Family Therapist: The #1 Sign You Were Raised by Narcissistic Parents

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People will always ask me, am I a narcissist? And I'll go, do you ever feel guilty? A narcissist is not going to feel that guilty. What have they done wrong? They're always right.
Why would they apologize? You made them do it. Oh, my gosh gosh or they did it for your good Jerry is a life and relationship counselor for 40 years he is a professional in psychotherapy and family therapy and now in life coaching please everyone welcome Jerry wise so many people grow up under the family trance they don't understand the dysfunction of their family because it's been normalized.
Here I am criticizing myself and cutting myself down internally and hating myself, and many will go, don't look at any of that. Let's just try to be nicer to yourself versus, wait a minute, let's get mom and dad out of the way.

It's never too late to have a happy childhood. So let's start now.
What are the warning signs then that show up in adult children of narcissistic parents? Let's then take a look at that. Spring is all about fresh starts, and it's starting now with savings at the Home Depot.
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Very excited about our guest today. We have the inspiring Jerry Wise in the house and a quick bio about Jerry.
He's a leading expert in healing from family and relationship dysfunction through self-differentiation. You've been doing this work for over 45 years as a therapist and a coach, and you've helped thousands of people worldwide break free from dysfunctional family patterns and discover their true selves.
And this could possibly be one of the most powerful conversations we have here. I'm not just saying that, even though we've done this show for 12 years, because in my mind, we've talked a lot about narcissism and relationships and narcissism.
but we haven't covered if you have experienced life with a narcissistic parent and the clear signs

of if your parents were narcissistic or on the spectrum

in any ways and how that impacts you for everything in your life. And so I'm curious if we could start, Jerry, with what are the clear signs that you could start reflecting and asking yourself if one of your parents were narcissistic in any way?

One of the things certainly that I found is that so many people grow up under the family trance. And so the family trance, they don't understand the dysfunction of their family because it's been normalized.
And I've used the term malignant normalcy because then if I grew up abused and I'm in an abusive relationship, I've normalized the abuse as not something I like, but I will accept or it's kind of normal. But that's a malignant normalcy.
That's not a normalcy you want to have.

And so when people, when I think about helping people see, and really that's what my work is about. It's to help people see outside the box and to see in a broader way so much of all the dynamics that are going on within the family.
And if you have a narcissistic family, or there's all kinds of other dysfunctional families too, there are some universals that go along with that. But when you say a narcissistic family, I think when you start to recognize, hey, they've always been controlling.
They lack empathy. They, guilt and shame.
They could be abusive, but they don't have to be abusive to be narcissistic. They love you and they have a plan for your life.
And I say love in a, with air quotes, that we used to say that in religious circles, God loves you and he has a plan for your life. Well, the narcissist loves you and they have a plan for your life and you better follow it.
Wow. Or else.
Or else. And the narcissist will be very self-absorbed.
Everything is basically about them. It always comes back to them.
That's the whole focus. And if you have parents who have some of those type of traits, there are other traits, but some of those, people will always ask me, am I a narcissist? And I'll go, do you ever feel guilty? Oh yeah, all the time.
Then you're not. You're just dysfunctional.
You're just dysfunctional. No, right.
A narcissist is not going to feel that guilt. They don't feel, what have they done wrong? They're always right.
So that why would I feel guilt about anything or shame? So if you felt that, you're probably less likely to be a narcissist. But a parent can be a narcissistic parent.
They can abuse you. They can criticize you.
But they'll never go, oh, my bad. They won't apologize.
Why would they apologize? You made them do it. You made them do it, or they did it for your good.
So why would I ever need to say, I'm sorry? There's no need to say I'm sorry. What's the worst thing a parent could do then to their kids over and over again that will almost surely make them dysfunctional as an adult? Is it never apologizing to them when, you know, they...
That's too symptomatic. That's too superficial.
The thing that's going to make them more dysfunctional as an adult is to not break their own cycle from their own past, bringing that cycle to their current nuclear family and not knowing it. So bringing the generational trauma onward.
And the generational programming and the generational emotional Wi-Fi that's been going on and they just bring that right into here,

that's going to mess them up more than ever. Now, does abuse and narcissistic meanness,

do all those things affect the kid? Of course it does.

Screaming and all that stuff, yeah.

Exactly. Of course it's going to.
But it's not the screaming that's the underlying problem.

That's a symptom of something.

That's a symptom of how the family has been dysfunctional and toxic. And it can come out in different ways.
Narcissism, alcoholism, abuse, workaholism, sex addiction. It can come out in gambling and all kinds of symptomatic ways.
But underneath all of that is an enmeshment to a family whose trance has never been broken. Wow.
The origin family. The origin family.
It's never been broken. And now you're just living it out.
Only John's living it out that way. Mary's living it out that way.
But that's the underlying important dynamic. And if we don't break the trance of the family, the origin family of ours, if we don't break that trance, then we're just going to relive that pattern in our adult relationships as well.
In some way. And it may not even look like the way mom and dad did it.
But the pattern's still there. So people will go, well, I'm not like my parents.
Oh, hold on just a second. Let me ask you, but what you're doing is the same theme and it has origins in your family of origin.
You may have chosen the opposite, but 180 degrees from unhealthy is unhealthy. so people go, oh, well, I'm all the way over here.
Oh, now you're just a class B unhealthy rather than a class A unhealthy person. And you feel superior over them because you're over here.
Right. You haven't broken the cycle.
You're living the pendulum life. Yeah, I'm not screaming at my partner like my parents did.
But I'm controlling. But I'm being controlling, and I still may be self-absorbed or judgmental or any number of other kinds of things.
Interesting. Here's the real question then.
If we start to think about, oh, maybe my parents had some narcissistic tendencies, and I'm starting to think about it, and I'm starting to evaluate my childhood and realize, oh, I thought this was just normal because it's the only thing I knew. How many families did we grow up in? Yeah.
Right? And it wasn't as bad as that family, so I got to be grateful for this. Yeah, and we should.
And my parents were loving at times, and they gave us, and they were doing the best they could. So I can't think of them as narcissistic, but we start to internalize that.
What are the warning signs then that show up in adult children of narcissistic parents? Let's then take a look at that. Mom and dad, or whoever was narcissistic, hypercritical and judgmental.

Now, I then grew up and say, I'm not going to be like that.

But what am I to myself?

Hypercritical and judgmental.

So an adult child of a narcissistic family often will have unbounded guilt, shame, criticalness, hypercriticalness, very hard on themselves. So they just take the voice from here and just live it inside themselves.
Really? Everything is that way. People go, oh, well, they screamed all the time.
So many times I've said, so how many

times have you internally screamed at yourself? I don't scream at other people. I didn't say other people.
I said, you. Oh, well, yeah, I can be pretty nasty to me.
You know, you stupid, And I said, you're just reliving this only in a different way.

And so it's all embryonic in the family. So everything that's happening out here, the problem, and that's what I think, that's why I use the term, the problem is, the solution is not near the problem.
Also, the problem may not be near the symptom. Here I am criticizing myself and cutting myself down internally and hating myself, and narcissists, adult children narcissists can definitely hate themselves, because they've been judged and criticized and, you know, emotionally hurt so many different ways, shamed.
And so this is what they're doing out here. And they're now doing this as adults to themselves internally and going, well, what's the solution? And many will go, don't look at any of that.
Let's just try to be nicer to yourself, which is not bad advice, but it's superficial advice. And it may not hold.
And then you'll try it and then give it up. And you'll try it and give it up.
Versus, wait a minute, let's get mom and dad out of you. Wow.
That's what we want to do. And do you recognize that's not you? When you are criticizing yourself that way, you're going to be under the hypnosis and the trance that this is me doing it to me.
And I go, let me give you some good news. It's not you doing it to you.
It's your family still doing it to you through you. Wow.
There's a difference, and that's a huge difference. And so as adult children, what should we be thinking about if we felt like we had a dysfunctional childhood? So we be thinking about how do I get myself to be self-differentiated from my parents and my family? How do I block my family completely? How do I heal the past? Like, what should we be thinking about as we come into awareness as adult children of dysfunctional childhoods or narcissistic parents? And I think it's a great question.
But your question also has within it a certain paradigm, as all questions do. Every question has the answer in it.
Every question that someone asks, the answer is in their question. And so you were asking about, so do I separate myself from my family?

Do I, you know, and certainly if someone, if families are abusive and toxic and have no interest in changing, well, then we have to look at some no contact or, you know, we may need to go that far. but self-differentiation what i tend to think when someone has a family that's narcissistic

does the person that I'm working with or talking to or the adult child of the narcissist need greater self-differentiation, which is an emotional state and a maturity state, or do they need to physically separate? If you physically separate, you still need to emotionally separate. Right.
It doesn't solve the problem. It doesn't solve the problem.
Right, right, right. Now, but I don't want you there being abused and have been taken.
There's common sense to this as well. But self-differentiation is the, do you have the maturity and respect for yourself that if you had grown up in a healthy family, this is the way you'd be? That's self-differentiation.
And people go, well, how can I do that? I didn't grow up in a healthy family. It's never too late to have a happy childhood.
Really? So let's start now. Wow.
And are you going to take care of yourself or are you not? And adult children of narcissists don't know how to take care of themselves. They've never even been told that's a good thing to do.
Many of them would say, well, my church or my whatever teaches me, I should not do that because that's selfish. And I go, no, no, that's not what they're teaching.
Or I don't know, they may be teaching that's certainly possible. But that's not what that that isn't what self-care is about.
Self-focus is healthy. We've grown up with no self-focus and only focused on the others in the family.
Now we want to do self-focus, which means inner boundaries, where when you say, well, Jerry, you're such a bad son, and I just think you're worthless. And inside I go, so what? And because you are you and I am me.
If we are too enmeshed, then what you said will drive me crazy. And then I'll try to overcompensate or approval or whatever.
I'll be reactive. I'll get mad.
I'll say, that's the way you've always treated me. Why don't you stop treating me that way? You've always been this way.
And da, da, da. Versus.
Okay. I see that's how you feel.
I don't feel that way about me. But it's okay if you do.

I mean, you have a right to feel that way about me if you want.

I don't care.

I hope it helps you out.

I don't know.

Why is it so hard as adult children to break the family trance, though, of conditioning from parents guilting or you need to come visit me more?

Why don't you call me more?

You're not doing this more or whatever. Our fantasies.
We're still children. I want the parent to love me.
I want them to accept me. I want them to take care of my needs.
I've always wanted a parent who would care. And I'm not ready to give up that fantasy.
Oh, man. And if I could help someone give up those fantasies, they'll grow like nobody's business.
Really? Oh, they just go... It's the fantasy that holds us back.
That's part of it. Yes.
The trance and what we've learned as normal. And then there's the fantasy of when you don't get it growing up, then you will always be looking for it.
I want you to come to me and we work out me helping you to stop looking for it. Stop looking for what? A beautiful childhood or whatever? Beautiful childhood.
My parents love me. They need to treat me right.
Maybe someday they'll accept me. Maybe it's not.
It's a fantasy. It is a fantasy.
And fantasies mess up adulthood. Goals don't mess up adulthood, but fantasies do.
And emotional fantasies. Sure, sure.
And there's creativity in fantasies and things, but this fantasy of I'm going to have a happy childhood. I'm trying to have a happy childhood, but every time I go back at Christmas time or the holiday time, it always ends up being a mess.
They just judge me. And they judge me and they do the same thing.
I try to be nicer and I bring more food or I bring the kids or whatever they're trying

to do to get this so that their parents will one day go, you are okay.

So what should adult children stop trying to do with their parents?

Stop needing them as parents.

Really?

When does parenting end? Good question. I don't know.
18? Is it supposed to end, though, at 18 for everyone? I hope. Aren't you going to be an adult? That's the goal.
Adults don't need a parent. But some people live with their parents till they're 30.
Adults may wish or want to have mothers and fathers. I'm not saying break up your whole family because you turned 18.
I'm talking about parenting. Parenting is parent to child, not parent to adult.
Of course, there are exceptions. Of course, there are people with disabilities.

I understand there's all kinds of variations.

But generally, if I tell people, I go, and what do you need your parent to do?

Well, I need them to treat me.

And I'm going, why do you need to treat them?

Why do you need them to treat you better?

Why? Well, I'll never be happy if I... There you are.
You've just hooked together. You'll never be happy unless this fantasy comes true.
And I can already tell you, it's not going to come true because it's been going on for 35 years. And I doubt if your parents are going to just one day go, you know, could miracles

happen? Of course, miracles are going to happen. But I'm not in the miracle business.
So if they do, they do. It's interesting because the people watching and listening right now, if you're listening, if you're watching this right now, I want you to leave a comment below and say, if you had a happy, like if your parents loved you, supported you, approved of you,

most of the time, comment below, happy childhood. If you feel like your parent, you could never get the approval of your parents.
They were never satisfied with you. They're always judging and critical of you.
Type in challenging childhood in the comments below. And I'm curious, what is the pro and con of having a healthy relationship with your parents versus an unhealthy relationship with your parents, wanting them to approve and love you as adults? Right.
Well, that's because then yourself self won't develop. You are living a pseudo self waiting on them to give you a self by them going, you're wonderful and we love you.
And the thing is, the same is true with if parents have caused trauma. Once you become an adult, they can no longer fix that for you.

Mm.

Ever. The same is true if parents have caused trauma.
Once you become an adult, they can no longer fix that for you ever. They could say, I'm sorry.
They could be remorseful. But I keep telling clients or coaching people, they can't fix it.
This is now yours to fix. Whatever they did is now yours to fix, not theirs to fix.
Even if they do apologize, it still may not solve the problem. Yeah, you'll have to fix it still.
Exactly. How does that fix it? Right.
And so they always go back. I'm going to confront them and tell them, and you're just going to get caught up in the system even deeper.
Really? You're going to go down in the quicksand even more if you go do that. And I always tell people the time to confront people is when you don't need to.
If you need to, you're probably out of sync. Really? Yeah.
So not that we can't confront some people. Yeah, yeah.
I got to confront if they're not giving me my coffee. But generally, I'm talking about this emotional stuff.
Too many people stay in relationships that no longer serve them. And the moment they choose to walk away, they wonder why they didn't do it sooner.
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You know, it's interesting that you say that. I was sexually abused when I was five by a man that I didn't know.
And I've talked about it openly on this show many times. But for those of you here the first time, it was something that haunted me for 25 years.
For 25 years, I held on to it. I felt shame.
I felt sadness. I felt anger, rage, all these different things.

And it was a movie that played in my mind over and over again for 25 years. And it drove me, without even knowing it, unconsciously to protect myself, to defend myself, to- Not trust.
Yeah, not trust. If someone's trying to take advantage of me, I'm going to get big and strong and big and strong and all these different things.
And I need to be right and I need to win. And in some ways, it helped me accomplish certain goals, but left me feeling very empty as well.
Bad things have upsides. Bad things have downsides.
Good things have upsides. Good things have downsides.
All. But sorry sorry to interrupt and i got to a point when i was 30 um so 25 years later where it it was too much it was too much and it all kind of came out right it came out at one point after about a year of just breakdowns continuing to happen where it forced me to look within and stop blaming everyone else of like, why is these things happening in my life? And it got to a point where I said, okay, I'm actually going to dive deeper and start working on myself and start unpacking things from childhood and start really reflecting on these things.
And I went to workshops and all the therapy, coaching, all the different things. And it got to a point where I finally opened up and talked about it in a safe environment.
And then I started talking about it and letting my family know, some of my friends, and started talking about it publicly. And I don't think everyone should talk about their stuff publicly, but I had a platform I felt the need to, I felt pulled to, I felt like inspired to.
And there came to a point where maybe it was a couple of years after I started to process and heal that journey and self-regulate the memory and self-differentiate from that wound, where I was like, do I need to confront this person? And I don't even know where the person is. I don't know where the person is or if they're alive or not.
But I was like, what's that going to do for me? I got to a point where I was like, I don't need to, and I'm at peace with it. But what should I do about that? Yeah.
But I didn't feel like I need to confront this to finish the job of my healing. I was like, this is my work to do.
And no matter what this person would say, it's not going to help me. What would be the positive outcome of that? You can if you want, but I'm just trying to think what's the utility of it.
If it provides some something, okay. But I don't know that I would go through all the, try to find them and confront them.
Unless it's a family member that you want to talk about something. Or right.
Some ongoing relationship or something. Right.
This is something interesting you said. It's never too late to have a happy childhood.
If we had a horrible childhood and we're in our 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, and we just think, man, my childhood was miserable. It was challenging.
I don't have many good memories. How can you have a good childhood as an adult if all you had is bad memories as a child? Great question.
When do you stop being a child? When you become a parent, when you grow up, when you remove yourself from the parents. When do you stop being a child? When you become a parent, when you grow up,

when you remove yourself from the parent.

When do you stop having a child inside you?

Never.

Start your childhood now.

By you becoming the parent to yourself. Self-parenting, reparenting.

And now I'm going to ask myself, what would you like to go do to play? Because just like with a tree, a tree starts out with a little branch and it grows up to be a big tree, but the little tree hasn't gone away. I mean, it's still in there.
It's still a part of the growth. And we're the same way.
It's called our inner child. And the inner child we have all the rest of our lives.
And many people actually, because of their family of origin, abuse their inner child because that's what happened when they grew up. And so they parent themselves the way their parents parented them.
Wow. And that's the whole story of connectedness.
Parents parent you. You parent you.
And that we continue on. And you parent your kids.
And then you parent your kids. And then adjust.
so if you can get your insides straightened out, generations will be grateful to you. And I literally mean generations.
Because it probably took about five generations to get to here. That's dysfunctional.
Probably five to get here. You can change the world if you change you.
And even now, I still work on my self-differentiation. I have a 39-year-old son.
And I do that because I want to have as good a relationship as I can have with him. Because whatever issues I leave unresolved for me, who gets to resolve them?

Him.

Wow.

I saw a clip of an interview online of someone, a really successful billionaire entrepreneur,

probably in his 70s.

And he said the key to success in life was having adult children that still want to hang out with you, not because of your money or your success. But because you're a good guy.
Yeah, exactly. Good person.
Yeah. And, uh, and that's why, right.
It's not about, this is my property as the kids. They're not my property.
And I would like to have a relationship where now whenever, when I hug Andrew, I can give him a kiss on the, on the neck. And I even ask him, I told him, if you don't want me to do that, I won't.
You're an adult. I don't want to embarrass you.
He said, my friends just think it's fabulous. They wish their dad would do that.
Right, right. And so, because I felt that's what I wanted to do, but I give him permission to be him.
I mean, I'm not going to do something you don't want me to do. Wow.
What I'm hearing you say is that the key to setting up your family legacy to have the best or the healthiest lives they can have is to start by healing the child within you. Healing the child within you and self-differentiating the adult within you.
So we have both those works. Okay, let's break down both of those.
Going on. What would be the, and healing the child in you is not an overnight thing.
What would be the keys to, whether someone says, ah, I don't need to work on my inner child. That seems like baloney or just it's not, ah, it's not for me.
I do a lot of my own work already. I don't need to dive deeper into this stuff.
It seems like whatever. But if they were like, ah, let me listen to this and just see what he's talking about, what would be the first three keys or steps to addressing how to heal the inner child within us? Well, and if they would say, I don't need to work on my inner child, I would say, now you've already told me what you don't know.
Because if you don't understand that or work that way, you're going to be blinded, which is your right. I mean, live life how you want.
You don't have to do any inner child work. I'm just telling you the way human beings function, you know, and that while it is a construct or a metaphor, you know, the inner child, it is that.
But it truly is a part. We are biological.
We are biological creatures. And and so we have that part of us.
I'm never not the seventh grader.

I'm never not the third grader.

I'm never not the 50-year-old.

I'm all of those.

And so, but particularly in childhood is where we get a lot of that programming going on

that carries over to older ages.

And so when we think about, would you know if your inner child wanted you to do something? And if you don't know, do you think that could be problematic? Probably, yeah. And many people will go, I don't think I want to work on inner child stuff.
That's all psychological mumbo jumbo. Okay, well, that's fine.
You don't have to. However, when you are hypercritical of yourself and very down on yourself, who are you down on? The adult self? The inner child? Probably more likely the inner child, because you're going to act like your parents to the child.
Man. That's just what we do.
And so knowing that can be helpful because if you become a collaborator with your inner child, it stabilizes you. If you're not, then you're always fighting yourself in business, in success, in money, in jobs, in marriages, in relationships.
You're always going to be fighting yourself. And if we talk long enough, I'll prove that to you.
You know, I would prove that to you. Sure, sure, sure.
How that's what's happening. So when we are in conflict with ourselves or hypercritical of ourselves, whether it be our adult or inner child self, how is that hurting us or helping us? The thing is, first of all, I might say you're not being your true self.
You're being a pseudo self to yourself. You're being the family super self to yourself.
When you're acting that way. When you're acting that way.
That's not you. But you think it's you.
And I'm going, it really isn it's you're bringing the family trance trance wi-fi super self we call because all the family connects to this big super self that's all enmeshed emotionally and and we even know biologically i there's a way to describe and that you're now not you're not when somebody's going, and I'm fine with being hypercritical of myself. I'm not going to look at my inner child.
But every time I hear you being self-critical in a negative way, you know, towards yourself, I'm going, why are you not being yourself? Because would yourself do that? And they'd probably go, well, no, I wouldn't. Then where is that coming from? You know, well, it's just what I've always done.
Oh, now we're going to what's always been done. Okay, my point.
What's always been done doesn't mean it's the best way that you can live your life. Exactly.
And all of us have negative parts of all those things. But I want to have fewer or less.
I want to have less of a pseudo self, less of a non-real self that's me. And all that hypercriticalness is being the family self.
That's your family self. And I'm going, you want to be successful by being your family self? And you tell me how bad that all was.
You're doing it. You're repeating it right now.
Yeah, you may not be doing this to others, but you're doing it to you. Right, right.
Yeah, I don't do that to other people. Okay.
Do you ever do it to you? Oh, well, yeah, that's how I'm successful because I'm so critical of myself. Yeah, it helps me be driven.
It helps me be driven and like, that doesn't sound like a authentic self. What do you think it is if our inner child was able to speak authentically 100% of the time and say what our inner child truly wants and desires, and it had a voice, what would our inner child be saying all the time? I'm always so happy that I am loved now.
I'm always at peace because I'm not in conflict now. I'm always looking forward to new adventures now because it's life as it should be.
And those kind of statements, if you're talking about the inner child talking, and thank you so much for getting the family out of you. Interesting.
And that we can just be us. We can just be a real us.
How does someone learn how to get the family out of them, the family dysfunction out of them, while also being a part of the family. I want to learn to remain connected, which is what we call kind of emotionally connected.
And I am going to be myself. Yes.
Which I think a lot of people struggle with, with their parents or family. And when somebody says, so I'm going to tell you something, I want you to go home and tell your family or your parents this holiday or whenever you're going to see them.
How would you feel about doing that? Like you want to change the date of when you get together for Christmas or when you, how comforting we feel going and telling them that, and this is your preference?

Oh my gosh, that's going to be a mess. And this can be a president of a company who runs people all the time, but he's going to go home and tell mom and dad, I don't want to do Christmas at the same time we've always done it.
Oh my, you're going to... That's why we so become children when we go home.

Interesting.

We just, and many people will say that.

When I go home.

Interesting.

We just, and many people will say that when I go home, I just feel like I'm back, back in junior high, or I'm back in, my parents treat me this way. And, you know, here I am the president of GM or whatever, and they're still babying me and think I'm an idiot.
and it bothers them.

Ah.

And I would help them. And it bothers them.

And I would help them learn for it not to bother them.

That's them.

They're not you.

Enmeshment is I am you and you are me.

Non-enmeshment is you are you and I am me.

I am not you and you are not me. And we can have a relationship.
And that's a healthy relationship. Because this is not a healthy relationship.
Yeah. This is not a healthy relationship.
This is a healthy relationship. And you need space.
You need distance and space to have closeness. Interesting.
This, you can't have closeness. You're over close.
This is over distant probably because you're over close and you can't have closeness. That's so interesting you say this, Jerry, because for those that are listening and not watching and not able to see the hand gestures, you had your hands together enmeshed versus far apart and then closer together but not touching.
It's interesting because I left home at 13. Oh, wow.
And I begged my parents to send me away to a private boarding school that was about seven hours away. Begged them for a summer, and they did not want me to leave.

But I knew my parents loved me, but I didn't feel emotionally safe in the house because of their relationship.

Right.

My father was there for me.

My mother was there for me at different times, but they weren't there for each other.

Again, I was sexually abused by a man that I didn't know when I was five. It wasn't anyone in the family, thankfully.
And then my brother went to prison when I was eight for four and a half years, my older brother, 11 years older. So that was just a challenging season of life that the family dynamic faced.
And my parents just weren't, they shouldn't have been married,

essentially. They were just not happy in their marriage.
They did their best. They tried, but they weren't, they eventually got divorced when I was a teenager.
And I do say parents are doing the best they can. A hundred percent.
With the paradigm they have been given. From their origin and everything else.
From their origin and everything else. But I'm not excusing them from any bad behavior.
100%.

But as a 12-and-a-half-year-old, I wanted out.

Get me out of here.

I want to be around better environment, better friends, better everything.

And I went from enmeshed to as far away as I could be.

And over the years, I've had to relearn how to get closer, but not too far, but not enmeshed, but closer, because I would go months without talking, and I felt safe being alone, because I felt unsafe being enmeshed. And again, I knew my parents loved me, and they showed up for me, and they went to my games games and they did the best they could.
Right. They did.
Right. But it was just like with the, the, the, the life experience I had, I didn't know how to navigate the emotional unsafety that I felt from their lack of love with each other and the chaos it felt like it was having.
And so it was a, it was years of unlearning, of healing, of all these different things to self-differentiate from my childhood and from certain people in my family so that I could love myself and love them for who they are. We have to accept them for who they are.
And also, the other thing is, this is what I will also tell people. If you accepted your parents just the way they are, what relationship would you like to have with them? But you have to accept.
Well, I'd get along better if they would do. They changed.
Yeah, yeah. They are exactly who they are and they're not going to change.
What relationship do you want to have? Do you know you can do that in marital work too?

Really?

Your wife or husband's not going to change.

What relationship do you want to have with him?

Well, we're here so that that changes.

You know, oh, so you came here to work with me to change him.

Oh, well, at least I know now what our goal is and what you were planning on. Yeah, the impossible goal.
The impossible goal. And you're going to find me to be a very inadequate coach, and he's going to fail, and it's going to be a mess.
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Money movement services are provided by Intuit Payments, Inc., licensed as a money transmitter by the New York State Department of Financial Services. so instead of trying to change our parent or change our spouse for what we don't like about them, what should we be trying to do instead to create a healthier relationship with them? what if you were to uh mom sits down or dad sits down or whatever and they're at the table and you have coffee and go, you know, what was it like when you grew up?

What was it like in your family?

What did you like about it and what did you not like about it?

I'm being a researcher.

Now I've just changed emotional location with them.

I'm no longer the little child who they're going to.

Now, they may say, oh, well, we don't want to talk about any of that.

Okay, well, I just wanted to ask.

I'm not going to make them do it.

But I'm now an adult and treating them as an adult. Hey, what was it like during the war? My parents would be older, and what was it like going through the Depression and those kind of things? And because I've changed my emotional location,

I'm no longer this little boy and they're these parents that are,

now they have to talk to me like an adult

because I'm asking an adult thing

and I'm asking something about them.

And I've changed something that will change the dynamic. And there are many other ways to change the dynamic, too, to learn how to, you know, even if it's a, well, I remember my own example of I was a pastor for many years and my father died.
And it fell on me to give the,, who's going to give the family prayer at the meal? Well, it's going to be—I'm the youngest. But I was the only one who was in religious circles in that way.
So it has to be me. And Mom assumed it would be me.
I didn't want to do it. Really? Even though you were in the practice? Even though that was, I'm not the family's pastor.
Right. I'm Jerry.
I'm not your, I'm not your, I'm the youngest. I'm the youngest.
I, what, why am I, you know, because everyone just wanted it taken away from them. So I told mom several times before the meal, I'm, I don't wish to do this.
That's not my preference. And she'd just ignore it.
Oh, just do it anyway. Just do it anyway.
And blah, blah, blah, blah. Mom, and several times to prepare because I know it's changed.
So when we got to the time, we're all standing there all around the table. She looks at me and goes, Jerry, would you like to?

Did you give in?

And this was one of my major steps of self-differentiation.

Mom, we had discussed this several times.

And one of my preferences is this is not what I wanted to do.

Ooh, ruffling the feathers over here. So I just wanted to share that and then shut up.
And then everyone's waiting to eat. The food is out.
Everybody's going, we don't do that in our family. So you started to break the cycle a little bit and create a shift.
Well, our family was never the same. Really? Never the same.
Well, you lose a parent, you're going to, I mean, it's never the same. Right.
But that someone would say no. Wow.
And so mom went ahead and gave, and then it was shared around and nobody asked me, but then I could say, hey, I'd be happy to do that today if you'd like me to do it. Because now I'm doing it because I'm choosing it or want to.
But it's not here's your role. You do this role, Jerry, and be happy.
So your mom, did she get upset with you when you didn't do this? Did she give you a stare? Oh, yes. She gave me a look like, we don't do that.
But then you said, I'm going to clear my boundary. It was just to state my position.
And then the hardest thing to do was to stay quiet. And not to apologize.
And not save anybody from this moment. Wow, interesting.
That's self-differentiation in the family. Wow.
Because I'm changing my dynamic in the family. I would have said, oh, no, it's going to be okay, or okay, I'll do it today, but, you know, I don't want anybody to feel bad.
Wow. How old were you at this time? Do you remember roughly? Probably in my 20s.
Oh, wow. Okay.
And you were the youngest of? And I was the youngest of three.

Wow.

Well, and then I thought, my brother's not going to like this.

Nobody's going to like this.

Because, and look, she just lost her husband.

Oh, man.

We lost her dad.

And now I'm.

Look at you being a little brat.

You're being a little brat.

All the role thing that's going to come out.

And I'm going, but I can't care about that. Wow.
That I'm not their little brat. They can think of me as a little brat.
Yeah. They are not me.
I am not them. Wow.
I'm not a little brat. I have a purpose to, because mom always used to guilt me into singing because I did professional music

and I sang and I did things like that and went to music school and Lord knows what.

And so she, oh, Jerry, you have to sing for everybody. I don't want.

Sometimes maybe you do, sometimes you don't.

Sometimes I don't. And I'm not here to be the monkey on a, you know, okay, Jerry, now perform.
And I never could say no. Really? It was so hard.
Oh, it's just. When did you finally say no or no? Well, to the family prayer was the beginning of.
And then you started to stand for yourself. Then I'm going, this is the new Jerry.
Boundaries. And I'm not going to get reactive.
I'm not going to be mad that mom didn't listen to me before we got there and that she would rescue me from this moment by not asking me because I knew she wasn't going to rescue me from this moment. But I don't need to be mad at her.
She just had her plan. I have mine.
Wow. So it sounds like what I'm hearing you say is you can't expect to change your parents, you can't expect to change your spouse or your partner, but you can change the dynamic you have with your parents or your spouse.
Exactly. And when you start to do that, you're self-differentiating from a dynamic that once was into a new dynamic.
And they can't stop that dynamic change. They might throw a fuss.
They could throw a fuss. They might scream.
They might scream. Silent treatment.
Well, we also have three levels of resistance. What are those? That if you go through those three level of resistance, you'll come out at a higher level.
First level is, Jerry, why are you saying no, you won't do this? Second stage of resistance is, Jerry, no, you need to be doing this. And I'll be upset if you don't.
Third, do this or else. And if you can stay self-differentiated through all three levels, you'll start here, go up the levels and end up here in the family.
Not here, but here. Because they can't control my dynamic of the family.
They can yell and scream and do all that, but this family is now different because I'm different. Let's go.
And I'm still connected. Right.
If I'm not connected, then you don't have the power. The emphasis is not there.
But if I'm I'm still connected they and you could become a scapegoat you could become that's one that will make you the scapegoat and you can go that's fine if you need to do that and I'm going to continue to be me and I can love you and if that's need to do, and then we have to be patient at that time. And now they have to decide, do we want to lose him or do we not? The burden's on them now, not on me.
Can we change to accept him? Can we change to accept him? And that's their choice, that they get to decide that well. Here's an interesting question for you.
As someone who has worked with individuals and family, dysfunctional families for 45 plus years, coaching, therapy, all these different things, helping them heal and self-differentiate. I hope to be a parent one day.
And for those watching or listening who are parents, what's the best way they can set up their family to be as healthy as possible for their children to thrive and also love and accept each other and have a healthy family dynamic? Or if someone's got some older kids and they realize, oh, maybe I've done some stuff. And many have.
I have too. And they're in their teens now.
How can I start to change the family dynamic so that my kids feel empowered to be themselves within the family as well? And what I tell everybody, I understand that. And that's an excellent goal.
And in fact, it's never too late. People even say, well, I'm 70 now.
How can I? So aren't you still a biological human being? I mean, you still are a cell in this whole world of the universe we have. So you're still functioning in that, so you can change.
Now, some people can't change because of very real limitations, and I understand. Even some narcissists, they're so broken because of that.
But you can change, and what we want to do is focus on Whatever you want for your kids, you must obtain for yourself. So it's not what you teach them.
It's what you be to them. That's much more powerful than anything you say.
Can you give some examples? Well, people will say, now, you need to, you ought not do that, you ought not do that. But the thing is, if I am mature, if I am less reactive, if I am more calm, if I am more thoughtful, if I am able to see a more clear view of how all the system works in my relationships, that comes through because of the connectedness.
And that's the more powerful dynamic than all the book reading you do about how you tell people.

As a marriage and family therapist, people were always asking me about parental advice.

And there's good advice out there.

You can read tons of books on parental advice.

But the thing is, if the envelope is bad, then the message in it is going to have a good message in a bad envelope.

I'm talking about changing the envelope.

Then you put the good message in.

It's all different.

And so many just go, well, I'm going to give them this envelope.

But you're living like crap.

You hate yourself and you're telling them you need to love yourself. You need to bad envelope, right message.
Let's get good envelope. I'm not going to tell you to love yourself.
I'm going to love myself. Yeah.
You need the messenger to be in alignment with the message. Exactly.
Now, so it sounds like step one,

if you want to be a great parent, start reparenting yourself and healing the inner child.

Step two, learn self-differentiation from your own family as well. Absolutely.
But self-differentiation,

it starts with like these small courageous steps, it sounds like. It doesn't have to be,

I'm going to explode the family dynamic overnight, but it's like, mom wants me to do this, and she's been wanting me to do it my whole life, and I've always done it, and I'm not going to do it anymore. Dad wants me to do this, and I'm going to say, hey, that doesn't work for me anymore.
Whatever it is, it's the small resistances. And then what I've found is as you are self-aware, becoming self-regulated, and becoming self-differentiated, those are kind of the three aware, regulated, differentiated, as you're doing those three, and we can learn how to do those three, that it is better for it to take longer and be right and actually effective than go quick fix or shorter and you go over and come back to the same spot.
The other weird thing about change,

and again, that's kind of been my whole thing all my life,

is how do I change?

And then as a professional, how do I change other people or help them change or whether I'm changing them or whatever?

How does change work?

Change also, many people go, well, that can take a while.

It also can take two seconds and you're never the same. Now, why is that? That's a change.
People will tell me that all the time, that I've never been the same since that. Well, that's a pretty quick change.
Yeah, I decided. That's a pretty quick awareness that you had.
So there's the long work, and then along the way, you'll have these moments of just, I'm just so different. And I think that's really a cool part of the work that I help people with.
Yeah, because one of the challenges I felt like I lived with,

and I think a lot of people probably lived with when they had dysfunctional families,

is trying to keep the peace.

It's trying to not upset mom or upset dad

or upset your sibling.

It's like, do what you need to in your role

to keep the peace.

That's why we have roles.

Roles is to make the family continue to operate in its dysfunctional way. But don't we need roles too? In like relationships, aren't there supposed to be roles in like how to support one another or agreements? But that's not a role.
That's a self.

Myself and my values and my belief, I'm going to support you.

Gotcha.

And that's not a role I'm playing. That's my genuine beliefs.

So when we're playing a role, what are we doing?

Being a pseudo-self. A role is a pseudo-self.
Golden child is a pseudo-self.

Problem child. Problem child is a pseudo-self.
I'm not saying they really didn't come out of a family where that was emphasized. I'm not saying it didn't really happen.
But I think once you realize, you know, that's not you. You know, that's not you.
I know that's the way you've lived. And that's everybody's always said you're but it's really not who you are and so with roles uh i i think of roles as being a pseudo self what we want to do is to be our authentic selves um not not a pseudo self not a pseudo self oh i know you were saying you're right to please we're gonna please that's a pseudo self.
Not a pseudo self. Oh, I know you were saying to please.
We're going to please. That's a pseudo self.
And why am I Mr. Pleaser? Which I was, absolutely was.
Codependent, Mr. Pleaser.
Oh my gosh, it was just. Why is that? To seek approval? Is it to survival? And I think when you say seek approval, I don't know.
I used to teach codependency, have codependency groups.

And so I know all the symptoms of codependency and all of that.

However, at the bottom line of it is it's the family's chronic anxiety, which you're not aware of, that pushes you to then go, oh, I need to get approval or I need to be pleasing. So we need to reduce the chronic anxiety so you're not doing the pleasing part.
How do you reduce the chronic anxiety of a family dynamic? First of all, you have to recognize it. You have to recognize what's underneath your pleasing, your withdrawing, your overcompensating, your hyperfunctioning, your underfunctioning.
Underfunctioning comes because of anxiety. All of these come because of chronic anxiety.
Anxiety is a bedrock of life. That's how life got started.
And we have a brain that functions that way too. But we don't want to function out of our old brain.
We want to function out of our new brain. All of this stuff has to do with our old brain.
It's the old brain. And so you feel like you're in a room with a tiger.
Well, why do you feel like you're in a room with a tiger when there's no tiger there? Because a million years ago, you needed that. You needed that anxiety to save yourself.
Now we have the experience of it, but it's not there. And so we have to learn to operate with our brain better.
Wow. And so I think whenever I, and I didn't realize this, oh, being like a mascot, I was also a mascot.
And so I would get nervous. You've had many lives, Jerry.
I would get nervous and in a group or in a therapy group or a supervision group or whatever we do. And if it was tension, what would I break it with? A joke or making fun.
And I was serving a function with that. Playing a role.
I'm playing a role. But it was my anxiety I wasn't managing.
I can't deal with your tension. So I'm going to be funny if I begin to learn, well, I need to let them have their tension.
Why do I need to rescue them from this tension with my humor?

And also, it doesn't get us anywhere.

I mean, I can, and there's a time to reduce tension. There's, and I've done that certainly legitimately.
But whatever we do, overfunction or underfunction, comes out of the anxiety that we're, that we're not. Most of what's happening with you, you haven't learned to, to understand why it happens.
You're just living your life as, as you should. But if I started helping you understand the underlying anxiety, you go, Oh, I think you're right.
That is, that was my anxiety. Oh, that was my anxiety.

And it's the chronic anxiety from over here at the family that we inherit that anxiety.

And we inherit that level of self-differentiation.

So if they are twos on a 10 scale, what do you think we're going to be?

Two.

Right.

In self-differentiation. In self-differentiation.
I'm not talking morally, spiritually. And so we want to work on raising that number while staying connected.
And then my fourness helps them become two and a quarter. Right, right.
Barely. You're not even, yeah.
Barely. Maybe they shift the role a little bit.
And I'm not even trying to change them. That's not my, that's not even my, but because we are connected, it's going to have an impact.
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You talked about inheriting the family enmeshment. Until we are self-aware, learn to self-regulate and self-differentiate, we're going to inherit this family dynamic, this dysfunction, it sounds like.
Here's a scary question. Can you inherit narcissism from a parent if you have a narcissistic parent? Well, that's a science question.
And we don't know the cause of narcissism. Certainly, we can say a narcissistic parent who is abusive and can create a narcissist.

But there are so many layers of things going on from genetics to how the body affects with environment and affects in their environment to parenting, to family dynamics, to trans or intergenerational stuff that comes, to biochemistry. And we don't have one good thing.
This causes narcissism. And there are so many people that just say a narcissism is caused by a narcissist.
That has not been my experience. Now, can narcissists have narcissists? Yes, of course they can have narcissists.
But you're just painting a simplified view of it, and I don't think that's accurate. Because there's so many dynamics that can affect someone being a narcissist.
Why is someone BPD or bipolar? Or why is someone, you know, there's just, we're a complicated organism. And so I think it, and I don't think there's any one study that says this is what it, that would be probably irresponsible because that's not what the science.
With all of your work as a therapist, a family therapist, and a family dysfunctional dynamics that you've experienced and studied and supported for the last 45 years, if you were to design a narcissistic kid to grow up and be narcissistic, what would be the elements? Not that you would do this, but if you're like, hey, if you do these things and this and this and this, you might create a narcissist. Well, there's some classic thing we think about.
No boundaries, overindulging. Get whatever you want.
Spoiling, whatever you want. Maybe throw in some abuse.
I think those would be some good kind of things. No consequences.
No consequences. Also, many times shaming is a part of that soup that goes in there.
But again, it's already baked into the cake in the families. Because it was passed down already.
It was passed down already. It's already passed down.
And so those would be some things I'd be less, I would not want to do with my child. Sure.
That they do need a sense of self, but not a sense of self-absorption. I think one that I want to ask you is, how can someone with narcissistic parents set healthy boundaries as an adult, where they stay connected to their parent, but they're not enmeshed with that parent anymore? And they don't play the role that they've been playing for a long time.
The way we do that is by inner boundaries. Inner boundaries first.
Inner boundaries first versus external boundaries. Because if you build your inner boundaries first, you'll be able to hold to your outer boundaries.
If you don't, those are just, they're not going to work. You're not going to hold them.
So inner boundaries, when I think of inner boundaries, I think of learning to detach, learning to de-enmesh, learning to, I am not you, you are not me. And so if I want to maintain those boundaries, you have to learn to not care.
Wow, that's tough. And the caring part is the dysfunctional part.
And it doesn't sound weird, me saying caring part's the dysfunctional part, but it is. It absolutely is the dysfunctional part.
But these are your parents. They've given you so much.
They've supported you your whole life. Tell them thank you for that.
Right. Then you don't owe them anything else.
When do we stop owing our parents? When do we? I guess 18? I don't know. Is that what you're saying? Is that the age? I don't know.
Well, I don't think- Do we ever owe them anything? No. That's the thing that you're saying.
That's what I'm saying. We never owe them anything.
I didn't choose to get born. They had a child and they chose.
Right. That was their choice.
And the law says they have to take care of me and raise me. And I didn't- But it seems like there's this unspoken agreement or expectation that the child is supposed to take care of the, look at all I've done for you.
All I've done for you. And I would say, I can't tell you how much I have appreciated that.
And they would say. But you owe me your life.
I don't know. Or you owe me to do this for me.
Owe me to do more for me. Yeah.
Now you need to take care of me because I took care of you. Right.
And the thing is, me taking care of you has to do with my values, my morals, and my choices. And that I have no trouble doing that.
However, it depends on what kind of relationship we're going to have

and if I have no trouble doing that. However, it depends on what kind of relationship we're going to have.

And if our relationship is only an evil one, then probably other means need to be worked out for your sake being taken care of. Wow, yeah.
Because I'm not going to completely blow up my life and my emotional inner peace. I can live without family.
I can't live without inner peace. Otherwise, you're just continuing the cycle of enmeshment, generational trauma, and you're showing the next generation how to treat each other.
And on a billboard, yes. Gosh, but it just seems so hard for people because they're like, well, this is how it's always been.
And I would never say it's not hard. And I never look at people and go, oh, well, that should just be easy.
And many times people say, oh, well, you just make it sound so easy. This was hard thought easy.
This wasn't easy for me. There wasn't, no, no.
And I'm not suggesting you should just be there without any struggle. However, I'm trying to give you a framework with which to work with.
If you didn't have to take care of your parents, would you?

Or if they are narcissistic parents, which and I'm for kids taking care of their parents. I'm not anti-family or anti.
I want families to be together. I want them to love each other.
But if you have two malignant narcissists, now, what kind of caregiving relationship do you want to have with them? You have to decide because you're your own agent. I mean, it can't be based on whatever they say do or then you're back to being a pseudo self.
And you're acting like a child. And you're acting like a child.
And there's a parent. And they're in control.
They're pressuring you or judging you. Well, and they'll be leading you around by the nose if they're bad narcissistic parents.
Wow. So it's that because you're going to have to live with your choices.
They have to live with theirs. And in fact, they've made maybe bad choices for the last many decades.
Is it your time now to make up for that? How do you make up for their bad choices over decades and decades? I don't know how to do that. Does that mean, and I took care of my mother.
Everybody's got to decide for themselves. And also I knew if I was going to do that, I needed inner boundaries.
For yourself, yeah, yeah. I had to have inner boundaries if I was going to do that, that it just wasn't going to matter.
And, you know, well, why don't you come visit me more at the nursing home? She mentally was there, all that just physically couldn't do it. And I would visit her on a regular basis, but it was never enough.
Really? Never enough. Even if it went every day for months, it was still never enough.
It would never be enough. But you have to create inner boundaries first.
And I have to decide, how much do I want to visit her? Right. Not because she's guilting me.
Not because of guilting and shaming. And so I'm going, so if I don't, what does she think about me?

I'm being a bad son.

And you have to stop caring about that.

And, well, I could even not care about it by totally accepting it.

Wow.

Hey, Mom, I know this is not what you would like.

And I know you think I'm being a bad son because I'm not doing what Stan and Janet are doing with their mother down the hallway who is in my class, you know, whatever. And they could visit every day.
But they had a different relationship with their mom than I had with my mom. So it's a different family.
You know, they want to visit every day. That's wonderful.

And so I'm okay with being the bad son. You've accepted that your mother's perception of you was you were not good enough or not being the good son.

And you learned to accept her perspective or perception of you.

You didn't have to agree with it.

I don't have to agree.

I didn't agree with it at all. Yeah, yeah.
And the same is true with tug of war. When you have a tug of war, if I accept it, I can drop the rope.
And I just dropped the rope with mom. I'm the bad son.
It's such a shame that God gave you a bad son, like me. Who shows up every week for you.
Who shows up every week to visit you, and he won't do it any more often than that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I just can't imagine how awful that is. Yeah, such a tough life, yeah.
Sorry. But what if she keeps shaming you and making you wrong constantly? So you would like me to visit you less? Yeah.
Is that what you're asking?

Isn't it interesting, the more you appreciate anyone, whether it's a parent, child, sibling, relationship, whatever, the more you appreciate someone, typically that relationship appreciates in value.

It grows in value because it feels appreciated.

When you shame, belittle, make wrong, it diminishes in value.

It diminishes.

Right?

It's like you don't want to be around that anymore.

Right?

Or you don't feel good when you are around it.

You're regretting having to show up. You're, like, resistant to it.
Well, and actually, if you use a cancer model, all of this narcissism, criticism, negative and dysfunctional stuff that's coming is a metastasis of the emotional cancer. And it metastasizes and you're supposed to come join this.
Well, I don't want to join this. I don't want to be a part of this and I'm not going to be.
And that I'm not going to call you cancer. I mean, I don't need it.
I don't want to join this. I don't want to be a part of this, and I'm not going to be.
And that I'm not going to call you cancer. I mean, I don't need to disrespect or be mean to people, but I need to recognize what's going on.
And that because all of this is all pseudo self that's cancerous, that can just gobble me right up and no we're we're going to keep this at uh at bay that's powerful and and you can hold on to your pseudo-self of being a narcissist or a mean person or an unloving parent or you can that's you're free to free to do that. And I've just put a block there when I've said, you're free to do that.
And I'm over here. Yeah.
Self-differentiation. That's powerful.
Jerry, this has been powerful. And I want people to follow you over on YouTube slash Jerry Wise and everywhere else, jerrywiserelationshipsystems.com.
You've got a free training on your site as well where people can go through more of your systems and your processes for understanding how to navigate dysfunctional family relationships, how to start healing, how to start becoming more self-aware, self-regulated, differentiated, all these different things. I want people to go to your website and check this out.
You're all over social media as well. Again, Jerry Wise.
And you've got just a wealth of information on how to navigate probably one of the most challenging things, which is family dynamics and the dynamic you have with your inner child and self. And so I want to acknowledge you for the decades of service you've had towards understanding, researching, and helping human beings find more peace and harmony in their relationships.
Because like you said, I think the most important thing in the world is the family units and having families be healthy and happy and individualistic as well within a family so they can be authentic and not a pseudo self. So I want to acknowledge you for the work, the journey, and the commitment you have to helping families heal in a world where it seems like there's a lot of stress and chaos in families.
And there's two final questions I have for you. This one is a hypothetical question I ask everyone at the end of our conversations.
It's called the three truths. So imagine you get to live as long as you want, Jerry, but it's the last day in the future for you.
And you get to accomplish everything you want and see the people in your life flourish and everything else all comes true. But on the last day for you, you have to take all of your work with you.
So this conversation is gone. All the content you've ever put out there, no one has access to your content anymore.
But on the last day, you get to leave behind three final lessons. And we would have access to this information.
What would be those three lessons to the world or three truths? Remember that you can't solve the problem using the thinking and emotional dynamics that have caused it. So you cannot break out of the box by using everything you know in the box.
Two, family is everything, whether you believe it or not. That truth is not going to change.
You can resist it. You can do whatever you want with it.
But because of who you are and as a human being and growing up in that social unit that has mental and emotional dynamics that go on the rest of your life.

So family is everything.

Thirdly, calmness is everything.

Thank you. So family is everything.
Thirdly, calmness is everything. If you want to be less enmeshed, stay more calm because reactivity will only make you enmesh more.
So if you're being reactive, you're probably enmeshing more. You're not de-enmeshinghing i didn't say be a doormat i didn't say but calmness is everything and if you are calm you can think you can regulate your emotions better you can regulate your thoughts better and you can see things more clearly yeah so i have and i have a video on calmness is everything, but it's just so critical.
That's beautiful. For a family system's perspective.
Beautiful. And final question, Jerry, what's your definition of greatness? Oh, I think greatness would be finding the true and authentic you.
I mean, that's, I don't care how much money you make. I don't care how many, you know, companies you own.
I don't, you know, I've got wealthy clients. I've got poor clients.
What are you giving to yourself? Because that will make the world greater if you do that. And that's what I always felt is that the more I can be more self-differentiated, caring myself, aware of myself, I would be able to love differently, give differently, express myself differently in a way that is world-enriching rather than worlding.
Jerry Wise. Thanks so much for being here.
Appreciate it. Thank you, Lewis.
I've really enjoyed it very much. Powerful.
I have a brand new book called Make Money Easy. And if you're looking to create more financial freedom in your life, you want abundance in your life and you want to stop stop making money hard in your life, but you wanna make it easier, you wanna make it flow, you wanna feel abundant, then make sure to go to makemoneyeasybook.com right now and get yourself a copy.
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