain way or be really

good at certain things. And now I can just delight my kids a lot

more. I can look at them. And I can actually learn to discover

who they are uniquely. And it is a privilege. Like it's such a

joy, to not care how my kids behave in front of other people

or what they're struggling with. My greatest desire is that

someday when my kids come to me which they will, and they talk

about their pain in my heart of how I hurt them, I'm going to be

in a position to say thank you for sharing that with me. I

accept that I would love to learn how to love you better

through this process. But if I don't do this deep work, I'm

going to come off defensive or worse yet, I'm not even going to

have a safe context and relationship with them where

they feel safe to come to me and talk to me about their issues. I

can't tell her tell you how many leaders I talked to who want

deep connection with their kids and try to force that, like, sit

down and talk to me what's going on? Well, part of the reason why

sometimes I feel like these kids don't want to talk to their

parents is because these parents are not nice to themself, that

kids can read nonverbal cues, they can read whether a parent

loves himself as kind of themselves as compassionate with

themselves. And if a parent is harsh with themselves and pushes

themselves to perform, the kid knows, if I open up, my parents

gonna push me. So you got to create a safe context. And the

best way to create a safe context for marriage or kiddos,

is for you to create a safe context inside of yourself with

yourself do that deep inner healing work

like that you said, you know that there's a period of time,

it's still, there still is, I'm sure, just as it is, for me and

all of us where our focus on our kids is about them, performing

them, achieving them getting grades, getting, getting getting

on the team, being seen as Don't make a fool of yourself in

public. And I love what you said about versus delighting in them.

Yes.

And the reality is, is that when we delight in them, it's about

What I also love about what you're sharing is, we're all we

Yes.

will often spend time with with our parents for programs is

making them understand this idea of trying to eliminate any

enmeshment, any of this idea that the kid doesn't know where

the relationship or the person begins or ends. And like you

said is they often won't go to you because they're already

subconsciously realizing that you're overwhelmed, you're

stressed, you're pushing yourself, you're you're tough on

yourself. And so therefore I should be able to deal with this

stuff. But when you're only 7, 8, 10, 12, 15 years old, you

shouldn't, and you can't physically from a nervous

system, from a brain perspective, deal with those

things on your own. And your point is, is it's not about

going to help your kid it's about helping yourself, because

as soon as you're able to resolve those things, that kid

starts to feel those things you start to, you're now more

available, your issues aren't being placed on the kid on the

on your child and you can, that gives you the opportunity to

delight in that relationship more and delight in them.

Because you've done your own work, you know, where you're you

begin to you end. it's not that this idea of that if my kids,

okay, and we'd like to talk about this right? If my kids,

okay, I'm okay, if my kids happy, I'm happy, as this

explanation of that's what a good parent does. Whereas a good

parent really probably needs to create separation, to know that

you be your healthy whole self. And if you're you're healthy

house out whole self, that's the best parent you can be,

you're talking a lot about identity and a lot of ways for

parents parents place our identity in, leaders can place

their identity in lots of different ways. But one is

through their performance. The other one is through the size of

their company, or how much money they make, or you know how well

they're known. They also can place that in their family, they

put an immense amount of pressure on their family to hold

an image that they need for the perception that they want to

have. And a lot of that is around a deep insecurity around

their image of who they really are, they don't know who they

are. So they try to construct that through having control over

their environment, because they feel very out of control

internally. One thing that can come up for leaders is when they

feel out of control, instead of breathing and calming down and

acknowledging man, I feel really overwhelmed right now I feel

anxious or afraid. Instead, what they'll do is they'll push that

down, and then they'll control everybody in their life, though,

you know, clean their house, or they'll tell their kids to get

an order or they'll tell their spouse to look a certain way or

they'll you know, force their team members to be a certain

way, all with this attempt to try to soothe something inside.

And I think it does go back to identity because they they don't

know who they are, where they're headed, why they're headed

there, and what's purposeful and meaningful in life. And the

them. And all that other stuff is about us, it's about our

reason why that's hard to identify is because like we

talked about at the beginning, those answers are built inside

of that emotional and relational part of them

that they're pushing it down.

They're pushing down all the time. It's totally so they're

tired, they're tapped out, they're exhausted. They're blown

up at their kids and then they wonder man, why can't Why do I

feel so depressed? Why do I feel not excited about life or not

happy or what Does it feel blah? Well, because the part that is

there to experience joy and happiness and connection is

constantly like you're saying being pushed down. So this was

way where we have to slow down to pump the brakes, to discover

that this parts there and actually value it for what it

brings to the table. One way, I described this as thinking about

a company with two different co founders, you know, we use a

model called Eos, which is a visionary integrator model,

which is very helpful for us and our team to define different

roles and how they complement each other. And me and my wife

are co founders, and we have very different gifts. Now, if I

went into the company, I said, I'm the CEO, my guests are

better than your gifts, you stay in the background, I never want

to hear from you. Well, a company would be really

unbalanced and really unhealthy in ways. Same thing if she did

that to me. So really, the best company is us coming together

and actually seen each other's gifts and values. And then

operating as a complete whole, to pursue overall success, not

just access for one founder, the other founder is very similar in

families as well with parents, but also internally with this

high performer and this emotional part.

So I think this is relevant because at Embark a lot of our

parents, our leaders, our athletes, or leaders in

government and business, and they're achieving they're

performing. And for a kid, just the mere fact of a parent being

successful. And performing puts pressure on them, yes, then the

parent doesn't even need to say anything that puts this light on

the kid. Whereas maybe they're not good enough, or maybe

they're not loved or maybe they're not accepted. And often

that achieving performing parent is in this, like you said, this

mode, that becomes this lifestyle of achievement and

performance that is everywhere. Yeah. So they go from wherever

they are at work to at home, no second now in my family, you all

need to perform and achieve. Whereas I as a kid am all

already feeling, in a way not accepted. And what I need most

from you is to come and just love me and be with me that

provides that foundation, even though you may want the best for

me, and you may want me to perform, and an excel and

achieve. What happens is I don't feel accepted, I don't feel

loved, I don't feel worthy, I feel shame, I don't feel

valuable,

which is things that are getting from the world all the time when

they're out there. And I think one thing that I hear from

leaders, Alex is that they want their kids to be, you know,

they're these high driven entrepreneurs and leaders, they

understand grit and tenacity. They've gotten where they are

because of their action. And they want to instill that in

issues. It's about how we're trying to compensate. And

their kids, you know, they want to instill this survival, like

push through, be gritty, do the hard thing. Listen, life has

already given that to them all the time, all the time, what

they don't have is they don't have a safe place to be known

and whole and to be unconditionally loved. So if

you're gonna bend in one direction or the other, the

world is already pushing all that on them. Why don't you

provide a safe context for them to come back to we call that

home base? Provide a safe home base, which has everything to do

with your ability to provide that for yourself? Yeah, so if

you can't give that to yourself, how on earth are you going to

provide us home home bases safe, unconditional love for for your

children. But if I was to lean to one side or the other,

provide that kind of context, rather than just always wanting

to push your kids for more?

Yeah, well, I think it's particularly relevant right now,

where, as you mentioned, all of those, all that pressure and

stress, there's all this comparison, because of all this

information that creates this stress. So often, we'll go home,

and our parents want to build more grit and resilience and

want us to perform and achieve. And they're often not present,

either because they're still stressed out and they're on

their phone, or the kids don't have that base, that foundations

to deal with all that stress that's coming from society.

You know, it's so interesting, Alex, as you talk about the

struggles and stressors of children, and you just name some

of those things of the impact of social media and you know,

everybody knows what grade you're, what grade you have, and

the pressure leaders face the same things, but in different

contexts kind of dawns on me this reality that what these

adolescents in these children are struggling with adults face

those same struggles. And I think that's a real beautiful

way to enter into empathy with our children, is to recognize

that oh, man, I know what it's like to be in a group of people

where, you know, I'm trying to position myself having the best

company or people know who I am or they know the pressures that

I face are very similar struggles different contexts.

And I think that can bridge this empathy to enter into those

struggles with your children.

Yeah.

And then and just knowing that children's children don't have

the neurobiological capacity to deal with the same amount of

stress and adult us simply because our nervous system and

brain has developed. I think the other thing that's interesting

is that I'd be curious to know is, to what extent when we

talked about that child who's at home, who wants nothing more

than their, their father, mother to delight in them, but instead

of comes home to put to to have expectations about achievement

and performance? And they start to feel shame and not accepted?

because I don't want my kid throwing a temper tantrum at the

To what extent do you see in your leaders, that their

performance, their pursuit, for achievement, actually, deep down

comes from that same experience they had with their father or

mother or parents, where they didn't feel love and feel

accepted? And they feel that by achieving and performing is what

makes me feel better, or even just just like drugs may or

alcohol may cover up that hurt? Yes, that if I continue to work

hard, I'm always busy. And I'm going to, I don't need to deal

with that underlying pain, that I just don't feel accepted, and

it comes from, so they just simply are repeating what they

experienced? How often do you see that in your coaching with

leaders?

Man, I see that a lot. And it doesn't mean that every parents,

you know, devastated the life of these entrepreneurs. But

parental dynamics are absolutely huge. They shape our brain, they

form our brain at an early stage on how we think about ourselves,

you know, let's take drinking and alcohol. For example, if you

have a parent who's an alcoholic, they're notoriously

never going to be attuned to your emotional needs, right?

They're always going to be checking out through alcohol to

numb and to go to that escapism, so they're not going to be

present with what you need as a child or who you are. Well, it's

interesting, because a lot of leaders who have parents who are

alcoholics, what do they do to themselves, they neglect their

own needs. They turn away from their own needs, they don't know

what they feel, they don't know what they want. And they're so

focused on achievement or other people that if you sit down with

them, and you say, how are you doing today? What do you feel

like you need in life that like I don't, I don't know what I

need. So in some ways, they're parenting themselves the same

way that they got parented. And I think for leaders, what I want

you to do is to sit back and reflect how was I parented? And

how am I parenting myself the same way? And then how am I

parenting my children the same way? It's rare if I sit down

with a leader, and I asked them, Did your parents help you

understand what you felt? Why you fell to? And where you could

connect that in your body? No hands go up. Okay, no hands go

up. And yet children, and they're like, oh, that's normal

that, you know, my parents weren't attuned emotionally.

Well, I'm just letting you know that for children. That's not

that's a non negotiable need. Okay, that's part of emotional

development, that's not a nice to have, that's a have to have

in order to develop and not having that as what we would

define as emotional neglect this ability to not have that

attunement, or that emotional regulation. So part of that is

to just step back and go, Oh, my gosh, what if I didn't get that?

How am I going to give that to my family and my children? You

can't pass downstream what was never upstream. So you have to

stop and do this hard work of going wow, how do I now?

Identify what I feel? Is it sadness is a fears anger?

Where's it in my body? It's in my chest. My chest is racing.

What is it? Oh, that's anxiety, Oh, my stomach is churning Oh, I

must be afraid. Just simply naming that city with that

feeling that is a way to retrain those centers of our brain, and

then you know, what's going to happen? You see your children,

and he's acting out. And you can see beyond just the behavior and

you go, Oh, I see. You know, they're frantic. I know, they

restaurant, is because I don't want people to look at me and

have a big day at school tomorrow. Sit down with them.

Are you a little bit nervous, buddy? Yeah, I'm really nervous.

There's this, there's this bully as Oh, okay, I can tell that

you're trying to move that out through your body, you're trying

to get it out all that anger. So you help them connect with what

they feel that really calms their brain. So now what you

did, you didn't get it, but you can give it to yourself. And now

you can give it to your children and create a lasting impact

relationship, Joy connection. And guess what, your children

are going to be able to pass it down the chain now because you

gave it to him. And it's never too late for this. I don't care

if you're 70 years old. You have children. I don't care if your

child is 60 years old, you can still pass down some of these

learnings to them

Yeah, you know, I think there's, there's this. There's this

saying that people don't do drugs to get high. They do drugs

to escape the lows. And I think a lot of it's similar from a

work perspective. And a leader who's achieving as we don't

necessarily work to perform, to achieve or to win, but it's to

not fail, not lose and so we Keep on going keep on going,

because we don't want to feel those things. It's just a, just

a different addiction. And if we can't be present in that moment,

because we're achieving and working, and we're just on this

go mode perform mode all the time, because we don't want to

confront those feelings. And we're in that mode all the time

when we go home. And what our kids need most from us is to be

present with them in those emotions that we aren't able to

be present with for ourselves, we're not going to see it, we're

not going to, we're not going to realize it. The meanwhile you

have your child who's already struggling from all the

pressures and the stress of society, and they can't handle

it, they can't keep it together, and we can't see it because we

can't see it in ourselves, then we're not able to be the parent

that our child needs.

And and I would even say the parent that I believe a lot of

these leaders want to be, I don't think any leader wakes up

in the morning and says, Boy, I want a really bad relationship

with my child, I don't want them to do I want them to, you know,

yell at me, or I want to yell at them today, or I want to be

disconnected from them. And 20 years No, all leaders want deep

connection, they really do. They just don't know how to get

there. And the point that you're talking about with substances, I

think we could apply to the life of a leader around. One author

stated that leaders numb their pain through the narcotic of

action, that when we slow down, we have to feel because we have

to feel in our body, we have to fill a heart race and we have to

fill our shoulders tense. And we know as a child, there are

moments that we had to rush through that we felt those same

emotions that tension, that fear. And we didn't like that.

So we disconnected we got away from about here, we got busy, we

spent money we went to alcohol. So what's so hard is action is a

narcotic, that keeps us away from feeling our pain. And the

opposite of action is to pause and to rest. And that is a

trigger for a lot of leaders bore I'll tell you the word

think that I'm a bad parent. It's, and we get this often with

boredom, terrifies leaders to be bored. And yet, children are

bored all the time. It's called Play and creativity. It's it's

natural, and it's healthy for the human brain. And we've we've

lost the capacity to be bored as leaders, I think, because we're

afraid of that state of feeling. And yet, if we don't face that

state of feeling we can never develop into the leader we're

built to be. And we can never create lasting impact in the

families that we currently have responsibility

over.

YYeah, you know, the the rest of the pause. There was a leader I

was hearing from the other day who talked about this, this time

in life where they felt they were describing it as empty and

down, and specifically said not really depressed, just kind of

empty and down. And they said that they what they realize the

cause was, was that they, they didn't have this their routine

of Back to Back meetings and back to back intensity from the

minute they wake up to the minute they went down. And

they're like, that's where I felt alive. And I missed that.

So I need to go find that again. When the reality was no, that

that's covering up that that moment when you are feeling

there's there isn't anything inherently wrong with sad

feelings. So with the idea of feeling depressed or being

depressed, if there's anything wrong with it is it's one we

don't, we aren't able to sit in it, we aren't able to accept it

as part of us. Yes. And so this leader basically was saying, I

noticed that there was something wrong with me. And so therefore

to shut that out. Yeah, I got really busy again. Oh, and

that said, Chief Performance Officer, that's that high

performer. It's, it feels the emotional relational part. And

what it wants to do is it wants to take and it wants to push it

down, and then get back to action. It's narcotic. That is a

trauma response. Okay. And so trauma response, so I don't care

how you slice it. You can call it trauma, stress,

discouragement, whatever you want to slice it. But what we

know from trauma is that we disconnect from our feelings in

our body when we're under intense levels of stress that

tie back to moments in our life where we don't want to feel

those anymore. We're talking about trauma responses. And yet

in society, we don't typically like that word, because it's

over. You know, it's charged. But the reality is that all of

us have trauma. And even if you feel like you just want to

define it as stress, look up the term toxic stress, and we'll see

those very correlated to this idea of trauma essentially, is

overloading our body and our brain, which has lasting impacts

on us emotionally, socially, and relationally.

Yeah, yeah, I like I think it was Bessel Vander Kolk, who

defined trauma as the boss inability to integrate an

adverse experience. And so the reality is all of us have had

traumas all of us are traumatized in a whole variety

of different ways. There are just certain experiences,

adverse experiences of life that you haven't integrated,

different ones that I haven't. And it's all different, but

we're all living in. In this, this space of integration, an

integration and disintegration of life experience, in that idea

with our treatment programs, too, or therapy is that parents

of wholeness is, how do we take those pieces and continue to

bring them together

real together, heal them and integrate them, you know, what I

think that, you know, this leader have about you know, that

that action is the narcotic and that if we stay busy if we

continue to achieve if we continue to win. It's not

necessarily because that I want that it's that I don't want

these other things, these other parts of me that I think are

less, either the feelings of sadness, or that trauma, or that

early childhood experience, or that kid, when I was little,

that I hate, I don't like what it mean, when I was little kid,

that kid that was bullied that didn't, that didn't stand up for

himself. I don't like that kid, that kid's not me. And I'm gonna

put him over there. Even though almost everything I'm doing is

all about that kid is about getting as far away from that

kid as possible. So I say has nothing to do with that kid. But

it has everything to do with that kid. Yeah. And so bringing

that kid closer, but then what we do at home, too, is when

we're not feeling like we're doing well as parents, more

action, more activities for the kids, let's get up, let's get

out. Let's get them to the more sports, let's get them. We have

to make sure that that makes me feel better, too. And so now all

of a sudden, everything is busy, our whole life is busy. We're

all moving, nobody's slowing down to be present, and

ourselves with our emotions. And so now now, not only do we have

this stress and anxiety, but our kids have this stress and

anxiety, nobody's really confronting their depression.

Until at one point for somebody, it blows up, we have a crisis,

and it doesn't have to blow up and get to crisis mode. I think

the biggest thing that I want to communicate to leaders, even

today is like everybody struggles, everybody's having a

hard time. And to give you as a leader permission to recognize

that your kids are struggling, probably your spouse is

struggling, probably you are struggling. It's because you're

human, nothing's wrong with you. And for a lot of time, I think

leaders put themselves in boxes, like this alpha, this inability

to be human. And yet, all leaders struggle, all leaders

need, need safe context to process and share. Embark

Behavioral Health is a beautiful place that creates a space for,

for kids and adolescents to have that safe place to process what

they need to move through in order to find joy and happiness.

And in a productive and successful life. Leaders, you

need that too. You need that to you deserve to have that space.

And yet, what I found is that the business community, this

high pressure communities, not going to give that to you. If

anything, it's going to require more of you, it's going to take

you. So you really got to find those spaces where you can be

honest about what's going on inside. And part of it just

starts with one person start having a conversation.

So tell me, Andy, I'm curious, you know, you've worked with

lots of leaders and as is that often, many, many of the parents

that have kids that are in our programs or outpatient clinics,

residential programs, our leaders have have a lot of

pressure, a lot of expectations. And as we were discussing, the

first step really is for them to do their own work, and for them

to focus on their wholeness in your work with all the different

have a stigma around finding a therapist or help for their

leaders, if you could find that kind of that one thing that you

feel like is the most that most consistently comes up. That's

preventing these leaders from being whole. What would you say

that that one thing is that's preventing them from becoming

whole? And then the second question is, what do you think

the one thing is that caused this? The one main thing you see

over and over again, that caused this lack of integration? So

there's the aspect of what's preventing me from being whole?

And then there's this aspect of well, what caused this

disintegration from the first place? What would you say from

your experience are though, are

those?

Yeah, it's a great question. And that's a hard question, because

there are a lot of different facets, but if I could narrow it

down to kind of a core, it would be this idea of disintegration

or fragmentation. That as kiddos we're born into this world with

a synonymous identity of who we are, and we're not. posturing.

We're not putting on a front. Yet. We go through hard things

and then we realize, oh, the most vulnerable parts of myself.

I can't just have those out all the time. I have to have some

things thinking whether it's my performance or protection, or my

charisma or my happiness or sarcasm, come in front to block

that. And I would say as time goes on, that gets further and

further away from each other that emotional depth that

connection, that vulnerability gets farther and farther as you

perform more as your more sarcastic as you deflect more as

you defend more. And overtime, I think the core issue that these

leaders are facing is disintegrated that this

integration that these parts are so divided, that their families

are falling apart, they have no relationship with their

children. They struggled to lead well, they're having blow ups

with people, they feel depressed, they feel lost, they

don't know how to say no, because instead of working as a

complete whole, where these parts are integrated and working

well together, one part is driving the bus, which is that

high performer 99% of the time, and they don't even know how to

find anymore. The emotional vulnerable parts like it got

locked away, and they don't even know they have it. And they

don't know where it is, and they don't know how to access it. So

all they can give is more, do more. I can't offer empathy, I

can't connect, I can't slow down. And that's an exhausting

life for leaders. So that's probably the biggest thing that

I see. And what needs to happen there is first they got to come

into a safe enough space where they can process that slow that

part down a little bit, do some discovery work to realize, oh,

there is this part inside of me here it is, this is what it

feels like to allow that come up to see that it might have value

for creativity and innovation and purpose and meaning. And

then figure out how to live life with these parts integrated. So

one way we do that through our processes, we help leaders craft

a five year vision on who they want to be. Because leaders have

kids, because they feel like that's tells me that I'm a bad

spent their entire life becoming what other people want them to

be, whether it's their business or board members or partners or

kiddos, they just mold and mesh to everybody. Because they don't

know who they are. So we really help them craft this vision of

what's five years out, who do you want to be? What do you want

to feel on the inside? What do you want to have other people

feel when they're in your presence. And then out of that

we call them to action. Now you can run. Now you can lock in

that high performer and just go crazy, because now you have

clarity about where you're headed and why. But first, you

got to step back and get that identity. So that's kind of what

I see and where where we typically take people from

there. But where that begins is, like I said really early on in

life. As children, we have these overwhelming experiences that

happen either emotionally or physically or spiritually. And

like you said, we don't know what to do with them. And then

we don't have a safe person to process it with. So where does

it go, it doesn't come out of our body, it doesn't come out of

our mouth or through our actions, because people tell us,

Oh, you're not allowed to get angry like that, shut it down,

you're not allowed to cry, stop crying. So everything that wants

to come out in our body, or words or tears or anger is told

to be put back inside. And when it's told to be put back inside,

we start to become disconnected from who we are and what we

feel. And then we have to perform and be what everyone

wants us to be. And that is the identity crisis that happens

early on. Yeah, is we become what everybody else wants us to

become. But we forget about who we truly are. And the best

leaders, the best leaders are those people who are connected

to who they are, what they want to accomplish in life purpose

and meaning and then they tap into that high performer who

just drives that bus. And it's beautiful. Yeah, but without

that it's just chaos every day all day long.

It's just amazing that that our early, our early life

experiences, how much of that drives, but it's should be

natural to we talk about human development is that you're

building on these experiences, and those early life experiences

are the most formative. And, and the positive experiences and

adverse experiences, the traumas, and particularly those

around relationships, the emotional traumas, the emotional

experiences start to define who we are. And later on in life, we

behave in certain ways we, we do certain things based off those

experiences that so many of them, we just want to Shut, shut

out. And so many of them to where we're, for whatever

reason, because of society or what it means to succeed as is.

We don't want to share them. We don't want to expose them, we

want to hide them, which becomes this issue of vulnerability so

often with parents what I find is or even as a leader, when a

leader is able to say that, you know, I just I just don't think

that you know that. I think I'm a fraud. I don't think people

know that. I have no idea what I'm doing and And then you start

parent. And so often we want to focus on hey, we're doing this

to share that. And then it's that vulnerability. And

especially, first of all, the fact that you share it because

so many people tell themselves this, these different types of

messages don't do themselves. And that's what they don't like,

what that one that message. So they said, Well, how do I turn

that off, so then no do things to turn that off. So they're

already telling themselves these messages that are based off

early life experiences, and those messages are perfectly

fine if we would only realize that we all feel them. And but

we need to be in a relationship in an environment that's safe,

that allows me to actually verbalize it. And with somebody

else that responds in a way, where I still feel accepted. So

with our parents, for example, is so often is, is so many of

them feel like they're a bad parent. And that I caused this.

And this is why my child is depressed, or this is why my

child is thinking about suicide or attempted suicide, it's

because of me, it's my fault. And I already feel this. And I'm

already telling myself this. And I think other people think that

of me too. But I don't like to accept that. So I'm going to

start to behave and I'm going to start to fix try to fix my kid

or address it, to push away that feeling. But if I can get just

get to a place of vulnerability, to communicate these things. The

healing journey starts. It's amazing to know that. And also,

as you've probably experienced in rooms with CEOs that I've

been on with you all the sudden everybody was like, shoot,

everybody feels the same way I do is like we all feel the same

things. The why are we all trying to hide them a cover up?

Same as parents, we all feel like we're not good parents, who

here feels like they're the best parent ever is nobody raises

their hands, then we start to be vulnerable. And it's not about

putting up this front and this performing as a parent

performing as a leader. Why is it so hard to be vulnerable? As

a parent as a leader? What Why do you think that vulnerability

is so difficult,

we're taught that our needs need to be pushed down, or that our

needs were never met. Why would I ask for something, if I'm

pretty convinced that no one's going to come and meet that

need? You know, if, if a child keeps getting hurt, and they

cry, and no one attunes to those tears, they'll stop crying.

Because what's the point of crying if no one's going to

attune to that. And what you're describing resonates with what I

described earlier, which is, we are taught from an early age who

we're supposed to be and who we're not supposed to be. And

unfortunately, for men and women and for leaders, we're not

taught to express what we feel. So we get to this point. Now,

you know, you're saying we need to be in this vulnerable place

where we can process and open up. But when you have decades,

trained, subconscious thoughts of, well, it's not safe to share

what I feel because every time I did in the past, someone told me

to put it back inside or I'm a sissy, or, you know, you're too

much. So we just think, oh, man, I'd got to just carry this on my

own. So one is finding good contacts and safe people to do

that with, I wouldn't open up and share, you know, what's

going on inside of myself. It's just everybody. But I resonate

with what you're saying that, you know, as a parent, as a

leader, I struggle in immense ways. There are days when I

because we love our kids.

stepped back, and I feel the shame of my behavior and my

mistakes. And I have to work through that. For me, I take

great pride and knowing that I don't just push those down, I

actually address those and I lean into those. And that's

partly why we built pursue whole named it pursue whole, it's not

arriving at wholeness, it's not getting to the point of the

journey where you're fixed, it's pursuing wholeness, which is,

this way of being this vulnerability is not a choice

you make once this is a decision you make of a lifestyle. This is

a way you determined to live your life. If you're in this

journey of wholeness or emotional health, to get an

outcome, you will lose. Okay? Because it's gonna get really,

really hard. This journey of emotional health is actually way

harder in some ways and just numbing everything you got to

feel you got to deal but the benefits of it are amazing. So

part of this is this is a lifelong journey. And in that

lifelong journey, you will make mistakes one of our mottos that

pursue whole is pain is a pathway to growth, we're a

strong believer that you will experience pain and you will

mess up and you will struggle and if you can integrate that

and if you can own that, be honest about that. That is

really what produces the most beautiful growth inside of you

as a leader. And as a parent.

Awesome. Thanks, Andy. Appreciate your time. Appreciate

our relationship. And thanks, everybody for listening in on

this episode of Roadmap to Joy. You can find more of our

podcasts on everywhere you where you can see podcasts. We're also

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your time. Good to see