Why Strategies Aren’t Enough to Heal Family Disconnection (And What Actually Works)

Episode 189: Why Strategies Aren’t Enough to Heal Family Disconnection (And What Actually Works)

Have you tried everything to fix your family—but nothing seems to work?

You’ve read the books.
 You’ve followed the scripts.
 You’ve apologized, stayed calm, set boundaries…
 And you’re still walking on eggshells.

In this episode, Tina Gosney, Family Relationship Coach and expert in Bowen Family Systems Theory, explains why strategies and tools—while helpful—are not enough to heal deep family disconnection. And more importantly, she reveals what actually creates lasting transformation.

You’ll learn:

• The emotional and cultural trends affecting today’s families (and why it’s not just you)
• The real reason communication tips and parenting tools fall short
• What inner transformation looks and feels like (and how others will experience it in you)
• Why differentiation of self is the missing key to restoring connection
• How to become the calm, grounded, emotionally mature leader your family needs

This is an eye-opening conversation for every mother who’s tried to “fix” things but feels stuck in guilt, grief, or confusion. If you’re ready to stop reacting and start leading—with compassion, confidence, and courage—this episode is your starting point.
 
 

Related Episodes:

179 - Break the Cycle and Lead Your Family with Calm, Loving Energy and Personal Integrity

187 – Stress – What Happens in Your Brain and Body and How to Stay Grounded

180 – How Your Nervous System Shapes Reactions, Relationships, and Resilience.

Tina Gosney is the Family Conflict Coach. She works with parents who have families in conflict to help them become the grounded, confident leaders their family needs.
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Connect with us:

Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/tinagosneycoaching/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tinagosneycoaching

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Tina is certified in family relationships and a trauma informed coach.
Visit tinagosney.com for more information on coaching services.

Transcript

Tina Gosney: 0:07

Tina, Hey there. Welcome back to coaching your family relationships. I am your host, Tina Gosney, and if you are a parent in conflict with your adult child, things between you have gotten distant, intense or just painful. This episode is for you. I'm a family conflict coach, and we're going to dive into something a little deeper today, something that I think you already know in your gut, maybe you haven't had the words for that, is that strategies alone, things like checklists and scripts and tips and even therapy tools, those are not enough to repair this emotional disconnection that you're happening that's happening right now inside your family, between you and your child. They are super helpful. They are very helpful, but they don't heal things today, we're going to talk about why, but I'm also going to tell you about what leads to real healing so that you know what you can focus on. So right now, we are living through unprecedented shift in how families relate to each other. Most of us are feeling it, even if we don't have the language for it. So let me tell you what I see again and again, both in research and in real families just like yours, number one, estrangement is no longer rare. More than one in four families in the US are now experiencing some sort, some form of estrangement that is not a blip on the radar, that is a cultural trend. And you know, who is often initiating the distance is the adult child, it's not because they don't care about you or that they're being selfish or that they're just too weak to handle life. It's often because they are not feeling emotionally safe, seen or heard, and they do not know how to change that pattern. They often really can't even tell you why they're not feeling safe and seen and unheard, but they just know that something isn't right. Number two is that anxiety and loneliness are now the norm. Anxiety. You everyone knows someone with anxiety. Maybe you are a person that says you deal with anxiety. It's the most common mental health issue across all ages and loneliness. Loneliness is a new epidemic. It's being treated now as a public health crisis. In fact, loneliness is as dangerous to your health as obesity or smoking a pack of cigarettes every day, and this means that, since we are all lonely and anxious, your child is dealing with some pretty big emotional overload, and so are you. And when both of you are hurting and you're flooded, it's no wonder that your conversations are going nowhere. Number three, you are part of the sandwich generation. You might be juggling aging parents supporting your adult children. You're trying to hold your family together emotionally and you are feeling drained and overwhelmed. Previously, you've been the rock, but the truth is that rock is starting to crumble a little bit. No one sees that, but you sure feel it, because you're not sleeping as well. You are worrying more. You find yourself just randomly holding back tears or stuffing down anger because you're trying to not make things worse, and you're trying to give the appearance that you've got it all together. Number four, communication is harder than ever. Isn't that interesting? We live in this age of communication, but it's harder than ever because we live in a world of texting and social media and these 10 second reels and sound bites but meaningful family relationships require us to slow down. They require depth and emotional presence. They require face to face interaction. We need to see each other's facial expressions. We need to read each other's body language and tone, and that is lost in digital communication. So many parents come to me and they say, I don't even know how to talk to my child anymore. I just feel like I'm walking on eggshells all the time. Well, I want you to know that is not a personal failure that is result of a family system that is filled with unresolved anxiety. So let's talk strategies and tools. Now. I'm a coach. I have lots of really great worksheets. I love a good worksheet. I teach my clients how to communicate their boundaries, how to listen without becoming defensive, how to stay regulated during hard conversations. And those things are so incredibly helpful. But. Have you ever learned a really great technique and then you're in the middle of really difficult conversation or even an argument, and you totally forget everything that you learned? Or maybe you tried a new approach. Maybe you learned a new approach, and you then when you tried it out, you weren't sure if you did it right, and then you got an even worse reaction than you would have if you'd never tried anything at all. I want you to know that strategies are not the whole answer. We do need tips and tools and strategies, but we need more than that. Here's what the tools can do for you. They can give you a framework to communicate more clearly and don't we all need help communicating more clearly. They can help you feel really prepared instead of totally lost and helpless. They can make your conversations more intentional. You can have a goal behind your conversations. You can know how to direct a conversation. They can help you know how to de escalate small conflicts. Here's what tools won't do for you. They won't regulate your nervous system when you're under pressure. They just can't do that. They will not shift your identity from someone who is anxious and trying to fix things and everybody to being a grounded leader who models by example, they will not heal the emotional climate of your relationship. They're not going to stop you from taking things personally when your old wounds get poked and you feel vulnerable and exposed. They will not help you do that. They are not going to help your child feel emotionally safe if your energy is still anxious and defensive, because when we rely on the tools without transforming what's happening inside of us, those tools actually become those scripts that we hide behind, and whoever you're talking to, especially your child who knows you so well, they can feel that. They know that you are feeling anxious and defensive underneath your words. They pick up on the fear, on the desperation, on that tight grip that you're holding underneath the kindness, they pick up on your desire to fix them. And instead of drawing them closer, it pushes them away. So if you've been doing all the right things and it's still not working, please just take a deep breath and slow down. This is not because you are broken. This is not because there is something wrong with you. It's because your tools are floating on top of an anxious system that hasn't healed yet. So what does work? Well, internal transformation works, and this is not something that you can just pick up in a worksheet or pick up with some quick tip strategies, because this is not performing anything. It's not performative peace. It's not fake calm. This is a real, embodied inside out, healing. And it takes time. This is what I work on with my clients. We call this differentiation. We call this differentiation of self, or sometimes it's called a solid, flexible sense of self. It means you become more of who you are, not less of who you are. Even when things get really hard, you can hold on to that real sense of who you are. So let me paint this picture for you. I want you to imagine waking up in the morning and feeling really solid in your own skin. You're not second guessing every word. You're not rehearsing how to be perfect, how to make everything go the way that you want it to that day. You're not even bracing for the rejection that you think might happen if you reach out. So instead of that, you're feeling calm even when the people around you are not you can stay grounded even when somebody says something or you come across something that hurts. You can hold on to compassion when you're setting boundaries, you feel strong even when you're waiting for the change that you want so much to happen. It doesn't happen right away, but you feel strong while waiting for it to happen, because you have to do this for a while, and after you've been doing this for a while, because you can't just say, I'm going to try this today or this week, or for the month of September, you can't do that, and then just say, this isn't working and give up. This isn't it. You were in it for the long haul here. If you've been doing this for a while, other people will begin to notice. Your child will begin to notice. They're going to say things like, man, mom, feels different. Right. She's not trying to fix me anymore. She's, you know, this thing happened the other day, and she didn't react. And, man, she's just different. I don't know what it is about her, or they might say, Dad was so different in that conversation that we had the other day. He didn't have to, you know, keep pushing me till he was right. He just wanted to hear what I had to say. He wasn't trying to control me. They might be saying things like that, and when they're saying things like that, they might not say them to you. They're probably going to say them to somebody else before you ever hear any of this. But when those things start to happen, that's when safety starts to return, or maybe safety is showing up for the first time. Many of us haven't even known how to create safety in our homes, and this is when connection begins to build. Because transformation is not something that you perform, it's something that you become. It's in the very word itself, in transformation, it shows up in the tone of your language, it shows up in your eyes and how you make eye contact, and in your body language, it shows up in you giving space instead of trying to fill the space. So you're not trying to fill the space with your desire to fix and your fear and your anxiety. You're giving space because you don't need to fill it up anymore. It's like the opposite of walking on eggshells. It's walking on solid ground, even when the road gets bumpy. So if any part of you is saying, Yes, that's what I need. I don't want these surface level fixes. I want to become that person, that parent, then I want to invite you to stick with me in this podcast, because I am developing a program right now that will help you manage your own anxiety around what is happening in your family. You cannot start to transform any relationship that is happening outside of you until you have become the person who can recognize what is happening inside of you that is preventing that from happening. So you will not fix anything outside of you until you know what's happening inside of you and you have met, you can know how to manage that. I'll be providing information soon about how you can start that process of transformation. And until then, I want you to listen to these podcast episodes, because I think they're going to really help you to understand what kind of transformation work I'm talking about. These specific ones in my podcast will really help you to understand what this transformation is going to start looking like. 179 episode, 179 which is called break the cycle, lead your family with calm, loving energy and personal integrity. 187 stress, what happens in your brain and your body and how to stay grounded. Episode 180 how your nervous system shapes reactions, relationships and resilience. Now you can scroll back in your podcast feed, whatever podcast app you're listening to. Those are not very far back, since this is, I think this is episode 189 but you can scroll back in your podcast feed and find those or you can just go to the show notes, and you'll find a link to listen to those episodes on my website. Thank you for joining me today. I hope that you're leaving with an idea of, you know what really helps to heal relationships in a family. So I hope, really hope, you have more clarity, more hope, more understanding of where to begin. I want you to remember that family patterns really do run deep, and often they are passed down from generation to generation. But that does not mean that they're permanent. You can be the one that ends the cycle. I would be honored to get you there until next time. I'm Tina Gosney, and this is coaching your family relationships.