#095: Healing Happens When We Ask for Help | Tanya Lyons
You feel broken. You want to heal. But you’re unwilling to ask for help.
If that describes you, your ability to heal will be stifled. Nobody ever healed their broken leg without the help, knowledge, or experience of others. Healing only happens with the love and help of other people.
In this episode, we discuss that and more as my guest shares :
How it took 20 years for her to pursue counseling, but how she found healing there
Why is it so difficult to talk about our parents’ divorce or broken family and what can we do about that?
Why taking risks feels extra scary for people like us and what to do if you feel that fear
Buy Tanya’s Book, Come Home Laughing
Take the My Broken Family Assessment
Links & Resources
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Tanya Lyons
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TRANSCRIPT
Transcript produced by artificial intelligence. Please pardon any errors!
If you feel broken and you want to heal, but you're unwilling to ask for help, your ability to heal will be greatly stifled. Imagine breaking your leg. Nobody ever healed their broken leg without the help, knowledge or experience of other people such as doctors, physical therapists, or even people who've broken their legs and learned how to heal and strengthen it. Healing only happens with the love and support of other people. And we discuss that and more in this episode as my guest shares how it took her 20 years to finally pursue counseling, but how she found healing there, we discuss why it's so difficult for people like us to talk about our parents, divorce or broken family. And what we can do about that. We also talk about how taking risks can feel extra scary for people like us and offer advice on what to do if you feel that fear and we hit on well, we want to rely on others and rely on God even in a healthy way to to heal us. But at the same time, we can expect them to do all the work for us. We have to put in the work ourselves. So, keep listening. Welcome to the restored podcast, helping you heal and grow from the trauma of your parents', divorce, separation or broken marriage. So you can feel whole again and break the cycle. I'm your host, Joey Panelli. This is episode 95. If you found this podcast helpful in navigating the pain and problems from your parents' divorce and even finding healing. I'm thrilled to announce a new resource from restored. That'll help you even more. We'll be releasing two video courses. The first course is titled Broken to Whole Tactic to Heal From your parents', divorce or Broken Marriage. That course answers the questions. What is trauma, how does trauma in general but also the trauma of your parents', divorce or dysfunctional family affect? You begin to some of the signs of that even. It's really fascinating. What can you do to heal from it and even prevent yourself from being traumatized in the future and so much more. And that course is actually taught by a trauma therapist with over 15 years of experience healing people from their trauma. The second course is titled Real Help, a guide to Confidently help someone from a divorce or broken family. And that course answers the questions. What struggles do, Children of divorce or dysfunction typically face, what should you say, not say do and not do in order to help them. How do you start those difficult conversations? What should you do if they seem fine and some special tips for parents as well and so much more. And that course is actually taught by me. The content itself is actually based on a lot of research but also on a restored article that ranks top three on Google and receives over 3000 views a month. So stay tuned for the launch of each of those episodes that will be coming to you very soon. And if you'd like to join the waitlist to get notified first and be given special advanced access, just go to restored ministry dot com slash courses or just click on the link in the show notes. And when you do that, you'll get a bonus on building healthy relationships and a strong marriage. Again, go to restored ministry dot com slash courses or just click on the link in the show notes. My guest today is Tanya Lyons. Tanya grew up in a small town in western Canada. After high school, she joined an international organization, youth with a mission first as a volunteer and then as a staff member, her passion for a Christian discipleship and teaching has taken her to over 40 nations and given her the opportunity to live on three continents. In 2015, she graduated with a master's in Christian formation and discipleship as part of her degree, Tanya researched and wrote a book about the spiritual journey of adult Children of divorce called Come Home Laughing. Since then, she's written three other books and is working on her fifth, a book about getting married for the first time later in life, Tanya is a trained life coach. She enjoys drinking black coffee, geo cashing, swing dancing and discussing what she's reading. She lives in Glasgow Scotland with her husband Patrick and a quick disclaimer. Tanya is a Christian as you can tell. So we speak about God and about faith in the episode. But even if you don't believe in God, you're still going to get a lot out of this episode. And my challenge to you is this just listen with an open mind again. Even if you take the God parts out, you'll still benefit a lot. Here's my conversation with Tanya. Tanya. Welcome to the show. Hey, great to be here as we usually do. I'd like to just dive right in with the deep and heavy topics that we often talk about in the show. But I'm curious in your situation, how old were you when your parents separated and divorced? And what happened there? Yes. So I was 10 when my parents divorced. I really had no idea that they were having any difficulties in their marriage. I think I was just oblivious to it. And uh one day after school, my mom sat me and my brother down on the couch and just said your dad and I don't love each other anymore. And I'm gonna go stay with grandma. So she got her suitcase in the car and drove away and um we saw her later that weekend and found out there was actually more to the story than that. Ok, what led up to it like? So you said things at home were good or at least appeared to be fun from your perspective as a kid. Was there any insight into mom and dad are having problems or anything like that? You know, I don't remember as a kid at 10 years old knowing that there was anything. But later on they did refer that they had gone to counseling for a bit. But the, the part that was more to the story is that my mom was seeing somebody else found out later on that they had been having an affair and then maybe tried to stop and then continued on. So as I understand that was actually going on for a few years before the decision to for my mom to leave and the divorce to happen. Wow. Ok. I'm really sorry to hear that. That's devastating for everyone involved, especially the Children too. I think so often when there's an affair, we tend to think that, you know, obviously the spouse that was cheated on is very hurt and that makes sense. Um And they need, you know, the love and support and healing, of course too. But the Children in a very real way were cheated on too. And so, um so yeah, that's really rough to go through and I'm curious, um, you know, how did all of that, how did your parents divorce that affair even affect you? Especially in your future relationships? I mean, isn't that the greatest question to ask? And it's so hard to sort of finally make sense of it, you know. And, um, but I think the short answer is it just made me afraid to trust people and it made me question my own worth was I worthy of love? Would people stick around for me? I think I really adopted the, the view that all relationships were temporary friendships, romantic. It didn't matter what it was, but that it was more of a when they're gonna leave me not, are they gonna leave me? I ended up very, is isolating myself basically as self protection trying to keep from getting hurt potentially. And even though of course, I really wanted love and connection, but I did not know how, how to build those healthy relationships. So it really kind of got me stuck in a really a painful cycle of wanting something but not being able to, to build those friendships or relationships. I totally follow you there. And I think those of us who come from broken families who are listening right now can totally relate. I know for me, I have the desire to build, you know, healthy relationships, good friendships even and especially a good future marriage. And, uh, like you said, I just felt totally lost. I had no idea how to do that. And I was just filled with a ton of anxiety like you said, a lot of fear that gosh, am I going to repeat my parents' mistakes? Am I going to just end up going through a divorce one day like they did? And I knew with everything inside of me that I didn't want that because I saw how painful it was for them. But I also experienced that pain myself, you know, going through their parents divorce as, you know, an 11 year old boy. And so, um, so I totally can relate with you on that. And I think for many years and the idea of marriage was just so unappealing to me because it just had such a negative connotation. I was quite bitter about marriage and thought it's just a, a bad idea and I couldn't really see any beauty in it or any, you know, way that it would possibly benefit me. So that was confusing too because I thought, well, then what is life about if it's not about family and if it's not about connection, if it's not about belonging? So I think it was quite painful and, and very disorienting as a kid at that age. Yeah, I remember thinking to, like you said, I, you know, if this is where marriage leads, I want nothing to do with it. And I even, you know, silently swore to myself that I will never get married after that whole experience. And thankfully found a lot of healing and overcame that, that lie that, you know, you're kind of doomed to repeat the cycle. But certainly it's, it's scary. And my opinion, you know, there's obviously decreasing marriage rates today in our world, people are getting married less and less and some people point to different factors. But I, I think that broken families and going through your parents' divorce at the core of it. I, I think obviously there is that fear of commitment that everyone always talks about and, you know, younger generations. But what I've seen is that they're not so much afraid of commitment, they're afraid of, like we're talking about repeating that cycle of dysfunction, repeating what they saw in their parents' marriage or perhaps the marriages around them. And so it makes so much sense that they would then, you know, try other things like, you know, having some sort of committed relationship as opposed to a marriage. Um, it, it, but it's sad to see and I think that's, uh underneath this whole crisis that we have where we're just giving up on love and on marriage altogether. Yeah, I think there's two layers to it that I've seen in my life is one I don't think I'm capable or I wonder, am I capable of actually doing something that I've never seen? Like being committed, being faithful, truly having a love that lasts for my whole lifetime, decades and decades and then there's the fear of, or the question, would anybody want me, you know, am I too broken or too complicated or, or just not valuable enough that anyone would want to give that to me? So, it's both ways it's, can I give that to somebody and would somebody ever want to, or choose to give that to me? So, yeah, it's kind of two problems at the same time. It seems like. Yeah. No, I like the way you said that I remember, I think it was in college. I was able to put words to this feeling I had that you just mentioned the second part. At least that I felt like a gift that wasn't worth giving. And I felt like if I were to, you know, give myself to someone that eventually they would just give up on me and leave because they would realize like, oh you're really broken or oh, you, you know, you're not worth loving. And so I totally feel that felt that fear and I think so many people who've been through what we've been through, experience that as well. Yeah. And I think for me, there was definitely the sense of like a disillusionment about the word love as well. You know, hearing my parents say, oh, we love you, Tanya and we want what's best for you. But then feeling like this doesn't feel like love, this feels terrible. What, what's happened to me what's happened to our family feels the exact opposite of love. And so I remember in different relationships that I had that didn't go anywhere if the guy would ever start talking about love. I'd be like, don't even say love. I don't even want to hear that. That is not even in my vocabulary. It was just such a, just a reflection of, of how I felt and what I'd experienced. And yeah, it's quite, it's quite sad when I look back at the younger me who, but understandably who really felt like love is such a, a terrible thing and a fickle thing. Yeah. I couldn't agree more with you and I totally get where you're coming from, shifting to healing and growth. I'm curious, what were a few things that really helped you to, to heal and to cope with the pain that you have endured? I mean, the first one that comes to mind is counseling, but I was probably 30 before. I was really, really willing to talk about my experience and the painful parts of it. Um, before that I was just so nonchalant about. Yeah. Yeah. My parents divorced. Yeah. Yeah. This is the thing. Yeah. Yeah. Really kind of just trying to build those walls and keep, keep it distant from myself. So, yeah, when I think I was around 30 31 when I started to go to counseling and it was such a healthy, wonderful gift to finally have a place where I could tell somebody how I really felt without trying to downplay it or protect my parents or kind of feel ashamed of, of my story, but I could just lay it all out. It was incredibly healing. And so that was a huge, a huge step for me. And another thing that I found really helpful even before that, but looking back, I see how helpful it was, was being able to spend some time with healthy families. So I had one work colleague in particular who him and his wife, sort of just they weren't that much older than me, but they had a bunch of kids and kind of an open door policy in their home and they just let me be part of their life, whether it was grocery shopping, cooking, um hanging out on a Saturday. And so just, and if I was soaking it up watching how they dealt with their kids, how they treated each other. And that was a super healing uh restorative experience for me. So I still love hanging out with, with families and kids and kind of, I still am learning about what does it look like to really love your spouse and love your kids and love your parents from them. Beautiful. I love both those things and I found them helpful as well. And it's so interesting in the 90 plus interviews that we've done in this show at this point. Uh That's such a clear trend that spending time with healthy marriages and families is incredibly healing. Mhm. Yeah. And to me it just thinks what a gift it is if you have healthy marriage and family to, to open your home to people, um who you might think we don't have anything to show them. We're not the experts but man, what a gift it is to have that healthy, healthy family and marriage is not perfect but one that, that really is built on love and caring for one another. Yeah, I totally agree. It's a good challenge to everyone listening right now. Who has, you know, a good marriage, a healthy marriage, not a perfect one. Uh You can be such an inspiration, such a help to those of us who, you know, find that whole idea and that whole experience so foreign to us, it can truly be a training in how to love. It can be a school of love which which we greatly need if we want to go on and break that cycle and build those healthy relationships and hopefully a strong marriage in the future. Uh One thing that you've mentioned as well is that you found your relationship with God, incredibly healing. So I wanted to talk a little bit about that. How has that been healing for you? And what in particular have you done to find healing through that relationship? Yeah. Thanks for that. For sure. I didn't come to any faith. Until I was a late teenager. So for, you know, almost eight years, Paul following my parents um divorce, I didn't have any kind of faith connection or any relationship with God. And uh looking back, I can see how my coming to faith really brought this whole sense of connection and belonging that I'm not alone anymore that even though my parents don't understand or my friends might not understand, my sibling doesn't understand. At least God understands me. And that I think it was incredibly healing for me, just this awareness that I'm not alone. And then over the years, I think, you know, learning how to connect with God through prayer, through meditation and just the sense that I don't have to pretend with God. God's the one person that I can truly be open and honest with about every area of my life, whatever I'm struggling with, whatever I'm proud of or what I'm ashamed of that I don't have to hide myself from God. And that a sense of unconditional love and acceptance has been uh such a healing thing though. It didn't just happen overnight and it is still a process for me to really remind myself that I am loved by God. I am seen by him. So I think that was kind of maybe the slow burn of of healing has come through that being able to look to, to God for the love that I really need and long for beautiful And no, I could totally see how that is so healing and I love the word you use pretending. It's so interesting. I think so often that really describes the experience of a lot of young people who come from divorce or broken families is that we do feel the need to pretend in one way or another. Like we all often have these like almost multiple identities where we're one way with mom and one way with dad and maybe one way with relatives and one way with friends and it can be a lot to carry. And so uh talk about that a little bit more. What have you seen in your own life and the lives of people, you know, who've, you know, gone through this experience when it comes to pretending and then, you know, on the opposite end of that is like you said, being that like genuine, authentic self. Yeah, I mean, I think it is such an interesting dynamic that has I can see in my life and others is that you learn from a young age, I learned from a young age that rules were different at mom's house and dad's house expectations were different. I think many Children of divorced and separated parents would kind of become the caretaker for our parents or our siblings were kind of trying to think for me, it came from a fear of like if I don't keep them happy, they will leave me as well, I wouldn't have said it that way. But really, that's what my motivation was as a young girl. And so always trying to, to think ahead, what do they need? What do they want? How do I keep them happy? Never being able to relax into a situation. Never being able to be honest about what I was happy about or angry about or sad about what I needed. Always putting other people first. So that habits and that patterns, you know, it makes you a good friend. It makes you a good child because you're always easy to please. And you're always working really hard to keep other people happy. But it, it meant that I, nobody ever knew all of me. That's how I felt that I was, there was parts of me that were just unknown and un valued or un cared for. So mom saw certain things, dad saw certain things, grandma saw certain things, my teacher saw certain things my friend. But I guess I was afraid that if I revealed too much that I would be rejected. So I think that the kids from divorced families, we can be the chameleon. And the again, which maybe at the time, you just think this is what everybody does. But then later on, at least for me, I realized this is incredibly lonely and it's hard work. It's very stressful to always be trying to figure out what people want and be that person instead of simply being totally, it's exhausting like he said and, and that's what I experienced 100%. And yeah, needing to play all those different roles is so real. I um I've seen two trends in people like us who uh we, we've kind of become rescuers in a lot of senses, maybe not always, but I've seen it to be more likely in people like us. And underneath that I think is almost like a cry for help, like we want someone to rescue us. And so in a way, we're like trying to rescue everyone else. And uh and so I think it is really beautiful and helpful when you can make that switch to realize like it's not a bad thing to help other people. We're obviously not their savior. We can't like, you know, solve all their problems, take away all their pain, but it's not a bad thing to love and help people with healthy boundaries. Um But at the same time, if we continually ignore our own need for, for healing, for, you know, someone to, to help us to in a way rescue us without doing everything for us, which we'll touch on a little bit later. There, there can be so much growth, there can be so much healing when we just, you know, acknowledge that and seek out the right resources to, to heal. Yeah. And I think um for me, if the faith thing has been so helpful because it was finally one place where I could actually come as I am. I don't have to pretend because God knows it all like he knows everything about me every part of my life. So I didn't have to though there were many times I think where I did approach faith the same way I approached my other relationships, trying to imagine what God wanted me to do what the right answer was, what the acceptable thing was. But over the years, I have become more comfortable with letting him rescue me, you know, whatever that means, whether that's just giving me the, the love and affection I need or the support I need the emotional encouragement I need and all kinds of other, other parts of daily life. Yeah. That makes so much sense. Are there any um maybe practical examples, especially for people listening right now who don't believe in God or don't have any sort of faith? I'm just curious, like, how have you experienced that? Maybe in the last few months or last year, whatever time frame where it's been maybe a little bit more like, you know, you, you, you see God's hand in it, but it's not like this big booming voice from our love. Um Because I think that's sometimes what people imagine when they think of like God expressing its love for us is that we think it's like, you know, again, this miraculous experience, but so often what I've learned is it can be in the really simple, ordinary, everyday things that you can see, you can see as end. Yeah, I think, oh, my husband and I bought a house recently and, um, that was really as a first time thing for me. I've moved 20 times in my adult life, a very transient life style. And so this was a whole new idea. Marriage is brand new. But then also thinking of buying a home and when we, we put on offers and houses, they weren't accepted, we looked at places um and continue to pray that God would help us find a home and take care of us. And uh one particular time we had to move out of one place and into a new place and we tried to find a place to move into. We just could not find a rental place or anything and then just got a, a text out of the blue one day from a a friend saying, hey, are you guys looking for a place to stay? Because our tenants just moved out and we need some money to move into our place. And anyways, we ended up moving in like two days after their tenants moved out, it worked out completely like we had planned it though. We had not planned it. And, and to me, that was an example of God being like a father to me or a parent to me and caring for me doing something that I just could not figure out on my own even though I'm a fully grown person and I'm competent in every, in so many areas of life. But just seem like, uh, I couldn't sort it out without God without help and God took care of me and took care of me and my husband. So I don't know if that's what you're looking for, but that, to me is such an encouragement. Um, that I'm not alone in life, even in really practical things that have nothing to do with divorce just day to day living. No, no, I think that's beautiful. I love when like, faith has been more practical and I think it's a great example of it. And um, you know, there's, I think there's so many examples, but one of the ways that I've kind of seen God in my own life, at least the way he communicates to me is often through my desires. Like, like I have a desire to like, help someone to reach out to someone or, or do something like this whole nonprofit is an example of it. Like I took, you know, time to discern and think through like, is this actually what I'm supposed to do what God wants me to do? And it got, you know, the green light. And so, um but he really placed a heart desire in my heart to, to help people who come from towards and broken families. Um so he speaks to me through my desires, speaks to me through other people. Probably the most often, like someone will say something, especially if I'm struggling in some area, you know, a friend or one of my mentors will say something. It's like, dang, like that's exactly what I need to hear. And I don't even think you realized that's exactly what I need to hear. Um And then finally realizations, I don't know if that's the best word to use, but things will just kind of click or, you know, I thought will come to mind from like nowhere. And I'll be like, wow, OK, that's like kind of a key to whatever problem I'm facing or shuffle or whatever. And so um to people, I think um who yeah, maybe are foreign to this idea of like prayer, talking to God and things like that. Um A lot of these things can seem like coincidences and that's fair to think that. But I think when you see so many of these things happening again and again throughout your life, you start to realize like, really like, is this, is this really a coincidence? So, um so a lot of beauty there and kind of going back to this whole faith aspect of healing. So, you know, like you said that um desire to belong so often we feel that we don't belong because our family fell apart and we don't belong in our own families, like where in the world are we going to belong if we don't belong there? And so, um, so I want to go deeper on that topic. But before I do any final thoughts, well, when you're talking about the way that you, you know, coincidences or things that just become clear to you, I find God often or I, I find a lot of what would you say, Victor watching TV, where I'm seeing characters interact and I'm thinking, oh, that's like I see a parent being kind to a child or I see a friend showing compassion to someone and it really becomes sort of like a spiritual experience for me where I think that is what love looks like. That is how I can be loving to people in my life or, or while that person actually was loving to me, it helps me reinterpret my life sometimes through giving me some more examples of, of what healthy relationships look like or, or just sometimes, you know, you're like, I can relate to that character and they've taken a risk. So I'm gonna take a risk. So somehow. Um yeah, just I think there are lots of connections in daily life if you have the eyes to see them um where it might be some type of faith and a spiritual connection. So, yeah, I'm not sure that's really coming through the way, but nevertheless, there you have it. Yeah. Yeah. No, that makes sense. And I appreciate you sharing that. Um aside from your own story, what have you seen that helps people like us who come from doors or broken families to heal from the trauma we've endured in our personal lives and in our relationships, I think for sure, the relational connection with people where it's not like when people are open and honest with me about whatever area they do not have to be from a divorced or separated family. But when they're honest about their struggles, whether it's with finances or their relationships or their kids or their work or their studies or something, when people are open about what they're going through, then I feel such a sense of relief like, oh, they don't have everything together. So that gives me permission to then be open and honest about my struggles. And so so when friends or groups of people can be honest about their struggles, I just think it, it opens the door for deeper connection, which is what, what everybody longs for. So I think that that's kind of a very general but very helpful um, thing that I've seen is it gives people courage to then go, ok. I could talk about my stuff if they can talk about their stuff as well. Yeah, it's so refreshing when people just speak in like a real way. You know, this whole idea of real talk. It's like so so popular now, especially with these different podcasts like Joe Rogan, whether you love him or hate him. Uh, it's so, it's so interesting to listen because, you know, we're talking about, like, real topics and real issues and real problems that people face in a way that's like unfiltered, which is like you said, it's very refreshing. Yeah. You had mentioned before to how, you know, faith had played such a big role in your own healing. I'm curious, you know, how have you seen that happened in the lives of the people that you've led or walked with, who come from divorce or broken families? Yeah, I mean, what I love about faith and people's faith journey is no, no, too identical. And so what might really have been really healing to me does nothing for somebody else but vice versa. And so I love seeing other people, the things that stand out to them or not. But I think to summarize, I think the community aspect of faith uh is huge for many people. Um The sense of belonging so often the kids of divorce or separated parents, we don't have anywhere to go for the holidays. We don't have anybody who celebrates our life accomplishments with us. We don't have anywhere to go on summer holidays or we don't. Yeah, we kind of feel like we might be missing out on a lot of things that other people just take for granted. And so I've seen faith communities be a real place of, of input and service for, for Children from divorced separated families because it's a sense of you're one of us. You belong here, you have something to offer as well as something to receive. And I think I've seen a lot of people really flourish as they find a place of giving. So maybe a guy or gal gets to work with the kids club and all of a sudden the little kids are just mobbing them and loving on them and all of a sudden they're like, people wanna be around me and there's so much energy that comes from that or somebody goes, wow, I can fix the computers for the, the seniors in my, my community or my church. And all of a sudden they have something to offer and they have these sort of grandparent figures. And so this idea of like as we give to others, we receive so much, I think it can be so healing and, and a big part of what family can offer us, but that we might have missed out on if we, if we didn't have that beautiful. And I, I think there's a great lesson in that, that I'm learning from you. And that is um if you want those healthy, beautiful relationships, if you wanna find great friends, you have to be that for other people, you have to be that great friend. And it's something I think that we're always working on, we can improve upon always. But um but I think, yeah, like you said it almost begins to attract people to you. When you start to be that great friend, start to give, start to love, start to, you know, be selfless, like put other people's needs above your own. Of course, assuming in a healthy way with healthy boundaries. But um but I think there's a powerful lesson in that. Mhm And it is so affirming to realize that that you or that I have something to offer. And um I think for many years, I was so insecure and so afraid to take any risks of offering something because if I offer a bit of myself, even, it's just a pie that I baked or an idea for a conversation that I would get rejected. And I was so afraid of that, that I just, I never offered anything. So it took me a long time. Um And a lot of people inviting me in and asking me and saying, hey, Tanya, do you want to cook a pie for this? Do you wanna uh help do this project? Do you want to come to our party? Do you want to? So that invitation has been such a helpful thing for me in my healing journey. Just this idea that other people think I have something to offer. That was a foreign idea to me for so long. So I think I've, I've learned from that and it's benefited me so much and I try to operate that way as well. To really have an open, I don't know, an open mindset where there's always room for more people and it can be challenging at time because it's fun to hang out with people that I know and love. It's fun to, you know, have these tight friendships. But, but I think my experience of rejection and abandonment and isolation and stuff from my family has given me eyes to see people who might be on the fringes or on the outside or, or not like the coolest or most popular and to go, they're just as worthy of being included as anybody. And I wanna actually find ways to, to include them. Yeah, that makes so much sense. And I, I think it's a good place to start if you know, people are especially struggling socially and, and that's a common struggle as you know, for people like us who come from doors or broken families. And, um, and I've seen people make incredible ways and like grow a ton in that area, but a good place to start if you're kind of at the beginning of that journey is, um with those people, like you said, who may be a little bit more on the fringes or rejected or not as popular or cool or good looking or whatever, that can be a great place to start to build those friendships and of course, love them throughout. But I think that may feel a little bit safer as well. And I like what you touched on too. How there is this risk factor when we love, when we put ourselves out there, when we give that we might be misunderstood, or people might reject us in a sense. And I think it's important to acknowledge that. I know I've mentored young people who, you know, have experienced that sort of rejection where it's like, you know, they're trying to love, they're trying to be a great friend in a relationship and then they're misunderstood by a friend, they're rejected by someone they wanted to, you know, date or be with. And so it can be really challenging. But I think there's something so powerful and just that action of taking the risk. I think that makes you a better, stronger, more virtuous person. Um And in the end, in the moment, it's really painful and can feel debilitating. But in the end, I think you're going to become this again, better, stronger person. So, yeah, I'm curious if you have any thoughts on that risk factor and kind of putting your neck out there and opening yourself up to potentially being rejected in, in smaller, perhaps pick ways. Well, as we're talking, one thing that stood out to me was just, I, I think it's pretty common for those of us who are divorced, separated families to kind of try to make things like black and white all or nothing. So this person is good, this person is bad this relationship is gonna be the one that I'm looking for or this one is gonna be terrible and sort of the idea of extreme thinking, like, and I, I can relate to that. I, I think it comes from sort of self protection, definitely from a self protection. So I wanna see if there's a problem before it ever becomes a problem so I can reject it and run away and stay safe. But what that means is that I become so afraid of anything that might be a danger that I never even let myself take a tiny risk, whether that's a job interview or someone that I wanna date back when I was single or, or just a friendship that I wanted to pursue or I mean, it's so many different categories. So it's been helpful for me to, to try to think, ok, can I instead of seeing everything is all good or all bad to try to see more nuance in that and to go? Ok, what's a, what's an appropriate risk to take in this situation instead of seeing risk is bad and dangerous and comfort as like the final goal or, you know, certainty as the final goal to go. What's a small step that I could take? What's a small risk that might help me to build that, that strength and that courage that you mentioned. And um and what's an appropriate amount of vulnerability to share? Because I think uh once I started trying to, once I started becoming more aware of my emotions and, and understanding that like, healthy relationships do involve emotional vulnerability. I was just so inexperienced that I just shared everything I would just like lay it all out there and overwhelm people with either my, my hopes and my expectations or my fears and it kind of freaked people out because I was really trying to give them all of me. Like I want to show you everything about me so that if you're gonna reject me, you'll do it now. And like it was just out of step with what a healthy relationship is or how relationships develop a little bit at a time. So, so I think I see a connection there. I don't know. What do you think? Yeah. No. Excellent points. And I totally agree with you that just touching on the last point, there is a temptation, right? When we're learning to kind of go from this place of just like sharing nothing to then share everything. And like you said, it can be overwhelming for the people in our lives who are, who do generally want to love us. But like you said, when something you know, is healthy, it grows gradually, like if you think of plants and trees and grass, like whatever, they usually don't just sprout up overnight. There's some exceptions to this. But um, it usually takes time, like, you know, hours, weeks, months, years, even for something to grow to blossom into its full potential. And so in the same way, like you're saying, relationships are like that. And so it's important that we kind of go at that slow rate. And I've seen this especially in romantic relationships for people like us is that we, you know, I tend to kind of jump in like head first where it's like, well, you know, I wanna, I really am attracted to you. I want to be with you. And so I'm just gonna give you everything and tell you everything and um it creates this really, it can create a really unhealthy dynamic in the relationship. Whereas if you kind of graduate the girl, like you said, there can be so much more peace, so much more joy and such a healthier dynamic in their relationship. And so such a great point there. I wanted to touch on one other thing you said too that we can become so obsessed with building this safe world where the small safe world where we control everything, where we mitigate all risk, where we're in no danger of hurt or harm that it just like destroys us. Like, like it makes our hearts hard like CS Lewis, you know, in that famous quote, um He, you know, he says to love it all is to be vulnerable. Like we cannot protect ourselves from being hurt from being harmed. The only place we can is really heaven or hell you know, and so in this, in this world, we're going to be hurt, we're going to be harmed and it's actually more dangerous to kind of put ourselves out of that possibility than it is to allow that to happen potentially. And so I've seen that too in my own life, like thinking back how, you know, I keep maybe my group of friends really small or keep the interactions I had like with different people really, really small. So again, I had, I built this like small world that I controlled, that was felt at least, um and going beyond that felt really overwhelming and scary. But once I pushed through that, and I've seen this in a lot of the people that we mentor through this ministry. Once you push through that, it's scary and overwhelming at first. But, but you learn how to navigate it, you then feel so much more free that you then realize like it's so much better to, you know, maybe learn how to, like you said, in a healthy way, mitigate some horrible risk, but allow for those appropriate risks in relationships. And that will lead you to this place where again, you feel free, you're able to not try to control everything but let things happen and adapt as they do. And um it, it's, yeah, there's so much we can say here but that freedom uh that you experience when you push through that fear, through that overwhelm. Um is, is incredible. Mhm. I have a fantastic example about that in my own life where uh I was at a, a seminar for a month and uh one of my mentors pulled me aside one day and said, Tanya, I just want to ask you something that I've been noticing. I noticed that you're one of the very first people to leave at the end of the evening activities. And I'm just curious about that because I had to walk about 20 minutes back to the dormitory where I was staying. And at first I thought it was just no big deal. Like why does it matter who leaves when or whatever? But as I chewed on it a bit, I realized, and I said to her, I said, well, if I am in control of when I leave, then I'm also in control of who I walk with. And I don't have to fear being left behind. And so she encouraged me or she challenged me. OK, for the rest of their time here, would you be willing to try an experiment to not be the first person to leave to actually wait and see if you will be left behind or not. And it was a small risk because if I got left behind, it was fine. I just walk home 20 minutes by myself. This, I was already doing that anyway. So I was just doing it a little bit earlier in the evening. And so I thought, OK, I can do that. I will see if this fear of, of being left behind is an actual fear or if it's just a perceived fear, is it based in reality or is it just my own thinking? And that I'm convinced that nobody will look out for me or invite me or whatever. And so I took her challenge up and sure enough as she predicted, I never got left behind. I always had someone noticing. I was still there. Hey ta you're welcome back. Let's go together. And it, it, it brought freedom just like you were saying that that actually some of the things that I'm afraid are gonna happen to me are not actually reality. They probably won't happen to me. But even if they did, they're not that big of a deal. And I just, yeah, something really changed for me. Um As a result of that observation from my friend and her challenge and then my experiment with whether or not I'd be left behind. Love that and maybe that's a challenge we can issue to everyone listening right now is, you know, if there's a small risks that you can take that the consequence, if things do go wrong isn't huge, like take those risks. Um I love the, the word experiment that you use. I think that's so helpful because it's not permanent. It's not a life sentence. It's something that you can just try out and, and if it doesn't go well, go a different route. So great advice there elsewhere you said that there's, it's important that we don't look to God kind of going back to the faith question. It's important that we don't look to God to kind of do all the work for us that we need to, we need to be putting in the work ourselves. Talk about that a little bit. I mean, there, it would be a really, it could be a really great conversation. You know, what's God's responsibility? What's my responsibility? Is it all God's fault? Is it all my fault? But I think one thing that I realized growing up with divorced parents, I often felt powerless as a child. I had to go to moms when she wanted, go to dad's. I had to do this. I had to do that. I didn't have a voice. I felt like nobody really, my opinion didn't matter to anybody. Uh, my choices could be, you know, negated just, you know, very easily and, and I realized that for much of my faith life, I, I thought God had that same view that he was just gonna do things so do things for me. He was gonna heal me or he was gonna give me a job or he was gonna give me a spouse or he was gonna, and as a result, I just always, I felt like I had no say in my life, I was just being pulled around by God and his whims, you know, often they were good but sometimes they didn't feel good. And I didn't know that I actually had this idea of agency. Like I can make choices. I have strength and power within me that my voice matters. So I think, yeah, for me, at least as a child of divorce, it was a real important thing for me to learn that, that my ideas, even if they're wrong, like are worth being heard by God and other people that I don't always just have to have the right answer. But that, that I have choices and that my choices will be respected. So I think that's what I'm coming to with like the faith thing and the God thing is that, of course, God wants a beautiful life for every person, but he's not just gonna shazam, it's not just gonna appear without me participating with him because that would make me again, just sort of a pawn being moved around by him. And I think that God wants more than that, you know, he wants people who actually can make choices and who can learn and grow and that have, have responsibility for their life, you know, not on their own and not God saying ha ha you made a bad choice. Look at you suffer now, which also I think sometimes God gets that, that put on him, but that's not the way that I've experienced. God. It's a collaboration. It's something that, you know, I think any healthy relationship is that way, like whether it's a friendship or whether it's, um you know, a marriage, it truly is a collaboration. It's not one person doing it. It's not, it's both of you together. And I remember growing up, I would see relationships like that where one person was way more interested in the other person than, like a guy was more interested in a girl than the other way around. And it was like everything was on the guy to build a relationship and the girl was like almost doing nothing because she didn't really want to be with him. And so um so I think in this and yeah, the relationships can turn unhealthy in that sense. But you're saying that yeah, it's, it's a collaboration. It's both ways. It's two ways. It's both people contributing, collaborating and that applies to a relationship with God to I heard this awesome quote from uh the financial guru Dave Ramsey. He uh he said that God feeds the birds, but he doesn't throw the worms in the nest. I think that's so true and helpful. It's like, yeah, God will provide for you. But like you're saying, we need to collaborate with him. We need to work alongside of him. We can't just wait for him to, you know, snap his fingers and fix everything and miracles do happen. Like I don't, I want to acknowledge that but uh that's not the norm, that's not what I think most of us can expect. And so we do need to again do it alongside of him. And uh and I think there's a lot of beauty in that because like you said that, that uh agency, that sense of healthy control that we have and that is uh makes us better, makes us stronger. Definitely, so good shifting gears a little bit. Um It's often difficult for people like us to talk about our experiences with our parents, divorce or separation or just, you know, really broken dysfunctional marriage. Why is that? And what's the solution to that problem? That's a great question. But I think it is so true. I remember when I started really thinking about my parents' divorce, I was really eager to hear from other people about their experience. And I would, as soon as I kind of feel like the divorced and separated parents, kids were kind of like living incognito, we're kind of hiding it. We're kind of like trying to be below the radar. And I remember having realizing I had a roommate for a year whose parents were divorced, but we never once talked about our parents or our family. And it so yeah, I guess just to say, I think we the I I don't always know why. I mean, I think there's the shame of what's wrong with me. There's the what if people reject me or think I have a bad family or look down on my parents because why couldn't they keep their marriage together? I think there's a, the fears of, um, if I start talking about it, it's gonna be really painful and I'm gonna have to acknowledge some of that or people are gonna think I'm damaged somehow. So then nobody will want to date me or be my friend or, yeah, I mean, those are some of the things that come to mind and in terms of how do we fix it. I don't know. I just think those of us who feel the, the courage and the strength or maybe are further down the road of kind of processing our experience. I think we just got to be courageous and talk about it. That's why I'm so thrilled for this invitation to be on this podcast to just say I'm, I want to talk about my story if it can help other people. But also because it helps me every time I can talk about what happened, I'm gaining some new insight into what I've been through, how it shaped me uh for good and for bad. And I think it's taking me further out of this place of, of shame or fear and isolation into more connection, which is really what I long for. So, yeah, those are a few thoughts. Yeah, I, I've seen all of those play out in my own life and the lives of the people that we serve and I think a few other things too that we've seen is it's you touch on this, like how it can be painful to talk about this topic. And, uh, I think there is kind of related to that, this comfort in the sense that we're just so used to the pain and the problems in our lives that we don't really think anything of them. And so, you know, we tend to just think, well, this is the way it's always been. Why would I give it any special attention? Why I don't that this is kind of my normal. And so it, you know, it might never even hit us that, oh, maybe we should get some help here, maybe we should talk about this. And I think as a culture especially, I know you talk about this, we've, you know, normalized divorce to such an extent that we tend, we don't think of it as a trauma for the Children. We think of it as like, oh, well, it's just kind of the shift. It's like your family just changes. That's it. Um, even though the research is very clear and if you listen to people who come from divorce, separated families, it's like, no, this is a very traumatic thing to go through for the far majority of them. But, but again, there's just a sense of like, well, this is how my life has always been. Why would I give this any special attention. That's one point. The other one I think too is that we love and care about our parents. We don't want to hurt them or harm them. Um, especially if things are really dramatic going through the divorce. Um, things are really dramatic. Maybe in the aftermath of it, there's been maybe just a lot of pain. We don't want to rock the boat, we don't want to hurt them and we might even be led to believe by well intentioned people often well intentioned people that, um, we should be happy that this is for the best, like that sort of gas lighting where it's like, you know, oh, you feel hurt? Well, you shouldn't be hurt. Your parents are happy, aren't you happy for your parents sort of thing? It's like, no, I can, I can feel hurt by this and still, you know, want the best for my parents. And so, so, yeah, I think those are a few other factors as well that make us just kind of like, not talk about it. Not want to rock the boat. Mhm. Yeah. I definitely, I mean, I resonate with both of those, with the one about it's so normal for us. I can definitely see that in my life and see how I kind of just become calloused to, like I had to become callous or I felt I had to become callous to the pain and just be like, yeah. Yeah, it's just that it's not how it is because nothing was going to change. I had no power to change that part of my life. So it was either accepted or suffer. So I just, yeah, and I couldn't acknowledge that how painful it was. So I just was like, yeah, it's not a big deal but you know what's helped me part of my healing. And I think it was a counselor who suggested this to me is I was 10 when my parents split up and I, I stayed with my dad, but my counselor suggested I, I take note of 10 year olds in my life. Like, did I know any 10 year olds? What were 10 year olds actually? Like, what, what, what was their capacity emotionally, you know, with doing their homework or, or caring for themselves? They, you know, could they take a bath or do their laundry or like, what was a 10 year old actually capable of and to try to look at them through the eyes of, wow, what if your parents just split up and you had to now take care of yourself and you had to have this emotional, you know, this really difficult emotional struggle. And so I, I did, I started looking at little 10 year olds and thinking, oh, they're, they're so small and they're so cute and they're so incapable, you know, there's, they need so much help and they, for them to lose one parent or to have their, you know, their parents' marriage break up and to be alone or rejected, abandoned in the way that, that they would be, that I was, that would be so hard. And through that I found the ability to have compassion on myself actually. And to go what, what I've experienced, Tanya, what you experienced was really terrible. It was really worthy of grief and sadness and not just something to be brushed aside. And so, yeah, so that was a, that was a real turning point for me and, and my ability to have compassion on myself and to kind of like let myself feel some of those feelings and have some of that process, some of that experience. Yeah. And so you can move on. I think that's an important part too. It's like, especially for people listening who just maybe they want to like throw up when they hear all this like self help stuff of like self love and grief and all that stuff which I get. I I'm kind of like that in some ways. But, but I think that the point is that so we don't stay where we are, we don't stay stuck that we can move on through life that we're not, you know, constantly dealing with these things. I know divorce is such an interesting trauma though because there are usually continual effects and continual difficulties and challenges that come from it. For example, you know, maybe you know, the divorce itself and everything that led up to, it was painful. But then in the aftermath, like we talked about, you have to deal with, you know, mom and dad being at your graduation, different life events, holidays, like you mentioned, uh things like that or, you know, maybe a situation where further down the line, your parents get sick and then it's like instead of their spouse taking care of them, you're the one who needs to take care of them in, in, in exaggerated role, right? So, so there's all these sorts of additional challenges that do come through. But the point of healing is not to stay stuck forever. It's to move beyond those things. And these tools that we're mentioning, of course, are some of them can continue to help us grow and become better, stronger people. But um but I think it's important for people, especially who kind of like are repulsed by this idea of like healing and working through trauma. Um to know that there is an end game, there is something that we're working towards. And uh and I love that you mentioned that tactic about, you know, kind of looking at the 10 year old that, that makes so much sense and it is, is really helpful because I think when we can have compassion, it might be easier for us to have compassion on other people than it is to have compassion on ourselves. And um I think, yeah, to move forward. I think it is that healthy. Wow. I've been through, you've been through some hard stuff and you, you're doing really well to be able to also look at it that way and to really take stock of how much we have grown or, you know, and how far we have come and, um, that we can do this. So I think it's both a pep talk and like a little cry session sometimes and they go hand in hand because, you know, we've been damaged or hurt by our parents um marriage, but that's not the only thing about us. Um But to deny, that is also not helpful because then you're back to the hiding parts of yourself, denying who you really are just trying to show the good stuff so that people will love you and, and that ends up being quite lonely. It's been lonely for me. Yeah, me too. No, I, I couldn't agree more with that and, and I love that mindset of uh, we're just, we're in training, we're continually developing, we're kind of becoming people. We're becoming the people that we hopefully want to be, that we're made to be um through all these experiences in life, through the pain, through the traumas, through the, the incredible growth through the, you know, like you said, the trajectory that we can see ourselves on that, that is like really, really helpful and we're not the good, just the good. We're not just the bad. We're both. And, um, and I think if you can, you know, kind of see that and accept that in yourself, um, you're going to be a lot more at peace when things go really well or things go really poorly and so, so much good stuff there. I just, towards the end of our conversation, I'm just curious, you touched on this already actually a bit. But do you have anything else to add? You know, what are some ways that, that you've seen divorce affects the way that people like us view um, marriage, family, life, home, belonging in, in general anything dad. Oh, I mean so much. But I think, I think the first thing to acknowledge is that divorce has impacted all of those things. And for me, at least every one of those things you mentioned marriage, home, family, they are all I'm looking at all of them through the lens of what I experienced. And so for me, it's kind of looking back into the past trying to understand my story is so that I can clean those glasses off and I can see not just what the terrible things are but what the beauty could be. You know, like people, most people from intact families find most of them find family a very positive term. But for me, family is kind of, I cringe even though I know I'm not supposed to, I know family is supposed to be amazing. And everyone's supposed to want to love to get together. I, I still have so much like inner turmoil when I think about family because it just reminds me of what I don't have, what I've lost, who's not there, who doesn't get along and um but having recently gotten married, I, I am trying to, to, to reframe how I see family that it's not only negative. Same with marriage, same with belongings, same with all of those things. So yeah, I think for me it's been just to acknowledge my experience has shaped all of those things. And if I'm not thinking about them, then they're just, I'm carrying what's I'm carrying my old way of thinking with me and it might be damaging or getting in the way of me having the things that I want, the connection, the family, the belonging. So yeah, I think it's all interconnected, right? And those expectations are key like researchers show uh talk about how if you want a great marriage, for example, um healthy expectations uh for your marriage are really, really important. That's one of the ingredients and one of the keys to having a great marriage. And so like you're saying, if we expect our spouse to cheat on us, if we expect our marriage to be full of conflict and drama, if we expect um eventually to be abandoned, then we'll certainly act in a way that anticipates that happening, which in a sort of backwards way then plays a role in bringing that about. And so this is serious, like this is not some neat little thought experience like, no, this if, if you expect that if you ignore the patterns in your own life, if you act out of those, it can maybe even unconscious expectations that can then lead you down a path that you don't want to go down and even consciously don't want to go out and you say, I never want to repeat what I saw, you know, in my parents' marriage, I never want to get divorced. Um So we really do need to adjust those things and that's why this is so serious. It's not just some cute little self help thing. It's like, no, if we want to live the lives that we long for, if we want to have the relationships that we long for, um we, we really need to dig in here and at least be aware so that we can develop the virtues and, you know, kind of work against those maybe tendencies that we've had in the past to the point where we can overcome them and again, build those virtues that then make it possible to have that beautiful relationship to learn to truly trust and be vulnerable to, yeah, just live life fully alive, not always being terrified and afraid of what might happen next. And this is why I think friendships community are so vital to growth in the story. That I told you about my mentor, challenging me and my kind of wrong thinking about my fear of abandonment. I never would have figured that out on my own or I don't, I don't think I would have figured that out. And if I had just had these walls around myself, I don't need anybody. I'm totally fine. Everything's good. She would never have had the chance to speak that into me and to encourage me. And so I think, um, what I find hopeful but also quite sobering is that those of us who need the support and connection of others like I do as a child of divorce often have things that get in the way, you know, the fears that get in the way. And so sometimes it feels like we're trapped by our own fear, you know. And so I really appreciate what you're saying about like there are ways forward but it's gonna take some courage and it's gonna take some vulnerability. Um, and some self honesty to go. How can I change the things that are no longer helping me? The self protection, the isolation, the jumping to conclusions, the assuming that I'm gonna be abandoned. Those might have helped me when I was 12 or 14. But at my age they're not actually helping me anymore. They're actually keeping me from what I want. So, yeah, it's important stuff. It's good stuff. It's hard but it's, it's so valuable, so worthwhile. Yeah. And we could say that maybe, maybe this is a little bit of an exaggeration, but growth only happens in relationship or in community. Perhaps another way to say it would be the biggest growth. The most substantial growth will only happen in community in relationship with other people, whether that's a mentor or a friend or you know, someone else in your life because that's what I've seen too, like on my own, I've been able to grow in some ways. But when I add in like my relationship with God, when I add in my friendships, when I add in my mentorships, and I add in my own marriage, it's like, yeah, that is where the biggest growth in my life. That's where the most healing has happened. Mhm Yeah. And that's where we can also give gifts to our friends and the people that we love by encouraging them, by asking them some of the hard questions and really listening to their answers by will being willing to sit with them in those places of pain or sadness or disappointment and like let them also chew on it so that they can move forward. So it's, it's not just about me, it's also about what do I have to offer, which, you know, it's really, it's a gift to be part of a community of friends and to so hopefully be part of the healing uh that we want in our own lives. Tanya, I've really appreciated the conversation. And before we close out, please tell us a little bit about your book and how people can get that and find you online. Yeah. So in 2017, I wrote a book called Come Home Laughing. Uh a novel for Adult Children of Divorce. And it's available on Amazon to search Tael lions or Come home Laughing. I really wanted to tell the story of Children of divorce and their adult Children of divorce and their experience. Um Some of the things that have really helped me uh learning about emotions, learning about grief, learning about trust. Um But tell it in a story format so that um that it's accessible and interesting and people hopefully relatable that in that book, there'll be some character that you can relate to if you grew up with divorced or separated parents. And then I'm also on Facebook and Instagram as Tanya Lyons author. So I love to, I try to post um you know, content that is helping people reflect on their experience and encouraging us to keep moving forward together. Thank you so much for being here again. I appreciate sharing your story and the wisdom you've gained over the years. I uh I know we're all better for it just in closing. I want to give you the final word. What words of encouragement would you give to someone who feels broken? You feels stuck in life because of their parents', divorce because of their broken family Yeah, to you, I would say the same things I would say to myself is what happened. It's significant. It's, it's terrible. It's worth being sad and upset about and yet it's not the only thing about you. It's not even the most important thing about you. And I would encourage you even as I encourage myself to, to find some people who can help you move forward so that you don't miss out on the beautiful life that is awaiting you and that the people who love you and people you love don't miss out on who you are. If you want to pick up Tanya's book, just click on the link in the show notes to get that. And if you come from a divorce or broken family, I have a question for you. How is your parents, divorce or your broken family affecting you today? It might be trickier to answer that than it seems. And if your answer is, I don't really know or you don't understand the depth of it, you're not alone, that's actually very common. But in the words of one therapist, when it comes to experiencing healing, naming how you've been harmed is about 70% of the battle. Our new assessment will help you name and diagnose your Brokenness. So you can heal it at its roots, not just treat the symptoms and build the life and relationships that you desire. So if you want to become the best version of yourself. You want to find the love, happiness and freedom that you long for and you want to avoid repeating the cycle of dysfunction and divorce. Then you need to heal. And the first step to healing is naming and diagnosing the wound to help do that. Take our free confidential and research based assessment. Just go to my broken family dot com, answer the questions there and then you'll view your results again. That's my broken family dot com. Or just click on the link in the show notes that wraps up this episode. If you know someone who's struggling from their parents, divorce or broken marriage, share this podcast with them and always remember you are not alone. We're here to help you feel whole again and break the cycle of dysfunction and divorce in your own life.
