Unfinished Business From Childhood Trauma - 3 Examples

hey everybody welcome back to the channel i hope you're well and this video is all about unfinished business left over from our childhood trauma one of the two primary goals in the childhood trauma work that i do is finishing business with our family system of origin it's the first goal and the second goal is reclaiming intimacy down the road i'll probably do a video on the reclaiming intimacy part but this video is going to get all into the nuts and bolts of unfinished business what it looks like what it means and what's good to kind of know about it if we grew up in childhood trauma and abuse defining what our unfinished business is is is super helpful because it's another layer of added awareness that we need to shift out of stuck places or to be more in our best inner adult self and even better like stop a lot of unnecessary suffering that we put ourselves through because of our childhood trauma which that sounds pretty good so the type of trauma work that i do is called the rrp model which was developed by my mentor amanda curtin you can check out an interview that i did with her over here or somewhere up here in that model the idea of unfinished business is that the inner child is trying to resolve their childhood trauma by people and situations in the present but it never works and in fact it causes more dysfunction in our lives so exploring unfinished business and how the inner child is attempting that when we have no inner adult present how that all kind of plays out here's a really bad analogy on this one it's like trying to return socks that you bought online at your local hardware store like both places sell stuff but trying to return it at a hardware store is probably not going to work out so well and the inner child who looks through the lens of trauma at the present just keeps trying to make it work like the inner child is like dude why can't you just accept these socks bro and that's what i mean about dysfunction in the present or you'll hear me say in the video like kind of barking up the wrong tree for example many trauma survivors will give a lot of power to authority figures in their life like a boss or we might even act out with a boss coming from a different side of the same coin in that way and say you got into a pattern of people pleasing with a boss who doesn't recognize you and or you just never get that response that you're looking for from them so you work harder and you keep trying and you put all of your worth issues um into that sort of situation or into that person and it's sort of like dude why don't you just take these socks back and we just you know we'll just move on that's sort of what i mean about the analogy a very very simple example of unfinished business you guys is how much energy we put into getting people to notice us or getting people to see us in a certain way and sure that's like a human thing to do we all want to be seen in a good light and that kind of a thing but how much energy do you put in it and does it come from your childhood in some way you're probably aware of if you do this you're probably aware of it as i'm sort of speaking and as a side note even if we got an amazing response from the boss almost like that fantasy got confirmed and the boss was like you are just the greatest things in sliced bread we wouldn't know what to do with you it wouldn't be in we wouldn't do without you it wouldn't um be enough for the inner child like it wouldn't heal us because you know the boss is not the sock return store where it all went wrong and the boss is just the hardware store and they're just focusing on hammers and stuff i'm hoping i'm not completely watching this video talking about that analogy i hope i hope it's kind of landing in some way so our inner child or our subconscious doesn't take in how the present is different unless we have a solid inner adult teaching them meaning that sort of that the adult is the one that's just like wait a minute i'm barking up the wrong tree here it's our inner adult who would catch that and only our inner adult the inner child is just going to keep doing what it does until we they get re-parented and reloved so or loved for the first time so how would that possible people-pleasing fit into the idea of unfinished business if you grew up in unconditional love or neglect or inconsistency like in childhood one minute you're okay and the next minute you're being screamed at people-pleasing is actually a great strategy to keep attempting to be tolerable to the toxic adults or to be acceptable to them does that sound familiar to some of you guys so our inner child keeps working harder shows up more is more emotionally available to everyone in an attempt to be okay if this is part of your story this isn't part of everyone's story side note it's not always a terrible thing to have an open heart and want that from people but we have to include that openness and heart space for ourselves so what's the unfinished business that needs to be finished well with a client like that who struggles with people pleasing i'd be helping them hit bottom of sorts with that people-pleasing behavior and i'd be helping the client lower their own tolerance for that behavior and people-pleasing like kind of you know some of the work is just getting sick of those survival strategies and getting real about how they're not working they probably know it's beneath them in some way but they just kind of can't get themselves out of it so i'd be helping them look at at how they were set up to be a people pleaser in childhood and really embrace that idea that it was a survival strategy that takes root by holding the dysfunctional or abusive parents accountable which is a loaded word so i do that from having them do something like empty chair work where we sort of imagine that the the toxic parent or the or the abusive parent is sitting in a chair with them and the client is going to be speaking their truth to them and they tell their toxic parent what it was like for them to struggle with what it's like for them to struggle with that people-pleasing behavior what it's like to walk on eggshells all the time and to be obsessed with being a good kid instead of a healthy kid in childhood what it was like to try to get that alcoholic or neglectful parent to notice them what it was like to never be good enough or to never be loved even by their own parent and there's such an expression to all that there's so much to say that comes out like i might be kind of coaching it and usually nine times out of ten the client just sort of starts to just speak their truth like we jump started something and then it all sort of comes out things that they never would have thought of things that they really want to sort of um say to them and they say it kind of organically you know and i'll talk to the parent too with the parent and the empty chair and hold them accountable as well and support the client who never had someone validate or take that parent on and over time we do other activities about truth-telling like this and also for the client to say stuff like to the empty chair i'm not losing my self-respect anymore to you to try to get people to like me or make everything amazing for them f that i don't need to make people happy to survive but that's what you did to me so accountability in this conversation is we need to have that with our parents in therapy not in person huge huge major point there and give the parents back the dysfunction and the stuckness is how business gets finished doing it in person isn't good for anybody i think doing meaning doing it in person with our family it's better to do it in therapy in the therapy room with someone who knows like what they're doing after doing work like that and if the client has a strong inner adult in place that i'm trying to cultivate with them they can now teach the inner child those empowered beliefs that they brought up in that empty chair like i'm a thousand percent acceptable the way i am i can give work just 75 instead of the 200 that i give them every day that's good enough if you're new to me or new to the channel welcome if you like this video or find it helpful you can hit some buttons on the screen you can't mess with any of the buttons really you can't miss and if you find that these videos are helpful to you and your recovery you can consider supporting the work that goes into this channel over at my patreon you can check out some childhood trauma therapy e-course works that i offer on my website as well as join my email list you can also connect with me there and you guys can also connect with me at my instagram and my tick tock and i'll have all the links in the description below so unfinished business can manifest in specific ways that are personal to you and in this video i'm just going to be giving three big examples to kind of get your thoughts going or what this stuff might look like and there's there's a bunch of sort of unfinished business examples so i'm just kind of going with some top tier three big ones three big ones you know so grab a pen and paper because i'm going to be trying to give you guys some journaling prompts for each of these three examples towards the end of each one so the first one we're getting into is our dysfunction with romantic partners sort of like reclaiming intimacy this is like a top tier example that i believe we are all sort of doing or working through our lives is we're trying to finish business with our parents through our partners we're trying to get them to wake up to see us or to get them to change or to get them to be tolerate us more like the other example about people pleasing i have not met a client yet who didn't have this going on including myself so this is a very common trauma symptom it's i think we all struggle with how is that unfinished business the way that we sort of relate to our partners well our inner child is usually still trying to get a partner to see us and we do that through like our most intimate relationships through projecting our parents onto our partners or to the people that we're dating even if the dating goes south they're still sort of projecting there are we ending so getting a toxic or unavailable partner to be better to us is actually a clever way for the inner child to try to get the healing but it never works and these people are really familiar to us from the way that we were raised we can also pick partners who are like projects to us and it's like we're fixing a broken parent again we can other examples as we can do everything for our partner from a place of like caretaking we can simply just silently judge them all the time and have a lot of contempt going on there's some unfinished business in that we can have huge over-the-top reactions to them that aren't sort of like like warranted we can default to them constantly for fear of making them mad it's like whatever whatever you want to do if any of that sounds familiar you're in the right sort of place the business we have to finish with our parents is to hold them accountable for modeling toxicity or setting us up to be familiar with sort of abusive partners or to hold them accountable for being so neglectful that we'll just sort of take anybody so in the empty chair therapy work what this would look like for the finished business with our parents might be look like saying things like you set me up to pick mean people because that's what she modeled or that's what you were like with me i'm a catch who deserves a catch and i'm done with all that you set me up to pick projects because you were my project as a child projects are way too much work and it's not my job to fix people you set me up to avoid touch or closeness because that's what you were like and you set me up to take on anybody who is interested because you neglected me you set me up to sell myself short i'm worth so much more and let's say someone who is in in sort of a super dismissive avoidant attachment style or something like that or that they don't get into relationships at all is they could be trying to finish business by keeping themselves safe because they were totally unsafe and a trauma survivor who struggles with dismissive avoidance would possibly finish their business with their parents by holding them accountable for ruining intimacy that's what i mean about the intimacy piece with this for them and it would also mean for that person to grieve the loss of connection throughout their life and grieve the loss of connection even with their family which is another whole chunk to this work this works the same for those who date and engage in high conflict relationships or for those who are very codependent to get caught up in codependency or those who who kind of have relationships that don't go very deep they're not really authentic or for even perpetually dating people and leaving when it could get deeper and more of a sort of long-term relationship hopefully i'm making sense here there are lots of situations but the point is our romantic choices or the is the way that we're trying to finish business dysfunctionally in the present so if you have or you have had relationship problems like this going on i know i certainly did then you could look at it like your inner child is trying to fix something in your childhood through the dysfunction in the present which doesn't work so some journaling prompts stuff to write on or to do some inner child dialoguing is first one is what's the fantasy how did you want the unavailable person that you dated or you're currently with how do you want them to respond or change how is that like a fantasy what reaction are you seeking there through your efforts of defaulting to them or people pleasing or whatever is going on there what was that reaction um was that reaction that you just sort of defined was that reaction missing in your childhood another question third question is how did your parents set you up for the dysfunction with partners either from how they parented you or from what they modeled like if sort of if there was a divorce and one parent kept dating like sort of like narcissistic or abusive people that's an example of what i mean or that your parents were in a very sort of like quiet desperation miserable marriage but they didn't talk about things some examples there and the fourth question is what is the unfinished business and all of that that you have with them think about that term setup and that's what i mean by that so the next example you guys is who our parents said we were our roles in reclaiming healthy identity as an example of unfinished business there's a lot to unpack with this one but in essence it's about our identity and shame which is really wrapped up in how our parents saw us who they said we were and how they felt about us many of us were told directly or indirectly stuff like any of the following you're sketchy like i don't believe you i don't trust you um why are you doing this to me there's no money in that i don't believe you i never said that and you're lying why can't you just be like you know it's your fault things go wrong um you won't amount to much you know my father loved to tell me that i should work with my hands and he wasn't referencing to being a dentist or a rocket science or anything like that and the joke is sort of on him and i don't mean anything against people who work with their hands but the man only saw me in the negative according to him and does that sound familiar to you guys so related to that you know when clients are beginning to do my group work i will encourage them and sort of say use this whole process to figure out and decide if your parents were right about you we were also put into these we were also put into these roles in our family system and the roles that they put us in became our identity i was the slacker my sibling was the achiever every kid in the toxic family has their own sort of role in their own sort of survival strategy there's the family burden the family scapegoat the fixer the golden child there's many different types of roles these aren't the only ones and we can still act out of these roles in our partnerships friendships and school work family life in the present you know think about that in a way like what role and i'll come back to these questions later what role did they put you in and do you still assume that role in some settings that's what i mean like do you overly explain yourself in an unnecessarily weird way to people defensively do you really get triggered if you were misunderstood by someone it's something like that it's something that the scapegoated kid will do or the burden or the fixer will do so that's what i mean about that over talking or overly explaining is is a is sort of a minor way to try to fix some unfinished business to try to get somebody to see us as good if they're misunderstanding us you know you guys may have i know i certainly got caught up in a lot of that sort of stuff that a lot of that behavior do you have a low-key feeling like you're doing something wrong and bad around people but that is actually in your head relating to your role do you feel like people are just going to bust out with an intense criticism and wreck you at any given moment that's an example of unfinished business maybe trying to control that and the accountability and empowerment and something like an empty chair would look like you set me up to hide myself from people i'm not doing that anymore there's nothing to hide since i'm awesome you set me up to think that i'm better than people that's not who i really am i'm a good person you set me up to hate the real me i'm not doing that to myself anymore you were like that the real me is what people want you set me up to second guess myself i'm done always thinking i get things wrong i'm a good and capable person that role and that identity stuff is who the inner child feels like they are but it's wrong an empowered finishing business idea is like when i say toxic people have no right to tell you who you are that's what all of this identity stuff is really about here are some journaling prompts what are some ways that your parents didn't actually know you but put you in that role even if you had disengaged neglectful parents who were really out of there and not like directly abusive that's still putting you in a role another idea is like were you really a good kid and they just never saw that like they were always suspect of you or or you know they would actively shame you were you much more than the slacker or the achiever or the fixer and what's the rest of you that they missed or they were too toxic to see that you're creative or compassionate or you just feel things deeper than others were you put into a negative role because you felt dif like deeply for people or or even pets or something like that and though and you thought differently than others that become become that shaming role like you're just kind of like oh that's just garbage the way you think and you feel about the world so that's what i mean by that what was that role for was that role that they put you in was that for them or was it for you usually toxic parents are wanting to sort of have dominance or compliance from a dominant position with their kids or they want their kids to be sort of compliant which those two things are related how would they talk about you say with a teacher or a neighbor and in all the identity examples that i just give is all of them are about being misunderstood and the misunderstanding becomes who we think we are so the third and final example of unfinished business and this is this is an interesting one is how you deal with your feelings another example of unfinished business is how we deal with our feelings and they're related to the prior two examples here's what i mean how do you deal with your emotions when you make a mistake do you hate yourself do you emotionally eat how do you deal with being disrespected do you get enraged or disassociate how do you deal with a terrible time at work or with your partner like going through a really bad phase do you let yourself go in some way and emotionally drink or doom scroll till 2 a.m do you get a case of the efforts you know do you protest life in some way and not go to bed when you need to that's what i mean by that how do you deal with your feelings when things get really difficult do you go on like upset rants like like fml rants um like nothing works in your life like really getting into like a tirade in your head where i've done most of all of these things in my life so please don't take this as me pointing the finger at you sort of i'm giving you these examples from personal experience how do you deal with ambiguity like with plans do you anxiously go over every possible scenario with several backup ideas to prevent some kind of unnamed anxious chaos that's an example of trying to finish business do you get exhausted by things that don't really warrant that reaction getting super low energy and negative is actually a form of dealing with our feelings did you or do you have negative coping strategies any of these like emotional drinking emotional eating sex video games cleaning achieving excessive planning shopping reading which is a process addiction so is video games doom scrolling negative ranting like i mentioned upset jags that tend to be your go-to kind of way to deal with your feelings and sorry if you feel called out on these these are way more common than you think and these are all trauma symptoms or clue to those symptoms but it's the dealing with what we are that was the dealing with our feelings is what we're focusing on so when these triggers happen do you kind of ride it out and just go with those things or do you take a course of action to try to get you out of the trigger and again when we grow up in abuse we have no power we have no resources and a good trauma therapist will ask how old were you when you discovered achieving food sex drugs alcohol something else performing and some of those become lifelong addictions and or some clients have to go through bouts of them to get through their abuse we need to reframe those those coping strategies that i just mentioned is those are the things that actually help us through it help us through the abuse like when you're 14 and you start smoking pot or becoming an achiever because it's like in a clever way you found something to deal with your feelings that worked so they're not exact they're not they're not great things but they're not shameful things because you were just doing your best with absolutely sort of no help so but what you know the kind of the b of the whole thing is is like those things will take us down those things will keep our life small so that's what i mean about that stuff we're going to have to contend with the ways that we survived later in life and that's kind of sort of another example of unfinished business so from the empowerment and the accountability empty chair example or standpoint with the toxic parents we would be saying stuff like you set me up to act out with drugs and alcohol because i had no help from you from pain i'm healing despite you and i don't need to medicate my feelings anymore i love my feelings you set me up to try to control every situation to the point of panic i'm reclaiming my ability to be chill all even despite you you set me up to totally let myself go because that's what you modeled for me and i think nobody notices or cares just like you didn't i love my body and i value feeling good and i like being awake and engaged despite you some journaling prompts with this one is what's my unhealthy go-to for dealing with my feelings when i'm triggered coping dissociation fights in your head dealing with stuff how did i learn that in childhood did i learn it directly from my parents or was it in a reaction to them like you don't have to grow up with drugs and alcohol to be sort of pulled to it you might be rebelling against something but that's what i mean by that how did my parents deal with their feelings what's the opposite of the way that i deal what is the opposite of your go-to's what's the opposite of doom scrolling what's the opposite of like fml again it's tricky but all of those coping based strategies or how we deal with our feelings is it's still a version of unfinished business because it is old and when you think about what is the what is almost the goal of the activity like in some ways i don't have a lot a lot of clients kind of talk about when when they let themselves go or when they fall apart and do that is they almost the inner child almost wants someone to come in and rescue them and that is a beautiful example of unfinished business and because the inner child is still trying to find somebody in the world to parent them i know that that sounds like super it's not a good thing at all you know when we're in that but i'm just trying to say like that's what i mean about unfinished business and sort of the setup and our responsibility to catch that and to sort of get it together in some way to catch that the inner child is definitely still wanting to be sort of rescued or to sort of have someone come in and make things a lot better we never got that it's understandable so it's understandable that it's there but the unfinished business is you set me up to not have it together in life and i'm gonna get through that i'm gonna break beyond that that's what i mean by that so i really hope that this video was helpful to you guys because unfinished business is tricky to define tricky to work on and it's all those subconscious narratives that we try to resolve um but we take them to the wrong place in the present like like going to the hardware store so as always you guys may you be filled with loving kindness may you be well may you be peaceful and at ease and may you be joyous and i will see you guys next time [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Patrick Teahan LICSW

Views: 201,272

Keywords: psychology, health and wellness, childhood, family, ptsd, childhood trauma, emotional abuse, abusive parents, childhood ptsd, narcissistic mother, narcissistic father, narcissistic parents, repressed memories, emotionally abusive parents, abuse

Id: QRA5diPciJo

Length: 27min 8sec (1628 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 28 2021