Coffee With Hilary and Les from State of Mind Hypnosis and Training Centre
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Coffee With Hilary and Les from State of Mind Hypnosis and Training Centre
Family Dynamics Explored: Nostalgia, Tradition, and Personal Growth
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Have you ever noticed how a simple visit with family can catapult you back into old habits and roles? Our recent journey along the Canadian coasts offered the perfect backdrop for reflecting on these family dynamics and the personal growth they incite. Join us as we share heartfelt stories from Newfoundland and Ontario, exploring how time with loved ones can both trigger nostalgia and invite new beginnings. We unravel the special essence of Thanksgiving, a holiday that brings family together without the overlay of religious connotations, allowing us to recognize familiar traits and behaviors that resurface during these gatherings.
Cultural nuances play a fascinating role in shaping our family connections, and we've seen firsthand how these differences manifest across various regions. Through our stories, we reveal how cultural backgrounds subtly influence family roles and expectations, sprinkled with memories of comforting routines like my nana's cherished morning rituals. These anecdotes underscore the beautiful yet intricate nature of family bonds, reminding us of the universal yet diverse emotional tapestry that defines our interactions with loved ones.
Navigating the family landscape can be both comforting and challenging, with old perceptions often clashing with our evolved selves. Our conversations bring to light the unspoken expectations and subtle communications that are part of familial dynamics, illustrating how family members often view each other through the lens of past roles. From organizing a Thanksgiving dinner to embarking on new career paths, we discuss the ongoing evolution of these relationships and the delicate blend of nostalgia and aspiration that defines our journey toward authenticity and personal growth.
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Welcome and thank you for joining us for Coffee with Hilary and Les. Brought to you by the State of Mind Hypnosis and Training Centre located in the heart of the Kawartha Lakes, this is our almost daily community podcast about the mind and how we all might change it in the most simple and helpful ways. Every day we sit staring at the lake and sipping our coffee, chatting about hypnosis and how to make those meaningful adjustments to our state of mind, Because nothing's more important than your state of mind, because nothing's more important than your state of mind, we're back we're mid morning today, cloudy morning, but it's been a month yeah it's been a month.
Speaker 2:The last one we did was October 2nd, and then we took October to spend time with family yeah we did a family podcast. We thought we should do more and instead we traveled yeah yeah, I took eight days, nine days, and went to Vancouver, where three of my sons live, and went to Vancouver where three of my sons live to be with them over Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1:Yep and I went to Newfoundland right after almost right after a few days after.
Speaker 2:And you were gone. I see my mom. Nine days, Nine days. Our poor doggy missed us.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So most of October was spent visiting family. Yeah, about family.
Speaker 1:It's like October's the month of family, yeah, about family.
Speaker 2:It's like October's the month of family.
Speaker 1:For us, yeah, and that's kind of good Spooky family. No, I'm just kidding, because it really set us up to.
Speaker 2:you know, we just listened and processed the October 2nd podcast just a little while ago. We wanted to listen to it first to see where we left off, and I thought it was a pretty good podcast.
Speaker 1:Was it yeah?
Speaker 2:What did you think?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I overheard some of it. Whenever I hear my voice I try to tune out Because I judge my own voice, but I think that's normal, I'm normal, normal, I swear. Yeah, going to see family was good and emotional and telling and eye-opening and yeah, I think I, I, I have a love hate relationship with it, I guess or not hate, that's too strong of a word like a love and sadness relationship.
Speaker 2:I don't know so well, we don't want to talk about our family members, though we will, but what did you learn by spending your nine, ten days out there and the east coast, because we really went to opposite coasts? Yeah, we went to exact opposite sides of the country.
Speaker 1:Yeah to the very tips. I learned that I need to stay in touch more with my family. I learned things that I hadn't known about before. I'm not going to talk about them, but I just learned new things and I also felt sort of more connected to my roots, more connected by seeing mannerisms that I have in myself.
Speaker 1:That maybe sometimes I'm not loving but that's okay, I'm more accepting of them now not my family, but my own stuff. Um, yeah, I learned. I learned to how do I say this? Not monitor myself, but In the past when I've gone to see family, I think we all do this to some degree. When we're around our moms and our dads, we sort of regress. We regress maybe mentally like we or how we act around them we become an old version of ourselves no, I would find myself becoming silly and almost teenager-like.
Speaker 1:I know that's weird to say, but this time I wasn't so much like that. I was very aware of how I was acting and I remember times in the past I would go to see my mom and I would be constantly sarcastic or making jokes not always nice. I'm really putting myself out here now, um, but this time was different. I I was aware that you know that I shouldn't do that and how in the past she would get like Hillary, that you know that I shouldn't do that and how in the past she would get like Hillary stop it, you know. So this time was a little different. I was a grown up. Finally.
Speaker 1:It's a natural thing, isn't it? Forty years later?
Speaker 2:I mean when you're around people that you're not around a lot, it's very easy to fall into that old version of yourself yeah, yeah, it's all their fault. I'm just kidding well, if that's part of your old version of yourself, to blame them for everything?
Speaker 2:no, no, no no no, I think that's true, that that you know that, um, we fall into old habits, um, because they're really triggered or or prompted by this relationship we have so deeply established with somebody. It doesn't always go well. I mean, it can be. You know, we're talking about Thanksgiving for us, canadian Thanksgiving, the middle of October, celebrating the harvest, more or less. But you know, our listeners in the US are coming up to it in a couple of weeks, they're going to have their Thanksgiving and I think it's the same kind of idea, because I think Thanksgiving is that holiday. That is not, um, that's the right way to say it, it's not attached to any belief system, right where, um, you know, most, most, um, faiths have, uh, special days, special holidays, and they're unique to that faith. The traditions behind them, the foods, the music, the decorations, the getting together, all that stuff, I think, is based in a faith, whereas Thanksgiving is really, in North America, sort of a non-faith-based family time, with days off, work, associated with a weekend and largely focused on.
Speaker 2:I shouldn't say it that way, there's certainly a food focus and there's often an event focus, but we did Thanksgiving and there's often an event focus, but we did Thanksgiving. And Thanksgiving is once a year and it's easy to fall back into habits around a holiday once a year. And that makes it easy to fall into habits around family, especially when you only see them once a year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And you discover things about yourself Not necessarily things you want to change, but sometimes things you want to change.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I this time I tried my best to do things with my family. Last time my brother and I went out. I very much I pulled back and my mom and my brother went out and did everything. But this time and I looked back on that and thought, oh, you know what, I should have actually engaged right and I felt bad about that that I didn't take that advantage of that. So this time I tried to be more engaged because my brother went out as well.
Speaker 2:Do you find that? Um, so if you were to have Thanksgiving with your brother and your mother, since your parents don't live together, if you had Thanksgiving with your brother and your father, what would have been different?
Speaker 1:The food Start there. Dad would probably do a turkey on the barbecue and Mom we would do jigs dinner or something. Cooked dinner. It kind of goes by two names cooked dinner or jigs dinner. Basically boiled salt meat, boiling all the vegetables in the same pot for hours on end, and then peas pudding or peas boiled in the same thing, and then a cooked chicken on the side and you're supposed to have more chicken than the meat, than the beef, the salt meat. But if there's lots of salt meat I'm eating it.
Speaker 2:Isn't it funny? Because what you're describing doesn't sound appealing, but you love it.
Speaker 1:I love it because I think I grew up on it.
Speaker 2:There you go.
Speaker 1:And it's. I don't know if it's tradition, because we would just have it randomly, but we would probably have that. We wouldn't do a turkey or something.
Speaker 2:Do you?
Speaker 1:consider yourself a Newfoundlander.
Speaker 2:Yes and no. So the facts are that you were born in ontario. Yeah, from newfoundlander parents.
Speaker 1:Yes, you grew up in ontario, so my mom was pregnant with me in newfoundland, yeah, and then she moved to ontario and had me okay now you, how much of your life did you actually live in? Newfoundland. Two and a half years, that much yeah.
Speaker 2:Two and a half so the rest of it in Ontario. Basically yeah, and yet you can just fall back into Newfoundlander culture.
Speaker 1:Very easily. Yeah, I even have a weird accent that comes out.
Speaker 2:I wasn't going to say anything. But you still have it a little bit now that you're home. Little things you're saying so weird. But that's the power of family, Because that's where you get it from. It's not like you got it from living down there. How old were you when you moved down there to live?
Speaker 1:Well, the first time I learned recently, in the last few days, you didn't even know it didn't even know it, that mom had me and almost immediately moved back.
Speaker 2:Oh really.
Speaker 1:So she had me I think she said there for like eight months.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Eight to 12 months she wasn't exactly sure and then we came back to Ontario after that. So I was very young, just baby, not even walking, really.
Speaker 2:That changes my opinion of things, because I didn't know about that, you didn't know about that I didn't know about that.
Speaker 1:And then, when I was finishing up high school, she wanted to move back and so I went along with her, her and andrew and I went out there and started life in st john's and I finished up high school in st john's and then, uh, tried to make it. I could have tried harder.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I wanted to be back in Ontario so I just came back. Well, like that's such a small amount of time of your upbringing to be in that culture and yet to feel such an attachment to that culture and that really just comes to you through your family.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and maybe it's because when I would go out to visit I mean I visited throughout my childhood, every year almost. I mean I got on a plane when I was five by myself to go to Newfoundland and I would say almost every year I went out. Um, and every year since, and I think when I was growing up, when I would go out it would be for two weeks, three weeks, and I would be immersed in it, right, everyone around me would be come on, let's go do this thing. That's Newfoundland desk, newfoundlandia desk. So ice fishing Well, I mean, that's everywhere, not everywhere, but you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Like fishing, my Nana's friend had goats and chickens, and so I would be over at her house all the time. And the thing about Newfoundland I don't know if it's so much anymore, but something that I really loved would be, um, my mom would say just randomly okay, let's just go over to so-and-so's house and we'd just show up I don't even think she called her and we would sit there and drink tea and talk about everything for hours and all afternoon spent in the kitchen just chatting, and so I think that's a cultural thing too. Again, maybe not much anymore. I think people like to know what's happening now if people are coming over. But I think you see that in me now, where I'm like let's invite so-and-so over and it's like, no, we've got to make sure that they're okay with it, or we've got to give them time, maybe week or you know, oh yeah yeah, we have lots of friends.
Speaker 2:We say you want to come over, come over for a visit and say, yeah, why don't we look at December?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, yeah, second week and then, yeah, people are busy yeah, um, how much of your family?
Speaker 2:well, I'll ask it this way how is family different in Newfoundland than it is in Ontario? Are you talking about?
Speaker 1:my family or families in general.
Speaker 2:I think families in general. You went down, you visited your friend. She just had her second baby mm-hmm you visited your ears, your great uncle and aunt. You visited with a whole bunch of people.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And the whole time you were down there for family. Yeah so you've experienced lots about family down there. What are the differences?
Speaker 1:I'm not sure I understand your question. What are the differences between my family visiting them out there and then visiting my family?
Speaker 2:here, your perception of family there and your perception of family here, so you observed lots of family stuff as a stepping back from being a participant yeah what do you see I mean, besides jigs dinner right, boil the crap out of a whole bunch of stuff yeah, right, and then love every minute of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah right, yeah so yeah Right. Yeah. So I would say family there is probably more. I mean, I haven't seen lots of families in Ontario so I'm not sure exactly. But I would say when you go see family there they're all. They're really just huggy and wanting to be you not to leave, and really wanting to tell stories and remember the past.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Does that answer your question I don't know what ontario families are like. You've got one, okay, so that's what I was asking, a couple really. That's what I was asking. Was it between? Was it me comparing my family visiting family there and visiting my family in Ontario?
Speaker 2:I just mean culturally. Are there cultural differences?
Speaker 1:I don't think so. I don't know. Can you spot them Just by knowing?
Speaker 2:Well, I just think that you know experience is is that culture has a big impact on on family ways and family expectations, family practices and family roles. Yeah, and, and you know I've been, you know I recently went to my first muslim funeral and saw how family acts around those traditions in a totally different way. You know, I have a number of close friends who have different cultural backgrounds. My dear buddy, my dear Italian buddy. I spent lots of time with his family around their kitchen table and around holidays and showing up and being there and I got to even know his extended family, cousins and aunts and grandmothers, and all of that I saw just sort of subtle different ways. Now, some of that is just peculiar to the family, but some of it is, I think, cultural.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm not so sure. If there's cultural differences, at least not with my family. So yeah, to speak on culture, no, I would say there's differences, just because there's such a stark difference between who these people are, right, so yeah. So my family in Newfoundland is, I don't know if relaxed is the right way.
Speaker 2:It's your perception. It's all good. Yeah, it's your perception.
Speaker 1:it's all good, yeah, like they're more, they're more, um, yeah, they're more relaxed and um, whatever, whatever we do is fine, um, and here, well, it's the same sort of thing, but just a different atmosphere. Just a different atmosphere energetically, probably, yeah.
Speaker 2:Let's just think about what we talked the first time, and we talked so much about the idea that, although family is this sort of I don't know what to say of I don't know what to say this internationally interpersonal, uniform in many, many ways concept that everybody has. Everybody has a characteristic of everybody. Families are dramatically different in all of their fundamental characteristics. Yeah, and people's feelings about their families, right, the degree to which they're drawn to them, the degree to which they're repulsed by them, the degree to which they are participating in them, the degree to which they're repulsed by them, the degree to which they are participating in them, the degree and ways that they see themselves as having roles within them.
Speaker 2:You know, it's such a spectrum, such a massive difference in terms of interpretation and meaning and value. And then, of course, expression in terms of culture and how culture can impact family. Different cultures and the roles within families are different among cultures, like, on the one hand, I look at family and say this is a constant across humanity, and say this is a constant across humanity and, at the same time, the diversity that people have within that right From steps and halves and siblings and parents, and blending and non-blending and same-sex families, right, and so many things about family, no matter. All those differences, right, are kind of the same and kind of different at the same time, mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:I think for me, what I found with Newfoundland at least, is I'm starting to notice changes in routine of my grandmother, my nana and my mom and my mom. So, and that change in routine I can't stop it, but it does bring me a little bit of sadness. You know my grandmother I keep saying grandmother, my nana, she you know, I have great memories of she wakes up at 2.30 in morning and, uh, that's her wake-up time and she would. She's got a wood stove and she would stack, put wood in the stove and I'd hear her banging on the stove. Uh, like I'd wake up half wake up at that time when she'd get up and it was almost comforting to know that she was up.
Speaker 1:There was a little light on in the living room and now I'm hearing her getting the wood stove going. And because she's got, she still has the wood stove but and she uses it, but she's got these heaters on the wall underneath the windows and it's just not the same right. So i't hear that. So I was surprised to get up the first morning, second morning, and her not have the fire in right. So it was kind of sad for me. I didn't say that to her, but it was a little bit like a routine, was a bygone. You know a lot of years of that and just hearing her up and going around the kitchen and getting the stove ready and everything and I was a little saddened by that.
Speaker 2:Things change.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's funny the things we associate with family, in particular family members mm-hmm right how that becomes part of how we construct the idea of family and, yeah, and build expectations around family yeah, and they're almost like emotional expectations that you don't even realize you have until they're gone so what did you do while you were with your family? What was some cool things that made you think about family?
Speaker 1:well, we had a my brother's birthday party. Okay, we had a jigs dinner on another night. We stayed at my uncle's the first night that to me is striking why, isn't that funny.
Speaker 2:Well, you stay at your uncle's. You don't hesitate to pick up the phone and say, hey, can we come and spend the night, because it's a long drive from the st John's Airport, all the way up to yeah to your grandmother's house, and when was the last time you talked to him?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we.
Speaker 2:When was the last time you saw him?
Speaker 1:The last time I was there, I guess.
Speaker 2:Did you see him last time you were there?
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, I stayed there the night before.
Speaker 2:So to me it's just like hi, remember me, I'm your niece, I'm going to come and stay at your house. And then it's not just that you went and without hesitation stayed at their house, but they basically showed you some good hospitality.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, he's. Yeah, his wife Mona wasn't there. She was out in BC visiting their son. Um, yeah, I guess there's not a, there's not a feeling. Yeah, I guess that's a difference. Maybe there's despite time gone by and we've never really been super close, but when we are in each other's company it feels super close. I don't know. Yeah, it's weird.
Speaker 2:Family.
Speaker 1:But yeah, he cooked us the next morning. We had Newfoundland toutons, which are basically fried bread, Fried bread and mounds of butter with maple syrup on top and eggs and bacon.
Speaker 2:So another traditional meal.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Which he probably doesn't eat every day, I bet.
Speaker 1:I bet he makes it solely because family is there. Yeah, I would say yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:It's cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, maybe that's a thing where it's like in newfoundland, it just feels like no time between, no time really passes between visits and it's not like a what would you say? Like a tit for tat, like you're not, you're not expected to stay in touch in order to feel welcome and that's not a bad thing. You know, I'm not a bad person for not staying in touch in that way. But our family, like you say, it's interesting because we do all have our separate corners, almost. We do all have our separate corners almost. You know, we're very, we're very. We don't engage with each other that often. I mean I do with my mom and sometimes my brother, but Sometimes I feel like, you know, I'm an only child or I don't have any family which is weird too sometimes.
Speaker 2:So were there any family triggers? No, not at all, don't want to talk about that. No, we won't talk about that. Did they exist? Yeah, of course Were there moments, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, of course.
Speaker 2:And, just like you, falling into an old personality. Do you feel like others did?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think so. I think we all do. And if you think about it, there's a saying out there that kind of encapsulates this. I'm going to botch it, but it basically says you know there's. I think it goes along with family too, but there's people out there that only know you from a specific time in your life, right, so they will treat you like that time and I think it's. I think it's across the board, even with family. My mom still sees me as a teenager. She sees my brother as a baby. I see my brother as a baby. You know, it's funny, not that he's a baby, but like I, just my heart just sees him, you know, standing at the fridge in a diaper, with the fridge open, crying, like you know.
Speaker 2:There's a memory.
Speaker 1:There's a memory we need to regress to that yeah.
Speaker 2:Resolve it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, oh, my God memory maybe we need to regress to that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, resolve it, yeah, yeah, yeah, oh my god no, it's amazing how our experiences stay with us and shape how we behave today when we're around certain people. I mean that, to me, is one of the biggest things about um, about family is just if I, if I complained about family, I would say that sometimes we trap each other into often old versions of ourselves and not the best versions of ourselves, because we see past what's the right word to use the face. We see past the face that we put on when we're in public yeah right, we all, we all um.
Speaker 2:The more we're in public, the more that face really represents our genuine self. But when we're behind closed doors with family, you know, um, you know, what I see in you every day is different than what others see in you that you see occasionally, from time to time even multiple times in a week. What you see in me is different than what others see in me out in public, when we get around our family. It's amazing how we change. I mean, you've noticed that All I have to do is, you know, go to a family event and I basically change.
Speaker 2:I change in the way I speak, I change in the way I hold myself, I change in the way I involve myself. You know our families are interesting confines, they're interesting expectations. I think a lot of it is expectations what we expect of ourself, what we expect of them, what they expect of us.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And the subtleties in the communication because we've communicated with each other so much. Yeah Right, the subtleties in the communication because we've communicated with each other so much.
Speaker 2:Yeah Right, the subtleties. You know, like we'll go to a family dinner and somebody will say something and you won't even notice. And I'll come home and say did you notice what so-and-so said? And you go no, and I say they said this. And you'd say so what? And I'd say, oh well, I guess you have to have lived with them for 10 years to understand that the subtleties there and the little dig there and the little provocation that you might react to and yeah, um, you know there's, there's a whole script um to the way you interact within your family.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And breaking out of that. It can be hard because you've got to get away from your family and then come back with them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I remember you know I don't think she'll mind me saying this I remember my mom when I was a teenager, I guess, or early 20s her saying something to the effect of you know, I know you better than you know yourself, kind of deal. Yeah, and maybe at the time she was right, but certainly not now. But she hasn't broken away from that right, really Really, how could she?
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, yeah. So I know there's some things that I've said that have maybe surprised her. Or, you know, she might think I'm a certain way and then I'm not. I mean, I'm a totally different person than when I was in a teenager. As a teenager, I think, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I experienced that too. So I went out to Vancouver. Three of my sons live out there. There used to be four of my sons lived out there. One moved back home. So it was kind of weird because the initial one, the first, the eldest, the first one to venture and live in vancouver, to go to school there, has returned back to ontario and uh, and so it's kind of weird that the other three are still out there. Very much could never deny that they were influenced by their older brother's presence out there and that they were drawn there's a certain safety to go somewhere that your sibling already is and they really went out there sort of in order, right From the oldest to the youngest. Each one in turn found their journey out there. And next thing, you know, they're together and and when I, when?
Speaker 2:I get there and I'm I'm pumped right because I haven't seen them.
Speaker 2:You know some couple of them like it, really it's been over a year and um and like it's just, I gotta see you, I gotta see you all, and they're pumped. I to see you. I got to see you all, and they're pumped. I got to see you, dad. We got to make contact and then we get together, like in the very first couple of hours. Next thing I know I've got, you know, three or four of them together and we're sitting in some restaurant or bar and we're, you know catching up, and then I find out that they haven't seen each other in months.
Speaker 2:Right, they live, you know, catching up. And then I find out that they haven't seen each other in months. Right, they live in the same city, they know of each other, they communicate on and off, um, they, uh, but they don't see each other much, right. And then that whole dynamic happens because now they're all together, which they're not usually, and they're with their, which they're not usually, and they're with their dad, which is very unusual, right, and even their dad like I speak for myself and say I'm not the dad that I was I see them as men who are living their lives. I like to think that we're friendly, that we have some things in common, that we would enjoy each other's company, and I would learn about them and the life that they've created, and I would learn about them and the life that they've created. Then they would learn about me and the life I've created.
Speaker 2:Since, since they've been away like and not been, you know I've not been the dad. You know I make my joke all the time. You know, are they off the payroll? When you get your kid off the payroll, the relationship changes completely. Right. Off the payroll, the relationship changes completely, right, yeah, because there's no more dependence and part of them and I saw it in each one of them was kind of the need for um, and they didn't come out and say that it was more that they would express themselves as being independent, independent-minded, financially independent and capable, busy human beings, and they would want me to see that and they'd want me to acknowledge that. They'd want me to express um approval and, probably more importantly, a certain amount of pride, right, and so you know these are. These are human beings that I changed their diaper, right, like I remember them from their first breath, um and uh. I've watched them change so much, um, and establish themselves and establish themselves relative to each other, right. Seeing that dynamic as a parent is huge. Seeing how your kids compare themselves to each other and where they want to be different, they try to be strikingly different and where they want to be the same, there's a certain amount of bond there that you watch between and that's thrilling for me, you know, to see my sons hug each other and say things like I love you and I'll see you later, and that stuff is meaningful to me because of the role I play, right, and so here we are, and I don't think they'd mind me telling this story.
Speaker 2:So Thanksgiving comes. So, first of all, this is beautiful because I you can't expect to me, you know a young adult is, you can't expect to me, you know a young adult is even when they're very, very successful, they're living on a budget, they're trying to get ahead. And expecting them to get on a plane for every single family event and come back, especially from Vancouver, is just unrealistic and it's not fair. So I've sort of developed this routine over the last few years of going out at Thanksgiving that I would. I've done it maybe three, four times now and the last few, last three, we make a point. I cook dinner in one of their places usually the same place and, um, and they, like all three of them, busy, busy lives, but immediately said no, I've booked off the time. We're gonna have a thanksgiving dinner on this day, we're gonna get together on this day, um, and so we talked about what do you want to?
Speaker 2:eat. And we decided on roast beef and we decided on pies. And you know, jack wanted to bring this big bottle of Prosecco that he had won in some competition, like it was a monster, like it was huge and that was going to be. You know, I'm bringing the wine. It was huge and that was going to be. You know, I'm bringing the wine.
Speaker 2:And sam wanted to pick out pies and get pies from this, um, uh, farmer's market farm thing that he was going to, and and I went out shopping and did the, picked up the meat, potatoes and vegetables and, um, and made dinner and they were pumped.
Speaker 2:They were so excited and we sat down and even to the point where a very close friend of Sam's, who lives down the hall from his apartment, he wasn't doing anything, his wife was away. So, yes, of course you know you're joining us too. And so there we were, sitting around the table eating roast beef and getting ready to have pie and drinking and laughing, and it was a riot. We had a great time just laughing and being together and a lot of catching up, even between my sons as to what was going on for them, where they were were, what they were doing, how it was going Very, very kind of a Thanksgiving-y dinner and then I'm not a late night guy anymore and so you know it's now. You know, with the time change it's like one in the morning for me, two in the morning for me, and I'm like, okay, I got to go to bed.
Speaker 1:Two in the morning for me and I'm like, okay, I gotta go to bed.
Speaker 2:And the youngest jumps up and says, well, I got a new girlfriend, so I'm going to go hang out with her. And so off he goes, and the other two say, well, we're gonna stay and drink this great big bottle of wine that we haven't opened yet. And and I go to bed and at like four in the morning I wake up to them having an argument in the other room. They've been drinking and they're shouting I don't know what, but very, very classic, kinda two brothers, right, older brother, younger brother, kind of crap and sort of very, very typical, falling into those roles that you know are so well established for their lifetimes. And of course I walk out and the shame that goes on their face immediately, right, and like, oh shit, we woke up dead. And I say to them you know, know, you both been drinking, eh, and they start laughing and I start laughing and things just, they just go the way they go.
Speaker 2:And and I guess I've just come back to that idea that we as family members have established routines, established conversations, established dances that we have with each other and they're really hard to break out of yeah, in spite of time passing, in spite of growth and development and learning and becoming something way more than we were way back then. We we fall back into that that funny old patterns, right, and and it's very laughable, we laughed about it the next day, we laughed about it for days afterwards really. Um, just because you know they were, they were just being brothers and of course I was just being the dad and that's what they laughed about. Out comes dad and he just resolves the silliness and yeah, it's really neat the way we sort of fall into old roles and old scripts.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that's, I don't know for everyone. Myself, I think in my 20s I mean 20s and early 30s I was a you know what would you? You say serial student or perpetual student, but when I could, I I was trying, in front of my family, to show them like how successful I was, even though I wasn't, but like how, how? You know, I had my life together and I knew what I was doing and I blah, blah, blah, and it wasn't until recently that I just I don't do that anymore.
Speaker 2:But I think that's a younger, I think there's a bank of years where you try to do that and then you realize it's not necessary. No, I think it's always necessary myself. I hear you Well, it's always Well. I see it's always necessary myself. I hear you Well, it's always Well. I see it in myself when I was out there. So since my sons have moved out there, I've stopped being a professor at a college and university and become a full-time hypnotist. They've always known of my love of hypnosis. They've always known about my use of hypnosis. They've always known that I've been practicing little bits here and there, but now it's like a full-time business and it's a full-time commitment to just learning and growing and becoming better and better at this, this particular skill yeah and I find myself sitting with my sons sort of explaining that to them, and them being wide-eyed Like, whoa, this is totally different Dad, this is not the dad that we've known.
Speaker 2:And to openly say to them like, yeah, this is new for me. This is a whole new chapter in my life. It's a whole new commitment and I'm approaching it the way I approached everything else, like I want to be as good as I can be. I want to, I want to find a way to turn this business into a really successful yeah, enterprise that's global, global right and and this is just all new and it's all creative and the look on their face, the way they were listening and me saying to them, like at some point in your life, you're going to make changes and it's okay because we're constantly becoming. We're constantly becoming new.
Speaker 1:So when you look at that, I want to just point out that if you're looking backwards, it's a teaching moment. I feel like that was a teaching moment for you, like you wanted to express and you wanted to teach your sons, but I don't see you trying to show your dad how successful you are.
Speaker 2:No, but that's. I think, it's, but there was lots of that going on too, right From my son's point of view right, yeah, yeah. Like two of the three of them work in hospitality, they work in restaurants and bars and they have some really interesting jobs and they wanted me to come to their place of work. They wanted me to experience sort of the quality of the environment that they were in yep and and their role in it, their significant role from their perspective.
Speaker 2:you know, this is I. I'm important here. They, they need me, here I do. I've learned skills, I've learned abilities, and there's very much that was going on too.
Speaker 1:So I see that, as you know, the old age well, not old age, I forget the word for it but you know that old tale of sons and daughters wanting to be accepted, you know wanting to their parents to be proud of them. You know disney, really, you know disney movies, you know it right. So I see it as your sons. Yes, they're looking for acceptance and I'm proud of you and everything like that. But I think at some point that fizzles away and then they're back. Just like you are looking back at them. They're looking back at if they have kids and it's more of teaching moments, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think they were surprised sometimes at the changes in their dad. I was surprised at them. Yeah, that's breaking out of that cycle, I think, breaking out of that expectation, those boxes, those confines we put on each other as to how we know them and define them and then giving each other the room Right.
Speaker 2:I think that's hard for families, especially, you know, close family members. It's hard for families especially, you know, close family members. It's hard for them to give each other the room to grow, to give each other the space to be different, to stop expecting the same kinds of things and stop trying to push each other's buttons in the ways that we always have I think, a great question, especially for families that don't see each other a lot.
Speaker 1:Maybe when they get there and they're wanting to chat, is you know what's? New about you or you know, like a question that inspires growth, showing the growth and you know that you've grown as a person over six months a year and explaining that to your family so that they can start with the new you instead of falling back into old patterns.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and to have the communication ability to say to your family look, this kind of talk or this kind of treatment triggers this in me and I don't want to go there anymore. I don't want to be that guy anymore. Yeah, I think my dad said something to me a few years ago and he said it to me, I think, truly out of curiosity and surprise. Think truly out of curiosity and surprise.
Speaker 2:So growing up, my dad and I didn't, you know, we lived together but we didn't connect really well and as I became a young man, we found ourselves arguing a lot and as I became an established human being in the world, I had less and less interest in being around my dad. There was a lot of resentment and frustration there and we just couldn't seem to get past old ways of communicating that just would always go sour. And then, I don't know, I think we both sort of grew and then it started to become easier and I didn't react to his triggers and he didn't react to my triggers. And he said to me just a few years ago he said it confused him I think is the term he used that it used to be. We couldn't even stay in the same room very long and now we're having fun together and, yeah, there's got to be room for that. You've got to make room for that. You've got to own your part of it, I think.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then you've got to learn to dance differently, to not respond in the same way.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we've talked a lot. I don't know if we've gotten into anything serious. I guess for me the main point is just how much family is a program unique to the family.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And the program includes all the people and all their foibles and all their strengths, all their uniqueness, in a collective with very strong rules that we find ourselves having to break out of over the decades. Forgiveness and compassion are an important part of that, but it's Thanksgiving and you're going to be with your family, whether you want to be or not? Yeah. And so to step back and rise above the battlefield and look at the dynamics and grow.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm. All right, that was good. And growth Alright, that was good. Yeah, we didn't go too deep or anything, but I think that can be for next time. Now that we've cut it all out on the table, we'll have phone calls later. What are you saying about me?
Speaker 2:Good thing, the family doesn't listen to the podcast. Yeah, exactly, yeah.
Speaker 1:Alrighty Okay, so we'll see you later. We hope you enjoyed today's podcast and that maybe it helped even a little.
Speaker 1:If you have any questions, we would love you to send them along in an email to info at psalmhypnosiscom. Thank you for being part of the State of Mind community. For more information about hypnosis and the various online or in-person services we provide, please visit our website, wwwpsalmhypnosiscom. The link will be in the notes below. While you are there, why don't you book a free one-hour journey meeting with Hilary or Les to learn more about what hypnosis is and how you might use it to make your life what you want it to be? Bye for now. Talk to you tomorrow, thank you.
