- Dysfunctional families.
It's easy to judge from the outside,
point a finger at someone else's family and say,
"That family is messed up."
But sometimes it's harder to see within your own family
that there is dysfunction.
How do you know if your family is dysfunctional,
and what can you do about it?
Mended Light.
(hosts laugh)
(upbeat music)
All right,
so common wisdom would say that dysfunction
can come from a multitude of sources
for a multitude of reasons.
Do you think there is one cause
that is at the heart of all family dysfunction?
- Yeah, I do.
I think the primary cause that's creating
the wound of dysfunction is the lack of real love.
And when I say real love,
I mean unconditional love. - Yeah.
- Unconditional positive regard,
no strings attached.
- Well, dad.
(sad piano music)
You're my dad.
(crying) And I love you, man.
- And we see this pop up in a lot of places, right?
Carl Rogers, if you're into therapy,
he was the first one to say that in the field of psychology,
that what therapy clients need is not your technique,
they need you.
They need you just to accept them and to love them.
And in Dr. Greg Baer's book, "Real Love,"
or his series of "Real Love" books,
he talks about just how crucial this is,
and that most of us haven't gotten it.
- Yeah.
And in "Real Love and Post-Childhood Stress Disorder,"
he talks about the "I don't love you" wound
that often starts in childhood.
And it's not that our parents don't love us,
or our caregivers don't love us.
And I'm gonna say right up front,
there are some people out there that-
but they're the minority.
There are some people,
some parents and caregivers out there that are abusive,
that are harmful, that are hurtful.
Like setting those aside,
most of us have parents, caregivers,
loved ones that truly did love us.
- Yeah.
- But that love wasn't shown in an unconditional way.
There was always attachments.
It always had to be earned.
We had to earn that love through being good.
- Be good.
- Yes.
- Yeah. - Through achievement,
through doing the right thing.
- Yeah, for sure.
Well, and then what happens is we start to tie our worth
to pleasing people and meeting their standards.
And the thing is,
when we give what Dr. Baer calls "imitation love,"
we praise the behaviors that we value,
and we criticize the behaviors that we don't like.
But the message that we're receiving,
even if we feel unconditional love,
like for example, I know both of us,
we love our kids no matter what,
but I'm not sure they always get that message.
- Yeah. - Right?
At least speaking from my part,
because I definitely reinforce the behaviors I want to see.
Everybody does.
And in and of itself, that's not wrong.
The issue is,
does the child only feel loved and accepted
when they're doing what pleases you, right?
Because then we start to trade.
When he talks about invitation love,
it's doing things in order to get that boost of acceptance.
- Right. - When we should
just be accepted just for existing
and loved just for existing.
Instead, we feel like we have to earn it.
And that leads to a whole host of problem behaviors.
Manipulation, lying, dishonesty.
Giving praise that you don't actually believe,
doing things that you don't feel comfortable doing,
just to be accepted. - Right.
- Those are all what he calls getting behaviors.
And then there are protecting behaviors.
And protected behaviors
are when I feel like I haven't been loved,
how am I going to look after myself?
How am I gonna push people away?
And I've actually got,
surprise, surprise, a...
- Movie clip. - Movie clip!
- (laughs) That illustrates both getting and protecting
behaviors of people who've never had real love.
This is from the movie "Instant Family."
Mark Wahlberg and Rose Byrne are adopting foster children.
And the teenage daughter, Lizzy,
is giving them a lot of trouble.
So his mom, the girl's foster grandmother,
says, "Let's go to Six Flags,"
and let's see what happens.
- So I'll see you guys later, okay?
- Well, actually, we were just gonna go on the water rides-
- Oh, let her go with her friends.
They don't wanna be stuck here
with a bunch of old farts like you two.
They wanna ride the big stuff and check out the hot boys.
(Lizzy laughs)
Here's $100.
Buy yourselves some souvenirs and junk food.
Uh-huh. - Thanks, Grandma Sandy!
- Uh-huh. - Thanks!
- Major getting behavior.
Wants to be the cool grandma.
Wants to be accepted.
- What time we're going back to your house?
- We're going back to our house where we all live at seven!
- Okay, I'll see you then. Bye!
- Mom! What are you doing?
You can't go- - Oh no!
Somebody's upchucking in the trash bin!
- So Sandy just wants to be accepted
and wants to be the cool grandma more than
what is good for the child.
- Well, 'cause then the relationship is about the grandma.
- Yeah, exactly.
Six Flags is closed. She's not back.
Thanks for giving her a hundred dollars, Mom.
- She's getting these texts.
I can see the dots.
- Maybe she ran off and maybe something happened to her.
- No, she didn't.
She's just treating us like another set of fosters.
(car speeding) (teenagers laughing)
(loud pop music) - [Lizzy] All right! Bye!
Thanks for the ride! I love you!
- [Friends] Bye! - I'm the bad guy. Watch this!
- Bye. Bye! (car drives off)
- Hey! Where the hell were you?
- We went to the movies.
And it ran a little bit later, so...
It's not a big deal.
- Oh really?
Oh, you couldn't have taken five seconds to text or call us
and let us know nobody murdered you?
Well, guess what?
You're grounded!
- I'm grounded.
- Yeah, you're grounded because I just grounded you!
Before you weren't grounded, you weren't anything!
And then I just had that thing that I said
and now you are grounded!
- We've been waiting one hour for you!
- Yeah, I'm the bad guy. Calm down.
- He's the bad guy. - You're not going anywhere.
You're done! - Done!
- Don't wanna hear it!
- You know what?
When I was nine, I lived in a crack house,
so I'm pretty sure the multiplex
is a comparatively safe environment.
- [Grandma Sandy] Oh no! No!
You don't play that trouble pass card with us.
Your butt's in a sling, missy!
- Oh! Grandma Sandy!
I forgot.
- What?
- I got you, um...
- Oh, sweet Jesus. Will you look at this?
(hosts laugh)
I'm gonna wear it every day.
Oh, come here.
(hosts laugh)
You know, this reminds me of when Pete
and his little degenerate friend stole a pizza truck.
- She's good.
- Oh God. - She's good.
- So, getting behaviors on part of Grandma Sandy,
getting behaviors on part of Lizzy,
- Right. - Right.
Saying, oh, I totally see what we're doing here, grandma.
We're trading favors.
We're trading acceptance.
We're trading love.
I got you a T-shirt.
You can't be mad anymore.
And that's exactly-
and it worked because that's exactly how Grandma Sandy
approaches the world.
Whereas Mark Wahlberg and Rose Byrne,
they're in protecting behaviors, right?
We are gonna protect ourselves from the injustice
of your insult and your disrespect,
and we're going to stand up for ourselves.
What nobody is doing here is offering
unconditional love and acceptance.
- Yeah.
- And unconditional love and acceptance doesn't look like,
whatever you do is fine.
I love you.
You can still call people out in behavior,
but he doesn't lead with, "We're happy that you're okay."
He doesn't lead with, "Is everything all right?
What happened?" - Yeah.
And we're concerned for your wellbeing.
- Right!
He leads with, "I'm the bad guy. Watch this."
- Yeah. Yeah.
Well, and it's so, especially in this situation, right?
With a foster child who has had a completely unstable life,
like to move towards the steps of building trust
is going to be challenging regardless,
- Yeah.
- with someone who's had so much instability in their life.
So we saw an example of dysfunction.
What's the cure?
- The cure in this case comes later in the film.
So Lizzy has run away because she thought
that her birth mom was going to get cleaned up
from her drug habit and take her back in,
and she didn't.
So Lizzy feels like she doesn't belong anywhere.
She's not wanted anywhere.
She runs away.
And Mark Wahlberg and and Rose Byrne track her down
and we see this.
We'll talk about it after.
- You're with us now.
- Yeah. - And you know why?
We've got a cosmic connection.
- That's right. We've got a cosmic connection.
- I know you feel really sorry for me right now,
but you really don't have-
- It's got nothing to do with what just happened.
Where's the court statement Ellie gave you?
(Lizzy scoffs)
- See this?
Read that.
- "Lizzy once asked me why we did this.
Why we took them in.
We couldn't give her answer at the time.
We did it because something was missing in our lives
that we didn't know what it was.
It was Juan, Lita and Lizzy."
- You see?
You were what was missing, Lizzy.
But now you're here, and you are stuck with us.
(Lizzy cries) - That's right.
- All right, we're gonna be at every soccer game.
- Mm-hm.
- We're gonna be all over your ass about your grades.
- Yeah.
- And we're gonna buy your first prom dress.
- Yeah. It's gonna be really, really pretty,
but not too revealing.
Super sweet. (hosts laugh)
You know, not too sexy.
Just like, really,
that gorgeous sweet spot.
- Yeah. Right.
And when you graduate high school,
we're gonna be in the front row embarrassing you.
- Yes. - And then,
we're gonna be in the front row again
when you graduate college, too,
or even if you don't.
- But you will be graduating college
'cause it's so important and you're so smart.
And I don't mean to push,
but this just opens up so many more opportunities.
But either way,
we're gonna be there for you.
- And someday, I'm gonna give you away at your wedding.
Right, even if I think the guy is a pissant,
and he's not good enough for my little girl.
- That's right. Someday in the future.
Someday in the way, way, way off,
deep, deep, deep, distant future.
- Lizzy, can we go home now?
(gentle music)
- Yeah, I guess we can.
- Come on, I know you don't like this,
but you're gonna have to get used to it once in a while.
Okay? (social workers laugh)
- Can I get one of those?
'Cause I haven't gotten a single hug from you
since I've known you.
(Lizzy laughs) - Please?
- So, they're laying it on a little thick.
They're still projecting a bit of
here's what we want for your life,
but they're headed in the right direction
and the right direction is real love.
- And they say,
we're gonna be there for you.
- Yeah. - No matter what.
- No matter what, no matter what you choose,
no matter what you do, you belong with us.
You're part of our family.
And that's what real love looks like.
That's what unconditional,
no matter your choice,
we're here for you.
And people need that and they thrive with that.
And we overcome our worst tendencies when we feel
like we belong and that we're safe.
- So I love a concept that Dr. Baer teaches in his
"Real Love and Post-Childhood Stress Disorder" book.
- Oh yeah.
He says that in order to be loved,
you need to be accepted.
And in order to be accepted, you have to be seen.
And in order to be seen, you have to be honest.
You have to show who you really are
and tell the truth about yourself.
Otherwise, the love that you receive is based on a lie.
It's based on what I hope you love this version of me
that I'm putting out there.
- Well, and to tell the truth,
that's done in little tiny steps.
- Yeah.
- Because we haven't shown the world our real self,
our true self because it wasn't safe to do so.
- Right.
- Especially in dysfunctional families, right?
So you may or may not be able to do this
in your family of origin.
- Right.
- And what that looks like is finding wise men and women
we can be honest with.
That we can be real with.
That we can show ourselves to, warts and all,
and be seen and loved for who we really are,
- Yeah.
- as we really are right now.
- And you test that. - Yeah.
- Like you test it with different people
and some people aren't ready for it.
And some people reject you and some people judge you.
And that just says to you,
it doesn't say that vulnerability was a mistake
or that telling the truth was a mistake.
It just means that this person was not ready for it.
So we're gonna try somebody else until we find the people
that we can surround ourselves with
that are safe and accepting.
- And how you heal that dysfunction
in your own family is you learn and you grow
and you heal through your own wounds.
And you set that example,
and you allow other people to make their choices.
- Yeah. Wonderful.
If you found this helpful, check out our video,
"You can't heal family relationships, they said,"
which will be popping up at the very end.
If you need- - But you can! You can!
- But you can! (hosts laugh)
Go to mendedlight.com if you need extra support.
Schedule a complimentary consultation,
15 minutes with one of our clinical team,
or learn about our membership site where we teach you
the skills that we teach in therapy.
You can go at your own pace at a low rate,
very low rate.
Actually link in the description for 50% off of that.
- And remember to keep shining.
We need your light.
(upbeat music)