Every Family Has A Story: How we inherit love and loss

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Evidence suggests that the more children know about their family history, the less anxiety, less depression and higher self-esteem they exhibit.” (Natalie Merrill)

Kate: Yes. And that they could do that work. Rebuilding a story that they could then live inside. Must have been so powerful for them. Yeah. Especially when things are. When things are so far gone, I imagine it’s much easier just to say, I mean, that happened so long in the past. Let me tell you about the relationship I have thats driving me crazy now. But the hard excavation must have been very intense. What makes Samuel outstandingly sympathetic as a therapist and as a writer is her unusual willingness to admit to faultiness and not to be remote or over-authoritative. She is a virtuoso listener, but wears her heart on her sleeve and will occasionally admit to feeling unequal to what she is witnessing. Her lovely—and in no way insensitive—character leavens the narratives assembled here. . . . The Samuel magic continues to obtain.” — The Guardian Kim Hawley and her father Jim Scherman nap on the couch in 1993. It can be helpful to start your interview with a warm-up question, such as sharing a favorite memory from childhood. This book is wonderful, wise and empathetic, so useful but also so beautifully written. . . . What I found really interesting is the sense of reciprocity, how Julia is engaged in the process of working with clients, changed by them and their stories, as we are by reading about them. Every family should have one, to consult in times of trouble.” —Gavanndra Hodge

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Most parents know about the benefits of reading stories from books with their young children. Yet what most parents don’t know is that everyday family stories..confer many of the same benefits of reading–and even some *new ones.” (Elaine Reese) *see footnote Kate: Yeah, that’s right. The thinning of all these things that hold us up, the cutting of all of our puppet strings. You write very movingly about a family who is trying to say goodbye. It was a family trying to say goodbye in the impossibility of losing a parent with cancer. And you were walking them to the edge of a difficult grief in an impossible moment of pandemic isolation. How did you help them live inside of a story that was going to be and feel incomplete in such a big way? Kate: I remember trying to ask my dad if. You know, parents have this overwhelming desire. It’s like the first thing on their mind. If they see their kid in pain. How can I take this on to me? Like, how can I just absorb this? I remember how much work I was doing in trying to wrap things up. It was just. It was such a rough time that it just kept going. It was like the first two years of endless. You know, almost dying, almost, almost, almost, almost all the time. And and. So I was I was kind of caught in that push pull feeling where I kept trying to sort of, like, pump the brakes for them, give everybody closure before. I was done living and remember the first time I lost it. Julia mentions the Winnicott Term and the Good Enough Parent , a term coined by the British pediatrician and psychoanalyst D. W. Winnicott. Kate also spoke about this idea of being a Good Enough Parent with Don Rosenstein and Justin Yopp in an episode called “The Magic of We”. Kate: Yeah. Then I just had some ugly, terrible fight with somebody at one point. My sister and I, and I was like, Oh, I’m so sorry. I’m just. I’m so sorry. And my dad said, Oh hun, I would so much rather you than the memory of you. And what I heard in that was I would so much rather the terrible complexity than the abstract perfection. And that gave me a lot of permission not to. It’s up to sort of be in pain politely, but to just let the try to let the weight of what I was and was going through to be something that more than I would have to carry. Yeah. Yeah.

If you don’t recount your family history, it will be lost. Honor your own stories and tell them too. The tales may not seem very important, but they are what binds families and makes each of us who we are. Madeleine L’Engle There are many resources available if you or a loved one has been a survivor of suicide loss. Reach out if you need help at Alliance for Hope .This was a very interesting book. I am a big proponent of Therapy For Everybody, but family therapy seems to play second fiddle to individual – presumably because of how hard it is to get a group of potentially therapy-averse people around one table. I will say the fact that Samuels is attempting to be inclusive of many different types and varieties of families means that some specificity is lost. This is coming from a place of extreme privilege wherein I do not experience racism or homophobia, nor do I have significant traumas in my past. However, I still have mental health struggles, so the books that speak to me the most are the ones who deal with people like me – people who from the outside look like they shouldn’t have problems. All the same, this is still a valuable book with actionable insights.

Julia Samuel: I am so pleased to be seeing you. We forged a friendship in 30 minutes, but actually it was longer because I read your book that took like 3 hours. So it is funny how you can know someone from reading their works.If I recall correctly, this book was mentioned in Esther Perel's newsletter, and its title immediately caught my attention. This year, I've been delving into novels that explore the intricacies of family dynamics, so I felt it was the perfect time to explore a nonfiction book on the subject. Why do some families thrive in adversity while others fragment? How can families weather difficult transitions together? Why do our families so often exasperate us? And how can even small changes greatly improve our relationships? Autorė knygoje sudėjo skirtingas šeimas ir jų patirtis. Džiaugsmus, stiprybes, silpnumus ir nuoskaudas. Žavėjo jos pačios empatija ir žmogiškumas. Kiekvienoje istorijoje radau ir ją pačią, jai kylančius jausmus ir kūno pojūčius. Toks dalyvavimas sesijose pasirodė labai jautrus, pakeliantis, palaikantis ir kuriantis ryšį. Julia: I think what I offered was the space for him and them, being a third party, you know. In fact, I was like the sixth person. But being someone who’s outside the family, I think that there is something about having a witness who isn’t emotionally invested with you. Hmm. That is a it’s like a holding power that allows them then to have very difficult conversations where they could hear each other because they had me to kind of keep them safe or to balance them. They weren’t responsible for each other’s distress or trying to protect each other from the pain that they were facing. And I think in voicing their fear, they were also very clearly voicing their love. And that for the for the dad is what mattered most. And that really supported him. He said, this is the worst time in my life, but also the best time in my life. That strange kind of duality. Because he really knew he was at. Exploring the relationships that both touch us most and hurt us most, including the often under-appreciated impact of grandparents and siblings, and incorporating the latest academic research, she offers wisdom that is applicable to us all. Her twelve touchstones for family well-being -- from fighting productively to making time for rituals -- provide us with the tools to improve our relationships, and to create the families we wish for.

But that is perhaps me being overly critical (and part of the therapy I need is surely to forgive more). So whilst she may not be the ideal therapist for me, she certainly reinforced and made me feel some of my own issues were valid. I leave you with a couple of sentences which I take away Julia: It was really intense, but it actually only took like eight sessions. And the thing that is so powerful is it renewed their relationship with their mother and it protected their children. So one of the things, if you want to kind of think about not passing down inherited trauma kind of deal with it in your lifetime because you will pass otherwise, you know, suicide is like a cluster bomb. It puts shards of agony in in everybody in different places. But by looking at the shards and naming them and having a clearer understanding, it means you don’t take the flinching and the injury of the shard to your own children. Julia points out that “ honesty shines a light, right? And lights are illuminating a lights spring glow. And they bring people. And that’s what you do. You gather because of your honesty and your humility with your honesty, to say hard things and let yourself feel hard things. Other people can then face their own and look at their own and they see you can see how you do.” In what ways did this podcast help you shine a light on your own childhood and family story? How can you share that light with others?

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We may not see our family, but they are still part of us, genetically, in our memories and our unconscious. We can never leave them, as we can a partner or a friendship.’ The single most important thing you can do for your family may be the simplest of all: develop a strong family narrative.” (Bruce Feiler) Kate: Yes, mormon survivalist. And she experienced a tremendous amount of physical and psychological abuse as a child. And we were talking about when people say of families, oh, they did their best. And I said, that drives me insane, as if we’ve sort of taken the survey. And we know that all 52 moms in this situation, quote, tried their best five on five, five stars. And and she said, oh, I actually I do say that. I say they tried their best and it was devastating. They tried their best and it was tragic. And I was frankly very moved by that. Like, how do we frame the the limits of empathy? maybe? Kate: There’s an ongoingness to love and pain, which just doesn’t really lend itself to knowing exactly what to do. Does thinking about honesty and truth as a light in our own lives, change how we understand that Jesus is the light of the world ( John 8:12)? How does your knowing of Christ shed light in your world?