Why "Choosing Yourself" Might Mean Losing Your Family with Dr. Sherrie Campbell - E165

Dr. Sherry Campbell joins the make sense with Dr. JC Podcast to discuss why the no-contact

“strategy is the only way to achieve true internal safe. In this episode, we explore the myth”

of the good parent, societal shaming around family estrangement, and what it really takes to break that family cycle and grant yourself permission to walk away. If you've ever been told, but their family while your mental health is suffering at the same time, well then this episode is going to challenge everything that you thought you knew about healing. Have you noticed that the world that we live in has been doing most of the thinking for you

that your beliefs, perceptions, reactions, fears, and doubts have been shaped by unsolicited outside noise? How easy it's been for you to slip into that default sleep walking mode, and label it as life and reality. Yeah, that ends here. Welcome to the make sense with Dr. JC Podcast. This is your opportunity to start thinking for yourself, reclaim control, and step back into that rule as the shot caller and dominant force of your own reality. It's when you change the way that

you look at things that the things that you look at begin to change. So let's wake up. Let's rise up and let's make sense of why and how shift happens.

We're always told that family is everything, but what if the people that we're supposed to protect you

are the ones that you need protection from? Great morning friends, great morning world, and want to welcome you back to the make sense with Dr. JC Podcast, where we take things that don't make sense, and well make sense of them. Today, we're stepping into one of the most uncomfortable conversations in healing, and that's the myth of the good parent, the pressure of the but they're my family, and the quiet, often judged decision to just simply walk away.

Today, I'm joined by somebody who has been willing to say what most people are just thinking, but to afraid to say out loud, and that is our guest, Dr. Sherry Campbell. What I like about Dr. Sherry is that she doesn't just talk about healing in a way that feels good and seems appropriate to society. She talks about it in a way that's actually honest, and it's so refreshing, because a lot of the personal development world still holds on to the idea that every parent

is a good parent, and that every relationship should be saved, and forgiveness always means reconciliation.

And Dr. Sherry's been willing to challenge that and say something that for a lot of people feels like a deep exhale, but also a little terrifying. And that sometimes the most loving thing that you can do is just simply walk away. It is my honor and privilege to welcome back. Not everybody comes back to the now make sense with Dr. JC podcast, Dr. Sherry Campbell. So good to have you here. Thank you so much. I'm so honored. I'm a comvacker. I love that. Thank you. I'm very honored.

Well, you'll soon see why. I mean, other than the fact that we love you, my wife, who has a thriving sex therapy practice, but also a very interesting relationship with her parents. We were having this conversation and we said, we need to catch up with Dr. Sherry. And then all of a sudden, I'm like, oh my gosh, I just got a new book. What I'd love to do is something that I do for all of our guests. And it's something that a lot of people don't really get the opportunity to receive.

“And I just want to tell you first what I like about you. And this is the treat, right?”

Oh, I love it. Yes. Other than the fact that I love your hairstyle and we were just talking, you know, the last time I saw her, you know, in a lot of people know she has pink streaks in her hair. She doesn't have them, but she looks beautiful and she looks great. But I was like, where's the pink hair?

But anyway, we always love to see what Sherry's hair looks like because she just doesn't age this long.

What I like most about Dr. Sherry is that she doesn't just talk about healing in a way that feels and seems appropriate. I think we'll probably see that soon. She talks about healing in a way that's actually honest. And it's such a refreshing thing to just have a conversation about what most people are not willing to talk about. So a lot of the personal development world still

“kind of holds onto this idea. And you know, viscerally, I think we all feel it that every parent is good”

no matter what. And you know, that's not what we do feel that right. We're programmed. That's right. And every relationship should be saved and forgiveness always ends with reconciliation. And she's

feels like kind of like a deep exhale, but also at the same time terrifying at the same time. That's just such a refreshing concept. And like I said, we've asked you back on the show because we're so excited to just catch up. But man, is this an important topic? And what a perfect time for

your new book, which we'll get into. But my first question to you is this. What's it like to be

Sherry Campbell these days? Wow. Okay. So I'm actually kind of introverted. So I've become so, so, so public over the course of the last 10 years. Because, but it's your family. My first book was like, the I was the first expert to put no contact as an option into the clinical literature. And, and so I didn't realize that 10 years later, there'd be this whole movement and had no intention of starting a movement. I just wanted to give an option. And today, I think cancel

culture, no contact are very confused. And we can probably talk about that. But I'm very blessed to be

“where I'm at. I feel very grateful. I think my favorite part of life is creating a writing books.”

And I've done seven. And I'm on a contract for another one. Because I went viral on a new topic. And I labeled something the low effort family. And that went wildly viral. So we're working hard to be first to market on that as we have other influencers already trying to steal, which is common. But it says the work is important, which is wonderful. But no contact, I think has been very triggering against societal norms and battling up against a cognitive dissonance at

all parents are good. And my TED talk that I did is titled "Not all parents are good." And that's not to say that there aren't really good parents. Not all parents are bad. But facts are, "Not all parents are good." And so I know that I can be controversial for people.

“Well, so I'm taking it that life is good on playing for sure. Yeah, that's awesome.”

It's funny. We were talking a little bit about this because, you know, I've got the podcast now and I've got the book and all of these things. And I'm just learning more and more of what that careful, which asks for it. Just might get it thing is. And because there's a lot of responsibility that comes when you put yourself out there and share from the heart, which is a very noble thing to do. But if a lot of people like it and it helps them, well, sex be introverted.

I am happy. I'm a friendly introvert. Yeah, I think a lot of people that don't follow you probably be surprised by the end of this episode that you're introverted. Let's get right into it. I love this idea of no contact. So when it comes to no contact, it's such a controversial thing,

you know, what's same time powerful. And even something that could be looked at as

something that people could be abusing, you know, there's an unhealthy and a healthy side of no contact. So I would love you to just kind of share with us from your perspective. Yeah, what that I will.

“Absolutely. I'm going to grab my dog. She wants love. So I think that I've relabeled”

no contact as protective astrangement because no contact has started to get lost just like the word narcissistic or the word toxic, right? It's all starting. It's started to get lost. So really, it's protective astrangement. I am protecting myself from a family unit that is abusive and harmful to me. And I have no interest in having them in my lives on any level. I'm ever because I did 45 years of that life and that didn't lead me anywhere, but into greater levels of

of low self-worth, self-doubt and those types of things. I think that unhealthy no contact,

I would call that cancel culture. Right. As a therapist, I have never and I will never

encourage someone to go no contact. My hope for everybody is that you are not like me and left with no other choice. Cancer culture has turned into this. I'm not getting what I want when I want it. So I'm going to go out and publicly cancel you as a way to manipulate you to give me what I want. Right. So all of that is contact. Right. My mom did that stuff to me. It just wasn't called cancel culture back in the day. It was called the silent treatment. And she'd give me the

silent treatment a lot. And so I was sort of never knowing where I fit. And then when someone is just silencing you, it's actually more uncomfortable than if they give you words. And so I would activate and try to close that gap. You know, make the pain go away. Sort of like we get into our

we put the seat belt on. That's sort of what it's like to close the gap of cancel culture.

“And then there's this stage of relief when contact has been re-established. And maybe that”

person who's counted you now has gotten what they want. But in your mind you're like, okay, well, I'm not in pain anymore. That is cancel culture. That would be unhealthy no contact. I didn't have those feelings when I established no contact. But the gift I did have is that they cut me off. But because they followed the wrong car to a restaurant. So at that moment, I was like, I now am just recognizing I'm being abused over things I did not do wrong. It's not my fault.

Someone followed the wrong white car. It wouldn't answer my calls to try to help them to the restaurant. And then they just annihilated me in public in front of my daughter at a restaurant was awful. And my mom then silenced me and which was normal. And I knew that something in my body had changed

that I was never going to go through this again, not in front of my kid. It would be the first and

last time that she would do that. And it was. And so I never meant the fence. And now it has been 10 years. I was done for good. Something in me I would call it like a bandwidth. I didn't know that that that could break. But it can. So it did. And I went through five years of pretty bad post separation of views from them. My rebirth day is what I call it as June 12th. And so I will be 10 years of no contact June 12th. I don't hate them. I love them on a high level because I don't

like them when I don't respect them. And I simply don't have anyone in my life that I don't like

“a respect. I think about them daily. It's almost as if there were an electrical cord that connects”

me to them. The cord is still there, but there's no current anymore. The relationship is there, dragon. It's just that it used to be active and verbal. And now it is inactive and not verbal. And I have peace. And I guess that I could share something in that there is a stage after a strangement. And I did not know that until I had a remarkable dream about two months ago. And I'm actually really not a dreamer. Let alone profound dreams. Like my dreams are just like

what the hell. But this one was profound. And what I got out of that dream is that I don't feel at all above my family in like dominance or ego or knowing. But I do feel above them in development. And what's happened now is that they're just not relevant in my life anymore. These people who

had such a powerful presence of defining my identity and decision making and all these things.

They just don't have any relevance and how I choose to be in my life, what my decisions are, what my path is. And it's a really beautiful feeling. Because any pain I have about them, which I do, and I talk about it in the new book, I built a house of the pains in the basement. It's all still there. But there's no current pain. And so every pain that I have is a triggered pain, but there's no more current pain. So they just don't have any relevance anymore. I don't

wish them any harm. I'm not going to invest in the energy in that. But they don't have any relevance in the level of liberation that that makes me feel made me realize. Like now, I've moved from a strange moment into self-integration. I'm very much integrated into my own self, my own identity, my own idea of parenting, my books, my partner, my love, my stepkids, like, just sharing. I'm just very integrated. And it took all be 55, April 9th. So it took a very long time to really

become strongly identified after having to really go through the basement work of my psyche and clean out all those crime scene boxes that were committed against me and, you know, move my life up the house and up the floors. And I still visit the basement because I so get triggered. But I visit there from a place of a much stronger sense of integration. So yeah. There's just so many

fun things to unpack there. I always look at the idea. Once you've decided who you are and where

“you're going, it's easier to identify what no longer applies. And I think that one of the reasons”

that people struggle with this concept, the myth of the good parent, is that they haven't really

this current reality. You know, let's unpack that. And I can't wait to get into the new book

and because I can just tell there's so many awesome analogies that you use that just really help people understand it. But let's talk about this myth of the good parent. You know, I want to unpack that a little bit because a lot of people perceive that even questioning that your parent doesn't have some inherent good and this whole concept of like, oh, I mean, like everybody makes mistakes and they, and they mean well, it just seems like we're not supposed to do that. So let's unpack

a little bit the myth of the good parent. I think that all people assume that their parents wanted children to love. And I think that different generations maybe have different children for different

reasons. But having children isn't hard. Every uterus is kind of designed to do that. Maybe you

struggle with your ovaries. But my point is is that anyone at any income, any addiction level, any educational level can get pregnant. It's not special that that can happen. What makes parenting special is the way that you love your children. I think there was a time that people had kids because

“that was the next thing you did like Anna. You got married. Well, now you need to have kids, right?”

But I think that there are many parents who have children so that they can have a consistent source of attention and supply. Like in the metaphor in my book is like, I'm born into the house, but it's not owned by me because developmentally I can't do that yet, right? I'm dependent for quite some time. But there are parents who don't want to hand over the title of the property to the person who is born to inhabit it. And then they make a mess of your porch. So you move

them to the yard and they make a mess in your yard. And all the time, you know, you're communicating with them like, hey, you know, you just kind of like made a mess on my porch and someone like my mom would go, oh, it's your porch, right? So after decades of that, I'm like, you know, maybe we'd get along better if I just like moved her into the yard because she's kind of run me out of empathy for her at this point. And when they go to the yard, you're kind of like, you know, they've got

issues. I went through this whole phase of they're doing the best they can for where they're at. You know, my mother was married three times before I was 11 or 12. My dad was married five times my mom for both of them very toxic. So in the yard, I spent a lot of time there in a lot of hope. I was so hopeful that when I moved her to the yard, that we would get along better because we would

“see each other less, right? Which is sort of sad that to get along with someone you have to see them”

less, right? But that's what I was going on in my mind. Like, maybe if I just see her less, I moved states and I tried to make it work, but she ruined every barbecue, every family get together. She just dried my yard, ruined my flowers. And so I had to move her off my property to the fence. And that was extremely painful for me because I did not want to do that at all. I was hoping I would find that maybe she was just emotionally immature and that I could find ways to handle her, but I just couldn't.

So she went out to the fence because I figured, well, then the HOA can clean up her mess. Not me. And so that's like high contact the yard would be low contact where you have sympathy for them. And then at the fence, I kind of had compassion for her because I lost empathy. So I moved it as sympathy. And then she's at the fence. So she tried to break in a lot. There's a lot of

“destruction to the fence. How do few successful breakings to the yard messed up the yard?”

And the more powerful of a no I said, then she moved herself to the barricades in my neighborhood

metaphorically and started a smear campaign. And that's where we've been since. I'd aborted my house for a little bit and stay inside. So that's where the metaphor of the book because I think emotional location makes this easier to understand. Whenever a parent gets rejected, they go to the neighborhood called a sack and you've been trying for 45 years to have a relationship with this person. And they go out to the neighbors and go, I don't know what happened. She just suddenly cut me off.

Well, like, what about the porch and like the decades you were in my yard? And so it's just very gaslighting. And so the book really helps you to know people's emotional location in your life. I would hope very few people are going to have to go to your fence. There's many, many people that you can tolerate in your yard. They may may make a TV mess, but they're like, oh my god, I'm so sorry! Right. So they fix it. I just didn't have that. So I created a whole structure. And the reason I

wanted to do structures, I'm this book is like a design to build your identity. I was the type of person

I look so successful. I look so confident. I do all these things. But I'm actually like scanning everybody's body language. They're facial expressions, shifts and tones of voice just reflexively. So then I thought, well, yeah, she's wired that way, right? Maybe I'm just sort of fundamentally

flawed or just maybe a bit too sensitive. And I actually just wasn't any of that. I just never

had any emotional structure to know how to navigate or regulate my emotions. And so I was always in reaction and fear and anxiety and nervousness. And so building this little house, I mean, I've been talking this language for a long time. Like there's basement monsters. And those are the voices of your inner child. And now I really know when I get triggered from the outside let's say an abandoned midwound activates. And I'm on the top floor. I'm on the express elevator,

no choice. And I've to go meet that monster. And I don't ever feel anymore. I'm going backward. The elevator isn't about going backwards in this book. It's about going inward. And so I really learned to love my monsters. And now I can regulate them because I have a structure.

“So I think we need structure to heal this. And when we don't get any structure from parenting,”

which is what parenting is supposed to give us. And we have dysregulated out of control, immature toxic parents who are on marriage marathons like my own or they're addicted or they're making me old as child raise all the kids, whatever your situation is. Not all parents are good. Some of them are terrible. Terrible abusers. And they don't get caught because they get a label of parenting slapped on them. So it's really wild to me what people keep get away with under that label.

Very often when I hear guest speaking, I'm always just thinking about my audience. And I'm thinking,

some people are listening to you speak and saying, "Oh my gosh." Yes, that, that. But then some people are like, "God, this woman seems like she's a big thumb-sucking complainer." And then there's also, well, but there's also this group of people that doesn't even know that they have a say in the trauma. You know, like there's this, there's a very large group of people that are just saying, especially cultural wise and everything. There's so many people out there that are thinking that,

“you know, you should be grateful and all that, maybe angry. I can't even imagine some of the”

feedback you get. But my question is this, because this is kind of where my work is. You know, I'm very, very interested in perception and where it comes from, because I think the first step to change the way that you look at things is you got to kind of understand where the way you look at things comes from. So do you think that people knowingly are unknowingly stay in toxic family dynamics as a result of love or is it more about like programming and conditioning?

For the child, I think it's always about love. You know, children want to have the best relationship

with their parents that they could ever have. There will be no one in your life, no part and no friend, no nothing that will want a relationship with you the way a child will. And parents exploit that. Parents really have the opportunity to then also have the best relationship with their children. They could ever have of any relationship in their own life. If you mess that up, you don't want to do that. I'd love to give you an example of some of the stuff I hear from the

“people who call me a thumb-sucking baby. But there's cursing words. Can I do that on your show?”

100%. So the subject of this email I got, if people believe there aren't sick parents out there and then people go, "No, that's extreme." This is not extreme. This is not extreme. I was called a fucking prick by my dad growing up. I didn't even know girls could be that, but who's counting? So I get this message. They went through my website to contact me and it's it's subject is sick fuck. There's the message. It's so iconic that I actually had to keep it because I'm like,

and also the grammar is a whole other thing, but that's just me being petty. It says, "You are just destroying lives, mothers, fathers, parents. You are as sick as they get with this insane philosophy as you ascribe out of your own mental illness." Next sentence, after calling me mentally ill, you are ruining lives for good. You stupid shit as dumb mother fucker fake-face person. Just fucking stop it. Okay, so if any of you think I'm a baby a thumb-sucker, like I saved

that for funsies. So I think I'm pretty strong and I would also like to state that no one in their right

without family. Well, I think you need to step back and reconsider that parents like that.

“Obviously, one of their children found my work, thank God. This exists every day,”

everywhere, all the time. Why should any child take that? I'm a stranger to her. So I can only imagine what she does with someone she's comfortable with. Because I looked her up, see, because she was not smart, and I got her email because it came through contact to me. I mean, there was another one. She had a follow-up. So I find it so ironic that I'm being accused of being mentally ill and then her next sentence is used to, but shit asks dumb mother fucker fake-face

person. I'm not sure if the face person is, but so fun. So I feel like what people don't want to

look at is this. They want to think this is the exception. If there is in families regardless of education level, rather of a socioeconomic status, it doesn't matter. Well, fear more educated

“people sometimes aren't any better than this. Okay. So it exists everywhere if you want to control”

your children and have ownership of their lives and you guilt them into coercive obligatory behaviors. You are not parenting. You are not loving. You are forcing and you are controlling and you are criticizing and you are shrinking and minimizing and damaging the spirit of a small child. That should be a felony. I don't understand why people aren't angry about this. We are talking about child abuse. The people aren't angry or is far more shocking to me. One thing I said in my TED talk is

we're not allowed to talk about bad parents and a culturally open and safe space. And you know what? I just don't care. I'm going to talk about it. So if you think I'm a baby, why don't you try my life for a day, walk in my shoes, get messages like this every day, and then tell me that I'm a baby. I'm Darryl. I just get such a kick out of unconscious behavior. You know, there's a lot of epic. You'll see when you get my book the reason why I wear this hat. It says

and what it stands for is haven't made up my mind yet, meaning when I hear people say stupid shit. Yeah. Before I let my knee jerk reflex respond to it, I just step into an open and curious space and try to find a way to understand why they're saying stupid shit. And I'm sitting here listening to what you said and I'm a dad, right? Since, by the way, since we last spoke, my wife and I went and adopted a little girl and that's a whole story you found out about it. But we love family.

We got three kids and, you know, my greatest desire, whether it's healthier on healthy is that my

kids look at me and point at me like I was never able to do and say, that's my dad, that one there.

“That's how, that's the most successful moment of my life. But at the same time,”

and I think this is where parents can, you know, fucked up, but be healthy at the same time. I do a lot of stupid shit. I say things that's probably damaging and traumatic to them and stuff. But the difference is that I'll circle back and I'll let them know, hey, dad, what's in it? It right there. And I don't know if you even picked up on it, but what I said was not okay and it's not true. So I just want, for everybody that flies off the handle and gets mad at

somebody like Dr. Sherry, I would just entertain the idea that the reason why you're mad is because you're going to be outed or something for not being perfect. It's not about being perfect, you know, it's about, like even looking at her with this beautiful dog here. She's doing such a great job parenting this little puppy, but she's not perfect with that dog, but I bet you after she misses something, maybe forgets some kibble or something. She goes back and says, sweetie, I've totally

fucked up and I didn't give her a kibble. So what we're talking about is an environment where parents are abusive in nature, but not recognizing it at all and not considering conversing about it. And, you know, that's that narcissistic concept. Here's an interesting question. At what point

betrayal of who you used to be. This is what I find interesting. Is this idea of version of you that kept saying, well, maybe this time will be different. Like you said, when I put her in the backyard and by the way, she didn't put her mom like in a hole in the backyard. These are all metaphor. How does that transpire where we actually almost feel like we have

to betray who we used to be for who we want to be? So we never really got to be

who we were. Like, I had an insight the other day on my own show that I never was given any worth to lose it. Sadly, I just had no compass for self-worth. I was never offered any to lose. And, and I want to circle back to, it isn't about perfect parenting. You don't want to eliminate

“your humanity. Like, honestly, some parents who try to be perfect ended up being abusive”

out of their perfection desires, right? Because they're thinking more about being a perfect parent than they are actually just loving their kid and repairs everything. If you mess up like you just stated, you go back and you just repair those things. I certainly had to be a person of survival. I was not allowed to be a person of authenticity or to even try authenticity on. I didn't wouldn't even know what that was. So I was a programmed girl to love them no matter what they

did to me and to just always bend flex, shift, adapt, assimilate, adjust to all their stuff. Their moods,

their new relationships, their hatred of me, their love bombing of me. I never really was safe enough to establish my own identity. So undoing my sort of like false self or manufactured self that I talk about in my previous book about emotionally abusive parents, it took a long time and I did a lot of research. I started taking personality inventories and, you know, I did my human design chart and my astrological chart. I did the Enneagram, the, you know, I just, those were all my answers

to my questions and I started to build something sort of educationally did a lot of journaling on it and I'm still in the process of identifying myself and I hope I will always be.

“I view authenticity. I think now very differently than maybe the definitional aspect of it.”

It's not all my good traits, you know, I mean my authenticity or my wholeness would sort of have to include all the parts and so I'm going to be the most authentic when I'm the most flawed and genuine to those flaws and and desiring to heal those and also when I have my shining

amazing moments. But there's always a lot of work to be done, you know, when you come from a family

like this, there's, there's a lot of work and I'm going to point now that I just kind of hope my inbox is still full of that work when I die. It's become my most passionate pursuit. Well, man, this is going to be a really cool book. I could just tell and I just love the whole house concept and all of that. That's going to really help some people. That being said, one of the coolest

“things I think that I heard from Camp Sherry now in this, in this new reality is, is this phrase”

emotional homelessness. I mean, like, God, how empowering is it for someone to realize that they were homeless in a different way? What does that actually feel like for somebody that's living it to experience emotional homelessness? You're in a room full of the people who should love you the most and you're told that they should love you the most in every area you look. It's in every card. It's on every commercial. It's we cannot get away from this indoctrinated belief. It's on the TV

shows. You know, it's everywhere. And I was in a room full of people who felt more like predators or strangers to me than anyone who really loved me. Well, I was made to feel I was in the way. I was too much. I needed too much. I asked for too much. I was annoying. I was a burden. I was bad. I was emotionally homeless. I had a home. I lived in a box with the people, but there was no love, not for me. And I was also sort of the chosen one. So I could see

that they could treat other people that way, but not me. I mean, I used to think my mom had like a like a social voice or a phone voice. And I always wanted phone voice lady to love me. She cannot, she has not ever loved me. A shocking is that me feel the people like we know

the original title to the book, this book, I like better, but it's already been used. But it was

“reclaiming home. And so we settled on you our home because it's not an external house. Obviously,”

you are the home. It's your inner world. And we structure your outer world. It's just sometimes easier for people to take things. And I've been in elite athlete my whole life. All of my best

coaches and mentors have used metaphors. And I've always related to those far more than clinical

jargons. So instead of using boundaries, I'm doing emotional locations. It's a support to yard offense. There's a basement, a ground floor, a mindfulness, middle floor, and a top floor of manifesting, and an elevator, and stairs. Okay, so all of that, I broke it down to something very concrete so that I could help rebuild your identity from the ground up. I love this so much. I have this fun little game that I play, but now I'm going to, everybody's going to know.

So I have all over my office. I have all sorts of fun things. But over here, I have my, what I call mission control, which is my goals, my goals, my dreams. And, you know, it's just,

it's a tactical way for me to make sure that I'm like moving towards my goals and dreams.

Very often. And, you know, we're talking about parents here, but very often, people don't follow through. Like people say, I'm going to do this and they don't follow through. Or people

“end up screwing me over or something like that. So what I've done, and I think this is what makes”

my mission control really cool. And it's very much like your house analogy is on the bottom right. I actually have a jail cell. And unbeknownst to people when people kind of fuck me over, I don't like tell them or anything like that. I just, I just move on. I don't have any time. And I don't know if I even care, but I put them in the jail. And it's just such a wonderful feeling to just be like, you sit there and, you know, I'll let you out if I decide, just listening to

you talk and also going through this myself. God, you know, like, if I come on your show one day, you'll hear all about all my shit. But yeah, you will, well, it's in my book. So it's relevant. I know that it's been like this for me, but it almost seems like people get confused between the difference of actually doing some healing and just learning how to get better at

“tolerating bullshit. You know, like, can you just talk a little bit about the difference there?”

Yeah, there's this new thing going on in mental health, this saying that if you're really healed, then you could go back and be happy in the environment that abused you. Right. I'm like, okay, carry the two, do the math. Like, what? Like, so a marker of my healing is to go back to my abusers and do better at it. Like, I don't know what kind of thought is creating this out there. But, you know, I would really hope that healing would be a marker of you not having an unconditional

tolerance to disrespect. Right. I cannot believe and I will never ascribe to the idea

that my healing should make me so well that I could go be around the people who hurt me the most. I would hope that my healing would actually take me in the opposite direction that myself respect myself love and my desires for self preservation and a wholeness to my life would understand that that would be the last thing that could help me heal. So I want to keep moving forward and to do that, I have to have tremendous levels of bravery to step in and stand on business for myself

respect because if I don't do that no one else will, that's the vulnerability of this. Me being more healed isn't going to make my family have any more respect for me. I promise. I've lived it. So I know. So I really hope if you're a listener and you're thinking, well, maybe if I just heal enough, then I'll be able to be around them. I don't think you can heal in the same environment that's poison in you. It's almost like they're trying to like find a more intense

sun tan lotion to handle the heat that's sun that's getting closer. I want to talk a little bit about the other side of this and this is all the maniacs angry people. We'll probably love this question. Thank you, person. Well, I want to look at the parent that is maybe doing the best they can really and also opening, you know, up and saying they're sorry and making a concerted effort. Let's just fabricate this parent that's actually doing the best that they can. But the child

difference between setting a boundary? If I have a toxic parent and I set a boundary, how is that different by me actually trying to control them in a way? Because sometimes I would assume this happens

“in reverse. Am I right? Oh yeah, it absolutely does happen in reverse. I think the first thing to”

understand is the miseducation around boundaries. Boundaries are always designed to keep people in

your life, never out. Right. And so if I say, hey, dragon, you know, when you said this in the show, it really hurt my feelings. And I know you, you would be like, oh my gosh, Sherry, I'm so sorry, I would never want to hurt your feelings. I'll be very mindful about that going forward. And I will not do that again. I will make sure that I don't do that again. And then you're in my life. And you heard me and you saw me and you wanted to respect my boundary, not out of any

judgment of if you think my boundary is right, but because you love me and you value the relationship

“you have with me enough to make this minor adjustment. Right. For example, I have a patient who”

was called an idiot growing up by her parents. And so one day she's dating this guy, wonderful man, by the way, but he's like, oh my God, babe, you're such an idiot. And he really hurt her. And he did not mean it genuinely. He did not mean it in any way. That was real. It was he and his mind was just being playful, playful. But that was a very triggering word for her. And

he felt so bad. He's like, I will never say that not only like never say that to you,

playfully, but now I've learned I don't want to say that about anybody because like you never know what they've been called or, you know, anything like that. So he wants to stay in her life. So every boundary you get is an opportunity for a greater depth of love and respect. So there are talks of cultural children out there. In fact, I'm treating a mother right now who raised for them. She said no boundaries with them. She's enabled them and she's terrified of her

“kids now. So it does work in reverse. So I think there's a couple of other situations that I'll”

circle back to that you talked about. Let's say you're established no contact. And there is a parent now going into therapy, really doing the deep dive on why their child would cut them off. And they're taking a very guided and heartfelt path to trying to reconnect with this child. Because of our intuitive body, we can really tell when it's sorry you feel that way. I guess I'm a terrible mother, which is what I got from, wow, I have really been missing you and I didn't

understand your boundaries at first. And I was very angry about them. But I've gone into therapy and I recognize all the mistakes I've been making. And I'm just so broken hearted that I hurt my own child in these ways. And I'm willing to do anything to repair with you. And I will also accept if what I've done is to unforgivable for you to repair. I just really want you to know that I'm

doing my work. And I'm really trying. And I will always be here for repair. Sorry, guess I'm a terrible

mother and that. Right. Fundamentally different. If my own mother came at me with that kind of an apology, after everything she's done, all the books I've written, I would hear her out at the very least. Okay. It would be such a delight to even just know that she made that distinction, even if she revered it back to her unhealthy behavior after what a win. What a win? Yeah. And that will never happen. Okay, because what happens in the ego of a toxic parent is my truth was rebranded as slander.

So all of my truths, every word in every book has been rebranded to her to protect her ego slander. She knows exactly what she's doing. She knows exactly how she raised me. She did those things intentionally. We do not accidentally show up in a relationship and not know how we're treating someone. Okay, we may not always be in control of our reactions. We may have to go in and repair after. But to not do any of that, should not try to be better at, I'm trying to be better all the time.

Right. I always want to be better. I want to be a better firm mama. I want to be a better mom

independence that she needs. And I find her so interesting. And I'm so curious about her. And I love

her so much. And I have such an incredible relationship with my daughter. And I've made so many

“mistakes in the parenting. But I believe that love is the answer to a healing of any kind.”

And I don't have parents who love. That's not a high value for them. They may just agree with that. They may think that what their desires for control are love. I don't know. But it's not love. And it's not unconditional. So I feel so grateful now. Not for them. But I feel grateful that in spite of them. I've become someone that I do really like. And I really respect. And it was so hard. And there are days that are still so hard being me in this situation. Because

that electrical current isn't there. And I have this relationship with them forever. I'm just separate from it. But I do, on most days, just feel like they don't have any relevance anymore. Well, I'd be sad if I find out she dies of course. Of course. I don't want anything bad to happen to my mom at all. I don't sit in that space. Not that I didn't have my moments y'all throughout my healing. What I'm being abused with trusts and everything else of course I did.

But I'm through all of that. And it all passes. And I've just had to learn to live in this kind of structure and do my healing while I'm getting abused. And I'm just a lot stronger and smarter than I think that they ever thought I would be. Because I was the loser kid in the family. Well, well, not anymore. So yeah, I'm glad it all happened because I was able to turn my predators to a purpose. I've been able to do something I think really good and healing for me and

hopefully for others as well. And I'm just so grateful that I even have a following. I'm always shocked

by it. Like, there is a line of people to want to talk to me after my TED talk. And I got a standing ovation. And I wasn't sure, like am I going to get stoned off this? I never know. There could be this shit asked a mother fucker fakeface person like in the crowd. And I get booed or whatever. But like you said, I mean, many people said, I didn't even know this was a thing. Like I didn't know there is a structure or a way to talk about it. And that, you know, you are home this

“book has probably been written inside my body for about 20 years. That's why it's my favorite book.”

Yeah, you know, I think that human beings don't even know what they're allowed to give themselves permission to do. And one of the things, I want to, you know, kind of move to the a little bit more about the book here as we get to the end. But you mentioned a little bit about how you dealt with it. But, you know, from the standpoint of how the book translates it and how you explain it. How do people deal with the societal shaming component of this,

this whole? But there you're only parents, you know, the guilt, the judgment. How do you advise somebody that is putting up with the shit and tolerating things because they don't want to. I know that I've gone through that myself. Like I don't want to be labeled as a bad son and stuff. So I'll put up with shit way, way more than I would, if it was more acceptable. How do you advise somebody? Not that you're prompting them to tell their parents to screw off. But how does somebody

“become empowered to go deal with that shit that comes along with it? That's why the first book is”

but it's your family, right? But it's your mom, but it's your dad. But it's, so that's my first book

from 10 years ago. I frame it as, if you're someone who's famous and you have paparazzi and and online keyboard warriors and all these people like imagine being Britney Spears, there's no one I would want to help more than that little one. I just love her. I think she's had such a terrible family experience. I have, I think she has no idea how to manage her own life now without him because I had way too much control and I have so many thoughts there. But I look at it like, like anybody who's

famous, you get hecklers, you have to learn to turn down the noise. Right. And it's not easy and it can be shocking, but I can tell you that all the way take a little shit every day in social media, I get more love and more gratitude than I get any of that. I block, I remove and I delete. I think it's very easy to be whoever you want to be behind a keyboard. Social media has made this much worse. I think that it's sort of like Taylor Swift, like all press good or bad is good press.

look at it and I will tell everybody this is not automatic. It's been a process of a decade now for me

“of just thickening my skin and recognizing that I really am too sensitive of a creature to be on this”

platform. But I'm doing it bravely anyway, and I'm doing it not because my sensitivity has changed, but I have learned how to develop thicker skin and a look put a little more armor. I haven't had anything really strike me and take me down in a long time, which is wonderful. And not as many people come at me with that. And what does come out is the same shit different day. It's because toxic people don't have any depth and all these parents sort of run the same card writing school,

you know, they take all the same classes, passive aggressive card writing, silent treatment.

So, it's nothing I haven't already heard from my own parent. I just had to be careful at one point in my growth to think that, well, if I keep being told the same thing, then maybe it is me. Our brains will hold on to the negative far more than it will hold on to the positive. I could have one negative text in the very beginning or message in a hundred good ones. And I would hang on to that one. Because I was trained to believe I was bad. I started to look for ways

to agree with that as a child, which is so sad because there were times of just great confusion. Like, why am I so bad? Like, what? Why am I so bad? I don't understand. Like, if you tell me then I can fix it, right? So, I recognize that there's a lot of very underdeveloped cruel, not just immature, but very cruel people out there and parents happen to be some of those people and so do some people in social media. It isn't a bearing on me. And I just have to have that

thick skin. One of the things I love about being an open and curious person, you know, I allow myself to dispute my own bullshit. And I can look back at times where I was abusive and toxic and things like that. And I understand why I did it. It wasn't appropriate. But, you know, it was from insecurity or my own trauma or something. I totally totally get all that stuff. But, at the same time,

“I have this ability and I think some people don't to recognize that it's not okay.”

The best compliment that I ever get from, you know, I've been public speaking for a long time and people are afraid to tell me this, but a lot of people walk up to me now after they hear some of my shows or they see me get off stage and they're kind of shaking and they're like, man, you used to be the biggest asshole in the world. And I just want to tell you that I see that and they're worried that I'm good at it and I'm like, that's the greatest thing ever because that's

proof that I'm moving forward. When it comes to this book, so I'm once again, I'm thinking about my listeners and anybody that comes across this. And I would assume that, who's this Sherry Campbell? Oh, interesting topic, but now after hearing this conversation for an hour, some of them are saying like, holy fuck, emotional homelessness, that's me. Who's, who's this

“book for Sherry? I think that it's for the people who grew up in a family system where maybe”

by all accounts on the outside your home life looked perfect or the life that you've built, you know, looks very successful and fulfilling but like internally, you may still be feeling unsettled or ungrounded, unfulfilled and kind of unsure of where you belong. And this is what I call emotionally homeless because it's not about where you live at all. It's more about how you live within yourself. I went from being abused by others to a pretty decent relationship of self abuse.

I was just recognizing that my pain was showing me how disconnected I was from my own needs and my

identity and I didn't really even know how to have those because I never had any practice having

those. I was like the need meter, the emotional slave or janitor for my parents and so I just kind of found myself constantly looking outward like maybe this job or maybe if I make this kind of money or maybe if my podcast does this or or if I have this relationship and none of those things just really gave me the steadiness. There's a song called on steady and I just always felt a bit on steady to this day. I have feelings of a lack of steadiness because of all of this stuff that's

in my basement, right? I have the voices of my inner child there like my patient that was

internally otherwise you're going to keep seeking externally, right? So if you're a bucket and

they're we always seem like we want more water. I want more money. I want more love. I want more

success but really if we have holes in our bucket then the amount of water is kind of null and void. This book is going to teach you to repair your foundation so you increase your capacity to hold the water you have. So instead of asking for more water or more light or more love or more

“miracles, if your bucket has holes in it you have to increase your capacity to hold the water.”

Yeah. Then you'll be living within yourself not trying to find home and safety and settle this in something outside of you and that's still the work I'm doing. You know fully transparent I'm still doing that work and there are weeks that I'm like well I'm just not handling my stress well you know I'm in Perry menopause so don't come for me. I want to help people build

something that was never essentially constructed for them when it should have been developmentally.

I want to help you seal up your foundation right so that you increase your capacity to hold all that you have. Doesn't do the trick. So that's who this book is for. I think I saw somewhere that you call that a renovation. Yes it is. Healing renovations and you do it so cute. I love it.

“Every chapter ends with housework exercises. They do stuff like this in the book.”

Oh that's so cool. The basement. The basement. I can't wait to see who I have to put in the basement. Ground. My wife's birthday at the time that we're recording this. My wife's birthday is next week. So this is going to be one of her gifts on the ninth. That's my birthday dragon. Holy shit. That is my birthday. I'm glad I said something about it and without throwing anybody that's not for me to throw under the bus. She's going through this stuff. So this is like

she's going to really, really love this. She's doing well with it. It's a close-out. There's so many, so many different things to unpack here. We might have to revisit this at some point. We love to. Yeah. Well, apparently you're writing another book anyway. I can't wait for you to see what

minds about. People are always going to evaluate like whether or not the juices were at the squeeze.

“I think a lot of people like will agree with everything but just go right back into the”

cognitive bias of just saying, she's fucking crazy. That's not the way. Just to protect their own dysfunctional house. If you have a dysfunctional house, human beings have been gifted with this ability to think that it's a great house. So what is on the other side? We talk about the juice worth the squeeze. Let's talk about the juice. What's on the other side for that person of taking this big, right turn in a world that is just unconsciously going left? The lack of the relevancy

of your abuser in your life. Right, listen, truth be told, you can deeply understand your past and still feel triggered in the present. Okay, truth be told. I think for me the amount of relevance that a parent has for a child is there's no one bigger, right? To have the most powerful people in your life not have relevance anymore to your heart, your soul, your spirit, your drive, your goals, your happiness. I mean, what better juice is there? That's freedom. That is freedom. Like today,

when my monsters get triggered, yes, they were created by my parents. But I have fully adopted them. They are mine now. I'm not going to return to sender. Those are mine. And I love them so much, even though they torture me sometimes. I do love them so much because each time I go down and visit with one of my monsters, I love them the way I always needed to be loved as a child. I talk to them the way I always needed to be talked as a child. I reassure them. I coach them. Right? Yeah. You have the most powerful

people in your life lose their relevancy and to see such an incredible increase in your happiness. Go find better fruit than that. It doesn't exist. That's the juice right in the squeeze of the book you are home. It is so special. I love that. And you know, there's this other side where I have found a way. You know, I was thinking about, I didn't end up doing this, but I was thinking

I would never have written this book without it." You know, so I did that. I always thought about

that, but you know, that's just me doing my own healing, trying to turn water into wine. But what I find is that my true healing comes from leading by example. And just as you said, giving my kids, you know, what I didn't have. And I would assume that even though my kids might hopefully won't write a book about me being in their basement one day or putting me in their fence, that would be my goal. I would love to find that out. But they're still going to do something

for their kids that I didn't do. And I'm okay with that. But I love about this new work that you're doing is that it's not like just another conversation, and it's not just bringing up some of the states. It looks like you've actually created a guide or a house, you know, to actually walk people

“through it. And I think it's just so relevant. And I'm a big, big fan, even if it means that I'm”

going to get a message telling me that I'm a fucking ass face or whatever that woman said. Well, tell them that you're a fake face person. Fake face person. Well, you know what I, when people do that stuff to me, I go, well, I definitely have been like that. So if that just shoot showed up a little bit, you know, I hope it doesn't ruin your whole day.

Yeah, for me, I never really was, I mean, I had as a kid, I had times where I was mean to other

kids. Of course, most of the time, though, I was so scared that I was under the other mean kids. I think that like comments I've heard from people like there's a kid I was in high school with and found out I got a PhD and he goes a sherry camel. Yeah. And you know, fair, I was failing

“most of school for a very long time because I was just so sad and depressed. And they didn't care”

about me. So I didn't fucking care about me. You know, and if she wants to call me a fake face person, that's good. I can get rid of the lady who does my Botox. She's amazing. Doesn't kind of work. She can go do that. But fun and games, you know, my first book I was definitely more raw. I was, it was, but it's your family and I did dedicate some of the book to them. I changed so much in the last 10 years. The gratitude was pure for me at that time.

But now I don't think them for, my trauma didn't make me stronger. My trauma made me very weak and very broken and all of those things. I made me stronger. And so I'm not grateful for what they did to me. I look at it as on some high spiritual level.

“This is the class and the great that I chose to be in in this life. I just want to do the best”

to get a good solid be in the class, right? And I don't feel like I came from them anymore as much as I came through them to have my own life. Interesting. And that's been a big difference. There's no ownership anymore because I own the title and all the land and all the property inside and outside. I get to decide who has access to me, who doesn't and at what location, I have that kind of structure to my life now. And that is what has made me feel safer in the world.

And I just so appreciate you having me on and I want to circle back and just congratulate you so deeply on your book and your new adopted baby girl. So beautiful and you're such a wonderful podcast or you're such a great listener. I just can't say enough good about you, Dragon. So just thank you for me. Go to Dr. Sherry Campbell.com and everything is on my website. I'm Dr. Sherry on TikTok, Dr. Dr. Sherry on Instagram and I'm Sherry Campbell PhD on Facebook.

I'm kind of everywhere. All the links will be on my website and my name is S.H.E.R.R.I.E. because there's 7,000 ways to spell Sherry. But yeah, I would love to have some of you in my community and help love you through your life and keep you positive and also in the truth and all those good things. Awesome. This is Dr. Sherry Campbell and this podcast makes sense. So in closing, there's something really powerful about this conversation and it's not just about family,

it's more about truth because for a lot of people, the hardest part isn't the trauma. It seems that it's more about the realization that people that you hoped would change might not and that leaves us with a decision. Do I keep going back, try to earn something that was

never given or do I finally come home to myself? Because maybe, maybe the healing is not about

fixing the relationship, maybe it's about no longer needing things to be different in order for

fantasy while building at the same time something inside of you that nobody can take away.

“So maybe the question today isn't, is it wrong to walk away? Maybe the better question is,”

what is it costing me to stay? If this conversation resonated with you today,

please consider sharing it with someone else that might need that permission to finally choose

themselves. Make sense? That's it for today. To support the make sense with Dr. JC Podcast,

be sure to subscribe, like, and share as well as follow the make sense sub-stack for free daily

“quotes, live streams, and blogs. And remember, learning without action is just another form of”

distraction. If something hit home when you learn something today, give it away. That's the only way it's gonna stay. See you next time. If you liked the show, please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe. It really does help the show to grow. Thank you for listening.