Diane Dempster
What you focus on grows. So if you're focusing on all the broken stuff, you're going to see more of that, and if you focus on what you want, your ability to create that and design that in the future is easier.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
Welcome back, everybody, to another conversation in the Parenting with Impact podcast. You've got Diane and Elaine here today, and we're going to talk about mending relationships.

Diane Dempster
Yeah, mending relationships. When we talked about this, we'd mostly talk about teens and young adults. But the reality is these tools we're going to talk about today—I'm not going to jump into them, but what we're going to talk about today is going to be important and valuable regardless of what relationship needs a little bit of mending.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
So here's where this is coming from. I keep notes when we're doing groups and talking to clients about issues that come up. One of the things I noticed a couple of weeks ago was that there were a lot of people in one of the group calls. I can't remember if it was older teens or young adults, but they were doing the work to rebuild relationships and rebuild trust, but there had been a lot leading up to that which was fractured. So there was a lot of, “But they still won't…” and “but, but, but…” Right? Sometimes, we often say, it took you 15 years, 18 years, 20 years to get to this point; it's going to take a little time to undo it.

Diane Dempster
Well, the other thing that happens is we're doing this work and we feel like, "OK, I want to do this differently. I want to be collaborative, calmer. I don't want to yell," all this stuff. Then we have a bad day. I was laughing at Thanksgiving—we're recording this in the spring, so it was a while back, but it's like when everybody's together, it's the holidays, and you're exhausted because you've been cooking all the time. And I had a wobble and stormed off. The good news is, I stormed off; I didn't yell at everybody, which is what I would've done years ago. But this is a journey. Sometimes, we do OK for a long time, and then we slip back. That's normal; that's human nature, but as you're building trust, momentum, and collaboration, sometimes those wobbles take our kids back to, "See, I can't trust you."

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
I had that happen with a sibling, actually, where we'd been doing a lot of this work to rebuild a relationship and rebuild trust. Then, I lost it one day and did not handle it as well as I would've liked, and it set us back so far. Even though it was just a glitch, to your point, that sibling felt like, "Oh, see, you're back where you were. I can't trust you." And, of course, I react to that because it's like, "What do you mean you can't trust me?" We get into these hot messes a lot.

Diane Dempster
And again, this gentleness of this happens. It's part of what happens. It's what happens when you're in a relationship. It's what happens when you're human. You said this a minute ago, "It takes you years to make a change, and sometimes there's just slip-ups."

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
Or sometimes, it takes years to fall into bad patterns. You've got to expect it'll take a little time to break those patterns and create new ones. You don't break habits; you create new ones. You replace old habits with new ones.

Diane Dempster
The other thing that happened, and when I was talking to a client today, is that there's this underlying, grumbly wound still there. Whenever something happens, they're going, "Yeah, but..." then they feel they can't trust their kid. It goes both directions. A parent's kid was really working on some substance issues. They had a great period of time, and then a new friend used it in a different way. Now, they're in a pattern again, and the parents say, "Oh my gosh, this is terrible." It's when things feel familiar and scary that we react.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
In this podcast, we've said this before: "Families are the worst at allowing people to grow and change." Family unit is the perfect pattern to hold people to who they used to be instead of who they are. We do it as parents; siblings do it with each other. My siblings still see me as a 12-year-old brat, no matter what I've done in my life.

Diane Dempster
I laugh because one of my kids was over for dinner the other night, and I was dysregulated and overwhelmed. As we were talking, we were playing a game on my computer to calm my nervous system. My kid went, "Are you at work?” I'm like, "No, I'm not at work. Why would I be at work?" They're like, "You work all the time. You work too much." And I used to work way too much. That was my M.O. I've worked hard to not spend my whole evening at work when I want to be with family. I'm like, "No, I'm here with you. I'm just doing something stupid on the phone to help my nervous system manage so that I can be here listening to you and engaging in the conversation." But there was this sort of assumption.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
We make assumptions, we hold resentments. We all do it. Our kids do it, we do it. When we're not conscious of it, they set the tone for communication for the dynamic. Right?

Diane Dempster
It’s assumptions set the tone, is what you mean? Right? It's not the other person who sets the tone; it's the assumptions, the resentments. We're seeing the world through our assumptions and resentments and I want to say that really clearly. Everybody does that, and it's almost impossible for us not to see a situation through our filters. And so part of this is about us going, "Oh, yeah, you know what? That person always used to dah, dah, dah." I need to make sure that I'm not assuming that they're doing it. And to know that our kids will do that as well because they see the world through their assumptions, resentments, and filters as well.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
And, we've talked about this, like, I believe resentments are something we hold, we own, and in fact, I was talking to a client this week about resentments and about the question. The inquiry I left her with was, “How is this actually serving you?" "What are you getting from holding onto this resentment?" On some level, we hold it because it feeds something. It feeds our fear, and it feeds our wanting to be right. It could feed a lot of things.

Diane Dempster
We did an episode on resentment. Go listen to our episode on resentment. As you're saying that, I'm thinking, right, is that resentment? It's like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
That's exactly what David said yesterday. I felt that. So true. So, our relationships are both strong and fragile. They can be fraught, and they come with a lot of history, baggage, love, and sometimes with assumptions and resentment.

Diane Dempster
And sometimes, I believe—I'm just going to plug this in here—sometimes our family is given to us because it's the perfect lesson for us. I'm in my second long-term relationship—well, more than two, but officially a second long-term relationship, and it's amazing how his history, my history, and all the history line up together. All the stuff that I still want to learn is stuff that he's learned, and all the stuff he wants to learn is stuff I've already bumped up against. I think we're here in families because we get to learn from those relationships.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
Yeah. They were given to us, and we gave each other on some level what we need. The other thing I wanted to throw in is this notion that, yes, we're holding onto these assumptions and resentments, and yes, there's all this stuff. There's something about looking forward, creating a vision, being clear about what we want, because it's so easy to go to "No, not that—I don't want that, I don't want this behavior, I don't want that interaction." And so, it's really important for us to slow down and shift from what we don't want to what we do want in order to begin to move forward because what you pay attention to grows.

Diane Dempster
Yeah, I was going to say that—what you focus on grows. So, if you're focusing on all the broken stuff, you're going to get more. You're going to see more of that. If you focus on what you want, your ability to create that and design that future is easier. So let's take a break, then come back and talk about strategies.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
Welcome back, everybody. We're talking about how to mend relationships when there's been conflict or disconnection. We've done a really good job of not getting to the strategy we wanted to teach yet because we really set the stage, but we actually have a very clear concept we want to teach. Do you want to take the lead on it?

Diane Dempster
Yeah. There are a couple of them coming up for me, but the tool we thought of, which was really the impetus of this whole thing, is about "cleaning the slate." For me, this tool takes me back to when I was fresh out of college and in my first job—you may not even know this story. When I started my first job in a different city, I was living with this family. They had a 4-year-old kid. I babysat, but I was a single, young adult. The mom and kid had this ritual that when they had an upset, angry moment or frustration with each other, they'd do this exercise: they took their hands, held them together, and wiped the slate clean. And so, this tool wiped the slate clean. For me, that was just that powerful moment because after they did that, it was like, “You know what? We're not going to talk about this anymore. We're not going to argue about this anymore. We're just going to say, ‘You know what? I love you. You're my person. Let's start over here because we've had a wobble.’"

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
I love your term "wobble." I'm leaning into that today. So, the concept we wanted to teach is this notion of "clean the slate." What I noticed in groups was a lot of parents were dealing with stuff—maybe coming out of the holidays—and it was like, "It sounds like you need a clean-the-slate conversation." Then I'd hear myself say, "It sounds like you need to clean the slate." OK, well, what's a clean-the-slate conversation?

When we've built trust and connection in a relationship—this tool relies on building some trust—sometimes instead of getting into "this, that, he said, she said," there's an opportunity to come to our kids and say, "Hey I see that, you're acknowledged. I see you're working on this, or this is happening, and I'm trying to do this. Could we consider having a clean slate and start fresh? I get you're working on your stuff, and you know I'm working on mine. What do you think about the opportunity for a fresh start?"

Diane Dempster
Well, and as I'm saying that. It's one of the things: a clean slate is not trying to get your kid to admit their faults or forgive yours only. It's without agenda. Sometimes, we just do it ourselves, even if our kids can't do it. But we say, "You know what I really want: to wipe the slate clean here. We had a wobble. Here's what's going on for me, and here's what I'm going to work on." The clean-the-slate story I tell a lot is when I decided I didn't want to be a yelling mom. I'm sitting with my kids on the bed, I said, "I lost it. I'm sorry. I don't want to be that mom. Will you help me? Can we start over?" That's what this is about—acknowledging my part and figuring out how to make it different.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
Yeah. I think when parents come into our community and start using the coach-approach and do this work, very often, this is a very powerful tool to say to kids, "Look, I know that in the past I've been reactive, micromanaging, nagging, yelling—whatever behavior that you know is turning them off or shutting them down. I get that's who I've been in the past, and I want you to know I'm really making an effort to change that. Not only am I making the effort, but I've actually joined this program, I'm taking a class." Our kids love to hear we're doing work on ourselves, not just them. This is a design conversation. So I want to ask your grace a little bit, or I want to ask if you'd be willing to give me the benefit of the doubt or whatever you're asking for. I want to ask if we can have a clean-the-slate opportunity, like whatever it is you want to ask for, but actually starting with the acknowledgment of what your role has been that's been pushing them away and use it as an opportunity to invite them back.

Diane Dempster
You can invite them to share their perspective and side of it, and just know that they may still be wobbling, and they may still be, "Yeah, you really were a..." Blah, blah, blah. And like, "I can't believe you did that and you were so…,” and then it's like, "OK, so this kiddo is still worked up about the situation. How do I create space for them to be upset?" And that might be acknowledging and validating, right? It's this sort of, I get it. You're still angry about what happened yesterday, and it makes sense that you would be.  

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
Go back to what we were saying about resentment. Sometimes, people hold resentments for a really long time, and they don't have any idea that they are. I was talking to a client this week, and it became clear during a coaching conversation that this person's been holding a particular resentment about a decision in the family that they've been living with for probably 15 years. Right? And it surfaced as, "Wow, that's really what's going on." You're really resentful about that decision that you agreed to 15 years ago that's not really feeling fair or whatever now. So, sometimes, we hold these things for a long time, and our kids may have a harder time letting go than we do, and that's fair if we can acknowledge the reality of it and accept that we may have some trust to rebuild. 

Diane Dempster
Well, and I think the other thing—and we said this in the preamble—is that everybody sees things differently. It's so hard to believe because we hang on to Truth with a capital T. I'm saying it funny because we're recording this late in the day. But it's true!

I mean, I think for myself, once I was able to let go of, like, "There's rarely anything that, really, really, really is a capital T truth," because we do see everything through our life experience, right? It's hard not to. We see a cloud, and we think, "Oh my gosh, it's going to rain," because when we've seen clouds before, it rains. That's a simple example.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
Well, you may see it as it's going to rain, and somebody else may see it as, "Look at the colors in the sky," and somebody else may see it as like...

Diane Dempster
Whoa, it's some relief from a bright sun. Exactly. That's the point, right? Everybody sees it differently. I know this is a hard concept, but I think that it's one of those that if you can hold it even lightly, and go, "OK, wait, it makes sense that my kid might think about this situation differently than I do, or my ex might think about the situation differently than I do, or my co-parent or whoever it is, my colleague, they might see this differently than I do." And that doesn't mean I'm right and they're wrong. It's just different. 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
So, the clean-the-slate conversation is permission to let go, forgive, and move on. You can't demand it; you request it. If they say no, we honor that to build trust for them to say "yes" eventually. You can't overuse it. right? You can't do a clean-the-slate conversation every time you make a mistake. But when you really know you're at that point where you're trying to connect, and you're just having a hard time, chances are, there's some old stuff that's in the way that you got to clear it off.

Diane Dempster
So, something is really coming up for me, based on what you were just saying, Elaine. You can't do it every time, right? One of the patterns that happens in families with a neurospicy human is that the neurospicy human forgets something, doesn't do something, or says they want to do something, and then they don't do it—or they lie. We were talking about lying earlier.

There's this pattern we get into where we say, "Well, they said they were going to do it and they didn't do it," and it happens over and over again. Then, we create an interpretation. They keep saying, "I'm sorry," but they're not doing anything to change the behavior.

So what difference does it make to do a clean slate because they're not doing anything to change it? I just want to talk about that for a little bit, because a lot of times, neurospicy humans don't know how to change a behavior. It's not that they want to be grumbly or reactive or forgetful or whatever—it's that they're having a hard time, and they feel helpless about changing it.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
And judged for the behavior. Yeah, right. Then, it makes it harder. Sometimes, it's not about the outcome you're looking for. It's about the agreement to be in the process of trying to change it. Are you willing to work on that? Are you willing to meet me? Are you willing to have the conversation? Sometimes, it's just having the conversation about, "Can we have a conversation?"

Diane Dempster
Yeah. And I think the medicine in this one is, if you do have the wipe-the-slate-clean conversation more than once about the same thing, it might be, "I want to wipe the slate clean, and I want to have a sense of the kinds of things you're trying on your side to see if it can be different." There can be an accountability that goes along with the wipe-the-slate, but it's more of an invitation than a requirement. We can't be like, "I'll wipe the slate clean, but only if you stop doing it."

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
Yeah, no. You can't really have conditions—that's the word. This might be another place to talk about alignment versus agreement. We may disagree, but can we find alignment on, "Look, we both want to be able to work together on this issue," or, "We want to have conversations without them always blowing up," or, "I want to be able to take a break when I'm getting triggered and come back to a conversation without you getting mad at me for taking the break because I'm triggered." Whatever it is, if we can find alignment on what we're both moving toward—which is what I was starting to say earlier about having that vision of what we want instead of what we don't want. Then, the clean-the-slate conversation is a beautiful opportunity to say, "OK, let's let go of the details where we may not agree."

We might come back to it later, but let's come back into alignment: "We want to be a team. We want to work together. We love each other and we want to support and trust each other," or, "We're working toward trust. We love each other, and we're working toward trusting each other." It can show up in a lot of ways. Anything else?

Diane Dempster
No, we could talk about this all day, though, but it feels like a really good place to pause.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
I think it's a good place to stop. What are you taking away from this, folks? What relationship may come up for you as we've been talking about this? As you've been listening, what are you thinking about in the context of this or what the dynamic may be, and what's your insight or awareness from this?

Diane Dempster
As always, thank you for what you're doing for yourself and your kids. At the end of the day, you make a huge difference. Take care, everybody.